Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Redwine and red wine at If ART

Apparently, my mind is pretty sophomoric. When I heard that the Roadies would be venturing to a local art gallery called if ART, the first thing that came to mind was the humorous reference to flatulence. Come on, I’m not the only person who thought this! I quickly moved on to more mature thoughts about art galleries (I’m a grown-up, after all) … like the thought of how delicious the free wine would be once I arrived at the art gallery.

The wine was quite tasty, but I digress.

Local artist Anna Redwine is an MFA graduate from the University of South Carolina. She has a typical 9 to 5 job, but her true passion is in making visual art and utilizing it as her language with people (as contrast to the spoken word).

Redwine discussed her current series of artwork, which she put simply, "drawing life." Her drawings reflect her one-on-one moments with another living thing (ex. mosquitos, spiders, fish). She quickly explained that "drawing" doesn’t just mean to put pencil to paper, but to "extract" or "take in" the life that the other living being brings through their experience with her. The multiple drawings on one panel reflect a sense of movement. Once the moment with that living thing is gone (ex. the mosquito flies away), the experience is complete and the drawing is finished.


if ART owner Wim Roefs, who had graciously opened his gallery to us, talked to us about the challenges of getting people to recognize the value of purchasing art. Even though 10% of the general population may visit art galleries, only 2-3% of people from this sector are moderately serious about actually purchasing art. Roefs explained that the majority of his time is spent convincing people to recognize the value of purchasing art … and keeping artwork in his gallery on the minds of his potential buyers.
He told us about the market for art in Columbia, and explained that even art galleries in New York (which you may think has the art market tapped) have unique challenges in creating a distinction from the hundreds (thousands?) of other art galleries within the NYC.
Roefs discussed the relationship between gallery owner and artist and how he makes the distinction between "career artists" who have an authentic passion for making art as a form of expression and "Sunday artists," who tend to dabble in art every so often. Seeing as how I buy my art supplies on-sale at Kmart, I would probably fall into the second category.

I’m certainly no Anna Redwine.

Lauren