Transcript for Episode 157 – Gallery Director at Photo-Eye Gallery, Anne Kelly (Santa Fe, NM, USA)

Recorded February 17, 2021
Published March 23, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/gallery-director-at-photo-eye-gallery-anne-kelly-santa-fe-nm-usa/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
Today my guest is Anne Kelly, the gallery director at photo Eye Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We have a great conversation about photography as a fine art form. So late very pedantic specific conversations about auditioning pricing, exclusivity, certificates of authenticity, which as you all know, I have the thing about, and materials and even making unique photographic pieces versus me doing the traditional photography thing and making an addition of something So, very engaging, very specific. Enjoyed this greatly and I hope you do too. The wise fool is supported in part by an EPA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners hunt kassner in Prague, Czech Republic and Coons center in a in Oregon in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the shownotes. Please pronounce your name correctly for me, and Kelly, and you are the gallery director at photo eye. Now I’ve known photo eyes since I was an undergraduate. You weren’t there at the time I know. But I’ve known it for decades. I have high admiration for it. You all are like one of the pinnacles of like oh my god, I so wish I could get them to represent me or have my book in their bookstore. You all do a lot of things, but you’re only with the sort of the part of the gallery. But could you give a little overview of what all the photo eye is?

Anne Kelly 1:57
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been with photo gallery for going on about 15 years now. And we celebrated photo wise 40th anniversary in 2019. I want to say so we’re going on about 41 years now. And it originally started as a book store in the owner and founder Rickson Reed’s home in Austin, Texas. And so they were selling books, kind of pre internet, really. So it’s it’s really kind of a cool story. He was really interested in photo books. So he invested in I want to say three or four titles that he believed in, he bought a mailing list, he typed up letters, mailed them to people manage to sell those titles, invested in more books and and kept doing that way up until the point where it evolved into email newsletters, and there was a book list for a while. And in 1991, he and his partner Vicky bohannan, moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. And that’s when they first got the first brick and mortar location. So they opened photo eye books. And naturally, because they were dealing in photography, people also wanted to hang their prints on the walls, as well, that makes sense. So about I want to say maybe three years later was when the gallery came to be. So for a while, everything was in one location, and then the gallery became substantial enough that it became its own entity as well. So at this point, photo eye books is the oldest and largest photography bookstore in the United States. And on top of all of that we have this really fantastic website as well. So you can go and you can look at all of the books on our website, we’ve got these book teasers so you can flip through there. If you’re a really hardcore photo book fan, we have a newsletter that’s called photo book daily. So you can literally get your daily newsletter. And the gallery has its own newsletter as well, which is just weekly, on top of even being a bookstore, and a gallery. And there’s some other things we do as well, which I can go into later. Just the the website on its own is really just a fantastic resource. Our book list, which I mentioned earlier, eventually turned into a blog. And so that’s original content created by our staff and sometimes outside writers almost daily. I have

Matthew Dols 4:59
a video memory, I believe I saw a catalog like a printed catalog from the bookstore back when I was in school in like, 1996 era somewhere in that, is that right?

Anne Kelly 5:12
That’s right people, people collect those. And I can’t tell you right now, which your that started. But I want to say those were produced for about a decade or so. And the first few were kind of your staple bound. Very basic catalogs. And people subscribe to those. And in the end, they were always soft bound, but they they became a little more substantial over the years. And I want to say it was maybe about 10 years ago or so that we decided to just turn that into the blog.

Matthew Dols 5:47
It makes sense. Yeah. These days,

Anne Kelly 5:50
but people collect them.

Matthew Dols 5:51
Yeah, I remember them fondly. I remember flipping through them. And we would all love it. Because our professors would bring them in when I was at the Corcoran in DC. And they would bring them in and be like, Oh, look at the new stuff that’s coming out so and so as a new book, and like, they would sort of like be encouraging us or whatever. And they would also ask us as students, they would say, what would you like us to buy to put in the school library as well. So we also gave us input in the ability to actually sort of build out a better library for the school,

Anne Kelly 6:21
our book division still sells to a lot of school libraries, other institutions and such. But now instead of waiting for the quarterly book list, you can get photo book daily. So every day, you will know,

Matthew Dols 6:38
if you have not desire.

