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Arts Feature Behind the Scenes at Boulder's Open Studios By Charmaine Ortega Getz [Ed. note: Gary Zeff has retired as executive director and Jane Saltzman now holds that position.] The annual Boulder Open Studios Tour gives folks a chance to see some of the amazing things local artists can do with horsehair and garbage, not to mention wood, metal, paint and photographic techniques. But behind the art is a production you aren’t likely to notice as you stroll through an artist’s workspace. Year after year, artists jump through hoops to be part of the event, and organizers toil for hundreds of hours to make the tour look effortless. “It’s year-round,” says MJ McCoy, Open Studios executive assistant. “It feels like we start preparing for the next year’s tour practically the day after the last weekend.”
Open Studios is a juried event, which means that artists must submit samples of their work to a panel of judges before being asked to join the tour. Each year, 20 or so applicants don’t make the cut. The multi-page electronic application process can be daunting, and there’s no guarantee that being part of the tour will boost an artist’s sales enough to justify sprucing up the studio and manning it through two consecutive weekends. So why do well over 100 Boulder artists participate every year? That’s a no-brainer for artists who regularly earn a large chunk of their annual income during Open Studios. “My local sales are about 50 percent of my income, and then I get people who come back and want to buy a piece, or commission something, about twice a year,” says David Grojean, a mixed-media artist. For other artists, the bottom line waxes and wanes.
That ‘Aha!’ Thing Jerry Wingren, a sculptor in wood and stone, seldom makes any sales from Open Studios, but finds it worthwhile for other reasons. “I do large, abstract pieces, and they’re not inexpensive,” he says. “For me, one of the real pleasures [of participating] is when you get people who are genuinely interested in the process—in how the art comes together, the concept behind a piece—and you explain it to ’em and see that ‘aha!’ thing go on.” That “aha!” moment with the public is one benefit Open Studios participants mention often, along with the pleasure of leaving their isolated studios to socialize with fellow artists. “Visual artists, like literary artists, usually work individually, unlike those in the performing arts,” says executive director Gary Zeff. Open Studios holds opening and closing parties for the artists and arranges tours to allow participating artists the chance to visit other studios. “It’s a little bit of schmoozing, but also getting to see what others are doing, talk shop, and maybe do some collaboration,” Zeff says.Boulder’s Open Studios began in the early ’90s when Zeff retired early from Eastman Kodak’s sales and marketing department and was looking for something to do besides wood-turning in his own studio. He was familiar with the Open Studios concept and liked the idea of “helping people to have a better understanding of art.” He started Boulder’s first such event in 1994 as a one-man operation, modeling it on California’s Santa Cruz County tour, which has been going strong for 22 years. He checked with a Boulder meteorologist to determine the most weather-auspicious days, and the event has been held ever since on the first two weekends in October. Today, Zeff is too busy with fundraising and organizing to make his own art, but he does have about 65 volunteers, a part-time assistant and a board of directors to help him. His efforts have given professional artists in Boulder County a venue not only for more sales and wider exposure, but also a means of fostering community. An Act of Faith “This idea had been talked about in the art community for years,” says Jim Lorio, a potter and former ceramics teacher who has participated in Open Studios since its inception. “But without the assurance of it being financially beneficial, worth giving up the time you need to put in creating art, no one would step up—until Gary. When he said he was going to do this, we got involved as an act of faith.” It’s difficult to count the number of people who walk through artists’ studios each year, but Open Studios reports that guestbook signatures added up to 73,000 in 2006. Most people go to multiple studios, particularly those that are clustered close together within Boulder’s city limits. A $15.95 “guidebook,” which was once in brochure form but is now a calendar with pictures of artists’ work, studio addresses, and a map, makes it easy for visitors to plan their route. The guidebook highlights family-friendly studios, those that are handicapped-accessible and ones along bike paths.
Even gallery owners come to check out the action, and sometimes recruit new artists. But Open Studios strives to maintain a respectful relationship with Boulder-area galleries. “There was some fear in the beginning that we were trying to compete with [galleries’] sales,” says Dwight Larimer, who leads the current board of directors. “But we specifically ask the artists not to undercut any galleries that represent them by selling for less in their studios. We don’t want to muddy the relationship between artists and their galleries.” Who Makes the Money? Mary Williams, owner of Mary Williams Fine Arts on Pearl Street, says she’s always been too busy to take the tour herself, but isn’t worried about any of the artists she represents. “They give me a commission for anything they sell in their studios,” says Williams. “I don’t represent anyone who is already doing so well out of Open Studios that they don’t really need me.” Those who don’t have galleries keep everything they earn.
Keeping Open Studios running requires constant influxes of grants, donations, corporate support, and in-kind services and materials to make an annual budget of about $222,000 cover all expenses, including Zeff’s salary. That salary, board member Larimer says, “is almost slave-labor wages. We’d like to give him a more realistic salary in line with what other heads of small nonprofits make, but we just can’t do it yet. Which is rather worrisome because we have to look ahead long-term. Someday Gary may not want to do this any longer, and it’ll be hard to attract someone with his combination of business expertise and art appreciation.” The answer to keeping Open Studios flourishing beyond his stewardship, Zeff says, is community support. “We may not be as gripping a cause as supporting a women’s shelter or helping the homeless,” he says, “but we’re important to the community. The arts are vitally important to the community.”
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