Just a girl who decided to go for it.
Celebrating ten years since my first art show and a very special birthday
Hello Beloved Art People,
Before 2025 comes, this is the one article that I just have to publish this year. I told myself I would write it, come hell or high water, as 2024 is a particularly significant year for my adventures in art; 2024 officially commemorates my 10 year anniversary working with Megan, and my 12th (!) year working and operating in the art world. Coincidentally, it is Megan’s birthday today, so all of the more reason to celebrate what I think is the most important ideology in life.
For me personally, it has been a rather expansive year in the art-world and art-work department. Some highlights include completing art transactions in three different continents, attending Art Dubai, having my writing published for the first time in the Venice Biennale and being officially designated an art journalist. As of August 2024, I now work at a gallery on the cutest street ever with an amazing London team, who are currently teaching me how to manage and sell artwork by the likes of Andy Warhol and David Hockney. All very exciting things. Unsurprisingly, my favourite part of the whole adventure has been meeting new people and making new friends around the world, and long may that continue.
However, 2024 is significant for my unfolding art adventures for a different reason. Some of you may be familiar with my best friend and incredibly talented Vancouver-based artist, Megan Jentsch, and you can have a quick read here, if not. She recently created a painting called “Love is a Rose, but you better not pick it” in the way of her emerging painting style. Megan met a new collector at the annual Vancouver’s Eastside Culture Crawl, where she set up in her studio at Parker Street Studios. I was proud of her not only for showcasing this new style and artistic voice to the world (which is much easier said than done when you are a life-long artist), but also for finding this wonderful painting a new home and letting it go, when I know it was quite significant in terms of artistic evolution and for personal reasons.
As she and I were discussing the above, and some fun things for 2025, I felt a nudge to write about exactly why 2024 is so important. Megan and I had our first art show exactly 10 years ago, as of October 2024. The show was called “About Face” and took place at WOW Lighting in Calgary, AB Canada. It brings me immense joy to say that some of you reading this right now were in attendance! To showcase some of the growth, I thought I would share a funny and somewhat educational story from the show….
My late step-father was an avid art collector. He collected historical and contemporary paintings by Canadian artists, primarily landscapes and scenescapes. A ton of these paintings came from Masters Gallery, but also from auctions and other random galleries in and around the state of Montana, USA.
In the fall of 2014, I told him about my plans to host my first contemporary art show and celebration, featuring Megan’s abstract art and her family's wine. Despite my step-father and I’s contrasting and varying taste in art, he was excited to come to attend. In the time leading up to, and on the evening of the show, there was a great emphasis on the celebration for us, whereas he approached the whole thing as an authentic and discerning art collector. He came in, did a few laps, had a glass of wine, congratulated us both, and before he left he pulled me aside and firmly told me “Amédée, you need to put more art on the walls.” I was a little off-put by this remark; in fact, I believe I told him that one of the pieces was still wet when we put it on the wall, and that including any more art was virtually incomprehensible.
We cracked on and had a great time, and to our delight and surprise, we sold all but one of the 7 showcased pieces. At the time, this felt monumental; Megan and I were both working full time, she was painting every night and I was still completing the last little bit of my degree. To this day, I count our “About Face” show as one of my biggest and best art accomplishments to date.
A few days later, as we were discussing the show, my step-father made a point to tell me again that in our next show, we needed more art on the walls and we needed to consider showcasing more than one artist. I was tired and proud, and this suggestion deeply offended me. I politely(?) told him, as I had many times previously, never to tell me what to do, and that we didn't need any more art, as we had almost sold out. I remember being really quite pissed off for a few weeks, as I thought that what we had pulled off with the show was nothing short of a miracle. Lucky for me our arguments were always water off a duck's back. He is an Aries as well, for context.
Fast forward four years to the summer of 2018, I was sitting in a class in Sotheby’s in London, and I can remember the exact moment when a very respectable British art dealer and professor named Angus informed the class that officially a show requires at minimum 12 pieces of art to even be considered a show. The preference, however, is 15-20, or maybe even more. I just sat there and shook my head as I remembered my step-father’s crystal-clear advice, and my subsequent wonderful reaction. I proceeded to call him immediately after to apologize, and told him that at the time I just couldn’t fathom it, but that he was right and I did, in fact, need to put more art on the walls, for both business and technical reasons. We laughed together.
Looking back after ten years, I guess the practical lessons here are to never stop learning, apologise immediately when you are wrong, and that those who respect their elders will pave their own way to success. It is also worth noting that serious art collector behaviour looks different than art celebrator behaviour. Both are required, but ten years on and I am learning to focus more than ever on the former, while being more particular about the latter. I still love my red wine at art events though.
As for my own personal words of inspiration, I would say whether it's 7 or 12 or 20 paintings, just get them on the wall, literally and metaphorically speaking. I’m happy and proud that my step-father got the chance to see those 7 paintings, and that despite a lifetime of managing my attitude, he did not hesitate to take the moment and use it to teach me something that I may not yet have been ready to learn. If the paintings weren’t up, there would have been no transfer of knowledge available.
In life, Regardless of how big or how small, we will never regret putting more action behind the things that give us a sense of pride and the things we love the most. I think we should all go for it!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN- to many more years of art adventures.