Anne Kelly 6:41
Exactly,

Matthew Dols 6:42
me, goodness knows there are certainly enough books being produced in the world to do one a day.

Anne Kelly 6:47
There’s also for those that maybe don’t want the daily newsletter, you can sign up for the Sunday newsletter, or maybe it’s the Saturday newsletter. But anyways, it’s it. It’s a weekly newsletter, that’s a synopsis of everything that was in the daily newsletter.

Matthew Dols 7:03
Alright, enough about the bookstore, you don’t work in the bookstore, you work in the gallery. So let’s talk about the gallery. So the gallery, again, I’ve had like this great admiration for the gallery, I believe I’ve even submitted to the gallery numerous times over my career, you all have turned me down every time it’s fine, I have no hard feelings, because in hindsight, the work was not very good. I will do it again sometime in the near future, because I think I have stronger work now. But that’s a little side note. But one of the big questions I have is like, you will have this submissions button on your website, and I’ve known about this, basically, since you built your website, I could not imagine the sheer amount of time and energy you have to put into going through all of those submissions. So like, how many submissions Do you all actually get?

Anne Kelly 7:55
I wouldn’t say there’s really a really a great answer to that it really kind of changes over time, some months, there’s way more submissions than others a lot of times closer to maybe say around New Year’s or so maybe it’s people’s New Year’s resolution, they’re gonna get it together and apply. But it’s, it’s really made something it’s really just made it possible for us to actually review all of the submissions. Otherwise, and this still happens, you get a lot of unsolicited submissions through emails, postcards, all of those types of things. And, and that’s fine. But it’s not practical for us to and if you email me out of the blue and say, Hey, take a look at this work, I’ll probably respond to you thanking you and directing you to the submissions button, just because that’s how we can actually organize it, we have somebody that receives all of those submissions, coordinates them sends out an email to everybody who’s on our jury to look at them. So there’s there’s a procedure there. So that doable?

Matthew Dols 9:09
Well, you just sort of started giving me an answer to the next question. So like, when people do submit to the gallery, like is it a you’re the gallery director, you make the final decision? It sounds like you’ve mentioned that there’s a jury of some sort. So like, how is that structured?

Anne Kelly 9:26
there, there’s a few of us so it would be myself and the gallery owner rexon, then someone else from our staff, and over the years, it’s changed a little bit so it’s usually somewhere between three to four of us looking at the submissions, and there’s a few different things we could be considering you for. It could be for a gallery exhibition most of the time, why should go back a little bit. In addition to the physical gallery. We also have a section of our website that we call the photographer showcase and So those are artists that we just represent on our website, I think it’s pretty logical. Obviously, we only have so many flat files, there’s only so much inventory, we can manage so many artists we can properly represent in the physical space. So the showcase is a good opportunity for us to show a larger group of artists just in a different way. And so most of the time, I would say, when we accept people, it’s to the showcase. But oftentimes, the showcase artists become gallery artists. So a number of our gallery artists now started on the Showcase. And in addition to that, we also have another section of our website, that’s called Art photo index, also created by our owner and founder, and that’s more of a resource of just different photographers who are working right now. So that’s not work that we’re actively selling. That is simply a resource. So I don’t know if you’ve checked that out. But you can explore by country key words, you can follow artists. So if we accept you there, it might be that we feel that the work is strong, but maybe it’s not a good match for the gallery per se for our, our clientele.

Matthew Dols 11:22
Right, which leads to the of course, the question we all ask is sort of like, how, like, what constitutes an artist that you will think you can work well with? So like, whether it’s subject matter technique, their their concepts behind it, like what are the things that you’re looking for that says, that somebody I want to work with?

