Every Ending is a Beginning

Reflecting on 19 years of an Art Show

Considering Vermeer; Egg tempera and oil on panel; 11”x14”; private collection

My urge to attend the big, blockbuster exhibition in Amsterdam of 28 Vermeer paintings at the Rijksmuseum flared when I saw the story about the show, and almost as quickly fizzled out.

I really hate going to those big shows. They are crowded, you are rushed through, you can’t commune quietly for hours with your favorite painting. And yet…

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to see about 24 Vermeer paintings. 23, if you discount Girl with Flute, which has recently been defrocked as the real deal. Many of the paintings I’ve seen multiple times. So it’s not like I’ve been deprived. I’ve studied these paintings in person and in books. I’ve even done copies of several of his paintings. The painting I’ve posted here was painted from a photograph I took on one of my visits to the Rijksmuseum. I was struck by their almost identical outfits, hair, and intense way they were studying the painting.

It’s a painting from almost 10 years ago, and I still feel like it is one of my best paintings. I wonder if Vermeer ever sat back from his easel and thought, “Damn, I’m good!”

For all of you who are lucky enough to go to this show, I hope you can study each painting long and deeply. Maybe burn them into your mind so that they keep you warm on a cold winter night. I’ll be there in spirit.

But I was going talk about another art show…

From 2004 until 2022, my friend and partner has allowed me to turn his house and garden upside down, invite 12 or 20 or so of my artist friends to have a weekend art show in his house and garden, known as Froggwell Gardens.

I learned a lot about putting on an art show through the years. I learned not to be squishy on the rules. I learned you can’t let people deliver work the morning of the opening, that everything needed to be delivered, installed, and labeled several days in advance if you don’t want to be screaming at people all weekend. I learned to delegate (not very well, as it turned out) and that someone needs to be in charge. A (sort of) benevolent dictatorship works best. Geez, I hope this doesn’t mean I have republican leanings.

I learned to hang art by different people so that the paintings complemented each other, developing themes of subject and style and colors. In my next life I think I could be a museum curator, or maybe a house cat that sleeps 22 hours a day.

After the first 3 years we had to discontinue the idea of an opening night party. They were a lot of fun, but then you had to work really hard for the next 2 days, tear down the show and get everyone out of there with anything that wasn’t sold. And we sold a lot of art work.

After about 4 or 5 years, we started alternating between shows of original work of the participating artists, and an alternate year show, we called Forgeries at Froggwell. After a couple years people really got into it, both the artists who got to attempt a painting by their favorite artists, and the people who came to see the show. It was like having the Metropolitan set up house for one weekend on Whidbey Island. My personal favorite to copy was John Singer Sargent, although I have copied several by Vermeer, and one year a series of Ernest Shepard drawings for House at Pooh Corner, after getting to see original sketches close up at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

You gotta know when to fold…

As much fun as it’s been, we recently decided there will be no more shows here. A trend I have noticed since outdoor fine art and craft shows first started, was that the early ones were generally very successful. I know many artists who got their start in these venues. You might only have to do two or three shows in a year to make your income for the year. But as they became more popular, more shows opened and the sales for many artists decreased at each show, so that you would have to participate in more and more shows in a year.

We only missed one year, when the Covid pandemic was raging in 2020. The next year was so much more work, as we took serious precautions so as not to become a super spreader event. None of the artists got sick from the weekend, and hopefully no one else did either. It took more effort and boots on the ground to enforce our mask requirement and limit people inside the house to view the paintings.

When we started the Froggwell Biennale, it was the only serious weekend show outside of our excellent galleries on Whidbey. It was a chance to wander the garden, see fabulous sculpture placed throughout, and see what art looks like in an actual house. While there is no garden here quite the equal of Froggwell, some new indoor and outdoor venues have opened up to artists, as well as many weekend shows throughout the year, not just in the summer and holiday season.

Putting on a weekend art show takes a whole lot of energy. I am grateful to have been part of something that was so engaging for so many people. But I’m 20 years older than I was when we started this project. I want to preserve my energy to paint and write and make comics and visit bears.

I still show my paintings at The Rob Schouten Gallery here on Whidbey, and at Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle, so it’s not like I’m disappearing off the face of the earth.

And there are always the pandas….