Anne Kelly 11:47
Well, one of the things that is key for me is that we feel very strongly about the work. It could be that maybe we sell season work, that seems saleable. But if we’re not passionate about it, then that’s not enough. But then on top of that, we are a for profit business as well. So we also do need to be able to sell the work, we have a client base and kind of a pretty good understanding of what those clients and collectors are going to be interested in. So it’s kind of an intersection. And between those two things, I would say, and if you look at our website, maybe there’s types of work that for example, I I’m a fan of documentary photography, but it’s not really what we’re known for. So if you’re a documentary photographer, you know, we’re well open to taking a look. But you know, at the end of the day, we do need to feel that the work is a good match for our client base. Otherwise, it’s not really doing either of us. a favor.

Matthew Dols 12:56
Well, yeah, but you do have some you Yeah, like Steve curry and a couple other documentarians mixed in there.

Anne Kelly 13:03
We do have some Magnum photographers whose work we do offer, but they wouldn’t be artists that are physically stored in our in our flat files in Santa Fe. And as a professor API, it’s also a really, I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in there, but that’s a really great resource.

Matthew Dols 13:23
Probably not as much as I should.

Anne Kelly 13:26
Well, now, you know,

Matthew Dols 13:27
I do and I will gladly point everybody to it. Somebody I forgot to ask about actually. So they, first of all, are you a photographer?

Anne Kelly 13:36
Who is have a hard time answering that question. I went to school for photography. I guess I am someone that takes pictures. I’m not actively exhibiting or seeking to show my photographs. I take them, because I like to take them. But that’s how I got into this. Initially, I started making photographs when I was probably about 13 years old, with a 35 millimeter camera. When I graduated from high school, I couldn’t think of anything else in the world that I would want to go to college for other than photography. So I did go to the College of Santa Fe, and I did earn my BFA there, and then it just turned out that I really found a passion on the gallerist side of things.

Matthew Dols 14:36
How does that happen though? Because I’ve worked in galleries, I’ve worked in galleries have worked in museums, I’ve been a professor, I’ve done all kinds of crazy stuff in my lifetime. And like being a gallerist I found to be very difficult. I mean, a lot of people think like it’s fun and you just go around and schmooze and, and talk to rich and powerful people and all this kind of stuff, but I’m like, no, it’s A lot of like, monotonous work. It’s the cataloguing the shipping the insurance, the, you know, keeping up with all the the aloof and crazy people in the art world. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff work there. That is not the glamorous romantic work that everybody thinks a gallery director does.

Anne Kelly 15:19
Oh, it’s true. It’s, it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of emails, I could probably technically go and work for FedEx right now, or a frame shop, or, I mean, you really have to be knowledgeable about every aspect of anything that could be applicable to it. And there’s a lot of emails, and there’s a lot of following up with people. And it’s, it’s not all glamorous, but I do get to be creative, every day at work. So I guess that’s really what appeals to me. And I love interacting with people. So I get to interact with tons of interesting people from the artists to the collectors and kind of connecting those dots in terms of Oh, this person collects this type of work. And, oh, I just found this artist and just kind of bringing that all together. I think that’s that’s really what excites me. At the end of the day,

Matthew Dols 16:22
it must or else you wouldn’t stay there for very long. Yeah, personal to your gallery. But any gallery wouldn’t stay there. If you didn’t love that stuff.

Anne Kelly 16:31
No, I think these days, most people don’t do anything for 15 plus years. Or maybe they do, but it’s not. It’s not as common.

Matthew Dols 16:40
I would love to do stuff for 15 plus years that people would let me or more to the point I shouldn’t say people let me if I didn’t get tired of it.

Anne Kelly 16:47
Mm hmm.

Matthew Dols 16:48
I had a lovely job in the United Arab Emirates teaching, and I could have probably stayed there the rest of my life. But now it just got you get burned out on things sometimes if they’re too much.

Anne Kelly 17:01
Oh, definitely, definitely. So I think there’s just not enough different aspects of it, that that has kept me has kept me all and

Matthew Dols 17:10
fair enough. All right, he brought up collectors, I’m always interested from a gallery standpoint. Like some galleries focus on trying to get collectors or work with collectors, some galleries focus on sort of institutions and possibly getting their artists into institution collections or into institutional exhibitions. And then I’m sure there are other things that galleries sort of strive to do for their artists with like, what’s the focus of photo,

Anne Kelly 17:40
I would say, there’s a lot of aspects to that. I mean, as I mentioned, we are a for profit organization. So we do need to sell prints. And my artists also want me to sell their prints so that they can keep making friends. And then in terms of the types of people that we sell to we do have serious collectors that we work with, but sometimes somebody just needs something to fit there. 30 by 40 space over their coffee tables. So in terms of collectors that we work with, it’s established to some maybe somebody is just buying their first print ever. And then really just anything we can do for any of our artists to really elevate their career is on the agenda, as well.

Matthew Dols 18:36
So I guess the question also, along with that would be Do you work with institutions much? Or is it primarily sort of sales?

Anne Kelly 18:44
Well, I mean, a lot of our artists that we work with, are shown in various institutions and such, but I would say mostly on on a day to day basis, most of the communication is between private collectors and artists. But you never know what’s going to happen.

Matthew Dols 19:05
Okay, just to be clear, I am not questioning your motives or anything, I think it’s fabulous. I would need money if I was a one of your gallery artists as much as I would want desire, an exhibition in an institution. So like, being able to say, Yes, we earn a good living for our artists. That’s amazing.

Anne Kelly 19:26
But it also helps if our artists are showing in different institutions. And there’s different reasons why people collect art, sometimes people collect it, simply because they are drawn to the image and they want to own it. But there’s other people who they need to see the name and the CV before they’re gonna consider it. So really, it’s just, it’s, it’s so different from from person to person.

Matthew Dols 19:54
Yeah, I know. Okay, let’s get into some slightly pedantic things that are first editions, fascinated by them, give me a sort of a construct like what what have you all come to because of course, you will have far you eat quite honestly, you will have been in existence longer than I’ve been photographing. So like, you are far more experienced than I do so like, what’s the, I don’t know, I don’t wanna say like current trend, but like, what’s the common edition size? Maybe even addition materials? Like, you know, what, what technologies are people using? Like, what’s, what’s the thing that’s sort of happening these days.

Anne Kelly 20:36
And the time that I’ve been with the gallery addition, sizes have been getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

Matthew Dols 20:46
Smaller?

Anne Kelly 20:46
Yes, I’ve joked at one point, maybe there’ll be a negative edition numbers, you won’t even. And that’s a joke. But that has definitely been the trend as photography’s become kind of more entwined with just the art market. And so, that’s always been a concern with collectors, as well as how many of these are out there. And that’s probably something I get asked about, maybe more than anything else. And it’s different from artist to artist and collector to collector that is common. But I would say about 15 years ago, when I started working for the gallery, I would say it was pretty common for artists to maybe sell prints in three different sizes. And for whatever reason, usually the smallest print is the largest edition size. So you were seeing a lot more of maybe the small size was an addition of 25. And then the larger sizes were smaller additions. These days, I’m saying it, I’d say it’s more common for it to be an addition of 10 instead of 25. So it’s it’s kind of a balancing act, though, too, if you’re lucky enough to be in this position. If your addition sizes are too small, and you have too many galleries and say all of your galleries want to have a physical exhibition of your work, and you don’t have enough prints to actually hang on the walls of those galleries. Again, a good problem to have, but that can be a problem. And then that also ties into the pricing of your work as well. Right?

Matthew Dols 22:27
Right. Okay, wait within that. So like, are we talking just additions? And what about artists proofs? Do you do sell those? Do you allow for those or so it’s 10 numbered editions and a or two artists proofs? So they or is it all inclusive?

Anne Kelly 22:44
Usually there’s an artist proof or two. In terms of the artists that we work with, we don’t usually intervene necessarily. And I mean, maybe if somebody had a really giant addition, I might say something. So I usually kind of a lot of times people have questions, I would say more than anything they might,

Matthew Dols 23:05
what questions do people have?

Anne Kelly 23:08
Maybe they’re releasing new work, and they’ve come up with an addition, you know, new auditioning and pricing. So they might email that to me and say, hey, what, what do you think of this, and I guess on top of the auditioning, usually, there’s tiered auditioning and photography as well. So maybe there’s an addition of 10. And the first two or three prints in the addition or a certain price, and then they kind of go up from there. And in some cases, you see where maybe the price might go up by $200, between the tiers. Other artists, it might be $5,000, between the tiers. So that’s another fun part of my day job is just keeping up with the pricing of everything that’s kind of ever changing.

Matthew Dols 24:04
Well, I’m okay. Because I when I was a kid, you know, being trained. I don’t remember this tiered auditioning pricing thing like this is a contemporary idea. Right?

Anne Kelly 24:14
It is, it is. And so, I mean, it’s relatively, I mean, it’s not new in the time that I’ve been working for the gallery, but like Mark, cluck, for example, a lot of the kind of old school film photographers, when people first started auditioning, they were doing additions of 50 and 100, and more. And that was when all of this was just very, very new and a lot of those photographers, specifically, film shooters have made the decision to never print the entire edition. So they’ve stopped printing that edition of fifth Because they don’t want to

Matthew Dols 25:03
wait, you mean like so. So they they say there’s an addition of 50. Let’s say they print 25. And they haven’t sold all the 25. So they don’t print the entire run of 50.

Anne Kelly 25:14
Right? So maybe maybe 30 years ago, they said this, this print is an addition of 50. And so it’s this whole balancing act between wanting to free up enough prints that if somebody wants to buy 50 of a print, you can do that. But then, I mean, as a photographer, do you want to sit around reprinting the same images over and over again? Or do you want to go out and do you want to go make new images?

Matthew Dols 25:47
It is always the eternal question but well, but when it comes okay late again, so like going back to I was trained in wet darkroom so that in wet darkroom, once you got all the stuff perfect the chemicals, the exposure, the the box of paper, like, once you got your stuff, right, you did as long In addition, as you could before your chemicals went bad before you had to switch to a different box of paper that could Garner different results and all this kind of stuff. So in the old days, I felt that my and my professors encouraged that basically, when you get everything tweaked just perfectly, you run the whole addition. These days, I feel like with digital, it’s much easier to not run the whole addition and basically sort of, for lack of a better word print on demand kind of thing likes to just print as sales come in. Is that sort of a common thing?

Anne Kelly 26:41
It definitely is just in terms of storage alone, you figure, how many years you’ve been photographing? How many photographs have you made? How many prints are in the addition? Do you actually have? You want to fill your entire home with flat files to print all of those,

Matthew Dols 27:00
I have half of a garage full of just old works? Waiting? Yeah,

Anne Kelly 27:05
it happens. So I think it was more common, and people are still shooting film. And they are still printing in the darkroom. But I think it was maybe a little more common, when more people were printing in the darkroom to want to print these the entire edition before your chemistry had changed while you still have the same paper, that type of thing.

Matthew Dols 27:27
Oh, yeah, I mean, these days, like, once you get your print, right, you can just like write down all the settings that you did, and you could reprint it a year later. And it will look exactly the same as long as you do keep a good record of all the settings and whatever presets and use the same printer and ink and all that stuff. So like it can be done. I’m not questioning it, I do it. But it’s just an interesting change in the industry.

Anne Kelly 27:53
Definitely, definitely. And even with digital printing, you’re still not going to get the exact result from from Print to print. There’s all sorts of details that are gonna change, is your average person gonna be able to tell Maybe, maybe not. But I think that’s kind of a beautiful thing about it as well, just in that photography is so reproducible, and that there are additions that it can be perceived that way. But each print is still going to be a little bit different. I like that about it.

Matthew Dols 28:30
Me as well. But because of course I’m also a material person. So I love beautiful papers as well. So that, okay, but I want to understand something so like, okay, in the old days, I sound so old when I’m saying things like this, I know it’s fine. In the old days. If so let’s say an artist did an addition of 100 and let’s say they sold them for $100 each they would end up with and not strong with math $10,000 that’s not right. 100 parents $110,000

Anne Kelly 29:01
sounds right. Math isn’t really my thing either. But

Matthew Dols 29:03
it’s okay. That’s why I’m an artist. So the let’s go attempt that’s about So, if these contemporaries are now doing two additions of 10 are they selling them for $1,000 each and still getting that same $10,000 in the end like so is the is the amount of source of income the same even though the runs are shorter.

Anne Kelly 29:26
Usually the pricing would be be higher. So the smaller the audition, the higher the price is going to be. And that’s always something to consider as well in terms of when when artists want my advice on this is

Matthew Dols 29:43
I do

Anne Kelly 29:46
you know what, what are you aspiring for? Do you want your average person to be able to to purchase a print or do you only want Certain people to be able to do that I mean it really at a certain point, and but really the smaller the edition, if you’re trying to make that same amount of money off of each print with a smaller edition in theory, the pricing needs to be higher. And it does warrant it as well, because it becomes less common. Right? There’s not

Matthew Dols 30:25
sure. Yeah. exclusivity breeds? My favorite with the phrasing is Yeah. Less there is in the world, the higher the value of it.

Anne Kelly 30:35
Yes, exactly.

Matthew Dols 30:38
Okay, so but in the like, I remember. Again, I feel so old. Alright. So like, I remember when I was a wee Lassie that the, they used to say, like, a there were sort of tears, like, I remember, like, $500 was there, like a certain level of a career. $1,000 was like a certain level of a career, you know, $2,000 and then it jumped to like, 2500. And so those are those increments still sort of existing, like, you know, like an emerging artists, General printer prices would be at a certain tier. And then like, a mid career, and then you know, a high career like, are these kinds of things still in existence?

Anne Kelly 31:21
I’d say yes. And no.

Matthew Dols 31:24
Come on. I want solid answers. Yes, and No.

Anne Kelly 31:28
Well, it really all just depends, I’d say in the past, I don’t know 10 years or so you see a lot of artists that are coming out of graduate school that are charging 30 $500 for their their smaller prints. And then I’ve also seen the reaction where people who are established and have been in it for 4050 years, then start increasing their prices, because they say, Okay, these graduate students are charging this amount of money for this print. And so it kind of affects everything as a whole. Usually, when people are asking me about prices, I’ll send them to photo wise website, because for the most part, we do have pricing and addition sizes and tiers listed for all of our artists. So I feel like that’s a pretty good resource for people to look at. But if you’re looking for a black and white answer, no, there is no handbook that says, if you are at this point in your career, this is how much your print should be. And if you are a mid career artists, this is how much your print should be. And if you’ve published five books, you can then charge this much more. It’s,

Matthew Dols 32:45
I’m looking for an Excel spreadsheet that gives

Anne Kelly 32:48
it doesn’t exist.

Matthew Dols 32:50
Okay. I will continue to look, I’m sure somebody has one somewhere.

Anne Kelly 32:54
Maybe somebody has made one. But I don’t think that everybody’s following it necessarily.

Matthew Dols 33:00
Well, I mean, that’s sort of the thing is that I mean, that to me, like that sounds like that could sort of, I don’t know, sort of hurt, hurt some but people’s reputations like if people are just coming out of grad school, and they’re charging $5,000 for a piece, and then there’s somebody who’s been doing it for 40 years, and they’re selling it for $3,000. Like, that seems like there’s a bit of disparity there.

Anne Kelly 33:22
There is, there is and I’d say some solid advice that I usually give artists is you can always increase your prices, but you can never decrease them. So that if you if you’re selling your prints for $1,000, and people buy them, and then you even decrease them down to $800. I mean, you can just think about how the people who did buy those prints are going to react to that that’s not going to be a positive thing. But there’s also kind of this perceived value aspect as well. So if you are selling your prints for $50, then maybe people think oh, they’re only $50. They’re not worth anything. So it’s there’s this very kind of fine line in between, that you kind of want to

Matthew Dols 34:14
Oh yeah, I’ve seen it, like in action in my own career, but like, I’ve had young collectors come to me and say like, Oh, I’d love to buy this, but I don’t have I don’t remember how much was $500? And I said, Well, you know what, that’s fine. I’ll sell to you for $500 then I had this guy who came to me saying, I’m a big collector, I have the biggest collection in the world, bla bla bla all this kind of stuff. And I’m like your price $10,000. And when I said that he was just like, sure, like he was fine with it. Like, so like there’s a thing and I’ve never been able to find that right balance of like, I you know, I follow sort of the Andy Warhol philosophy like I would love to sell 1000 prints for $1 versus a single print for $1,000 kind of thing. Like, I would love that. But there’s this perceived value that like when you put a price of like $10,000 on a piece, suddenly people go like, wow, that’s worth a lot, that’s very valuable. Now, that doesn’t mean it ever got sold for $10,000. But that’s what somebody asked for it. That’s what they the evaluation that’s been put on it. So like, have you ever run into a situation where like, putting that or like trying to do that, like put a high value on something to give something more prestige didn’t work?

Anne Kelly 35:38
I gotta say, when in terms of if you’re an artist, that I’m representing that that wouldn’t be a strategy that I would recommend to you. You know what I mean? I do, if I think you’re in that, at that point in your career, that that’s what you want to do. And I think people will pay those prices. Sure, let’s do that. But But I would never say, hey, let’s elevate your career by changing your base price to 10,000. Maybe some people do that. But I have not met anybody like that. That’s not me.

Matthew Dols 36:14
And I was exaggerating with my story about the collector. By the way, that’s not what I did. Sure. Just a theoretical example. But the, the, the nature of pricing, actually, it’s a, it’s a tough one, like had to know what the right prices because they like for me, okay, I only know my own life. So I just use myself as the stupid example of this. I’ve moved a lot. And so they as I change locations, I end up having to sort of reassess my prices, like, I got here to the Czech Republic. And they basically said, Oh, your prices are London prices, you’ll never get that price here. And so they wanted me to lower my prices to meet the existing market in the Czech Republic. And I kept telling them, I’m like, I’m not from the Czech Republic. So like, my prices are the same prices worldwide. If you can’t afford it, then you can’t afford it. Like, I’m not going to lower my price, just to meet your regional price point. And that’s a difficult thing. Because the, the, the the Internet, and of course, all this stuff is made the world sort of it, you’ve got to find that price that is high enough to be prestigious, but not so low that you’re sort of putting it into the lower markets like and it’s really hard to find that right? price point, no matter who the artist is.

Anne Kelly 37:40
That is definitely true. And no and you can’t reduce your prices. You could for example, maybe create a new project and make your addition sizes higher and maybe price that work at a lesser price point or even do an open edition, something like that. So there’s there’s ways to go about it. But you can’t go back and make you know, fruit study. 99 less expensive.

Matthew Dols 38:12
I totally understand

Anne Kelly 38:13
what’s frowned upon?

Matthew Dols 38:14
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, no, I’m the first advice I got in college is basically never lower your price. And there was also the, they actually had an Excel spreadsheet that said that, like I think it’s like, every two years, you’re supposed to increase your price, something like 20% or something along that like basically, the idea would be if you’re with a gallery, and you have an exhibition in that gallery every two years, every new exhibition, you do your increase your price, on average, 20%. Do you still do stuff like that?

Anne Kelly 38:44
I don’t have that spreadsheet. No.

Matthew Dols 38:48
I’m looking for a spreadsheet. Somebody give me that spreadsheet? Alright, find

Anne Kelly 38:53
somebody out there has it, but

Matthew Dols 38:55
okay. All right. Another question I have about like additions and specifically like works on paper, certificates of authenticity. I’m a huge obsessive about certificates of authenticity, like so, like, do you do them? How elaborate are they like, for me, I have like a standard one that just like has like, you know, paper size paper material printer, blah, blah, blah. And I fill in that I hand filled in the details of that particular thing. And then I do a little matching number hologram sticker on the back of the of the print and the matching on the certificate of authenticity to sort of tie them together. Am I being overly obsessive compulsive?

Anne Kelly 39:37
I would say that’s quite elaborate, but I wouldn’t discourage it. For me, just the actual act of of signing and numbering. The print makes it authentic to me. So some of our artists do choose to include a certificate on top of that, but it’s not something We require as a gallery, it’s mostly just that the actual print is signed. And then of course, we will sign the client paperwork as well, where we include all of that information. The hologram can’t hurt. But

Matthew Dols 40:17
I had a collector that literally said, Oh, like, I bought a piece, and I gave it and I brought it over to his place of business. And he was like, Where’s the certificate of authenticity with a with a hologram sticker. And then he showed me another piece that he owned that had this whole thing. And I was like, Fuck, I guess I got to step up and do that, like, so. I thought I was following what was going on in the market. But it sounds like it’s not going on in the market. And I’m a bit OCD.

Anne Kelly 40:45
Well, maybe, but that’s okay. You know, and another time I see it more often is just in the presentation of photography is really changed, it used to just be every photograph went into a mat into a black frame. But now you have a lot of people mounting to die bond and using spacers. And so in the active mounting a print to dive on the signature gets covered. And so then there’s usually some sort of sticker that’s going to go on the back of the dye bond. So in that case, I think it’s particularly useful to have a certificate on top of that, just being that you don’t have the original paper signed at that point.

Matthew Dols 41:31
Makes sense? I mean, okay, super, like, okay, yeah. signatures on the front signatures on the back how like, like I was trained with pencil was the proper way to do it. So what’s your general oeuvre for where and how, with what material

Anne Kelly 41:50
pencil is ideal, just because it won’t fade over time. But a lot of the digital papers they make these days, you cannot sign the front, and pencil. So if you’re gonna sign the front, it’s going to have to be in pen. And that in theory can fade over time. Some people really prefer to see the signature on the front. So I would say in my ideal situation, it would be a type of paper that you can sign on the front in pencil. But not to say that you shouldn’t use your preferred type of paper based upon that. Another aspect is what your signature looks like. And that seems very I don’t know, that seems like a weird comment. But there are signatures in their signatures. So some signatures are beautiful, and kind of fade into the artwork, and then others can be a little bit distracting,

Matthew Dols 42:57
as well, the era of Donald Trump. No, we we all know what you’re talking about.

Anne Kelly 43:01
Yes, yes. So going back, usually, in the case that someone is signing their work on the front, with a pen, I will usually advise that we map over the signature in the framing process just to preserve it. All

Matthew Dols 43:19
right. I see like, I’m an artist, so I always want to see the signature. So I always will end up leaving the mat out. But it makes sense from a preservation standpoint to leave that visible, or not leave invisible.

Anne Kelly 43:33
So ideally, if you can sign the front and pencil when you can see it. That’s ideal. All

Matthew Dols 43:39
right. In the past, like, I don’t know, 10 years or so maybe longer, or maybe I’ve only been paying attention for 10 years, I don’t know, I’ve noticed a trend towards unique prints, like photo photographers who doing things that are basically one of a kinds like, like paintings, basically. And not additions. Is that a common trend? Or is am I making that up?

Anne Kelly 44:06
I’m really into unique pieces. And that’s usually a result of the process, not so much that somebody goes and makes the picture and makes a digital print of it. And that’s the only one. I don’t really see that happening. But I think the there’s kind of been a reaction to the evolution of digital where a lot more people are going back to the earlier processes. And a lot of times, it’s only possible to make one print or there’s going to be just some variation in the print processes. So that’s something I’m super into. But I’ve always, I’ve always had a thing for the earlier processes,

Matthew Dols 44:49
said There seems to be a resurgence in the sort of more traditional processes.

Anne Kelly 44:56
There is and it kind of goes two different directions. When I first started working at the gallery 15 years ago, there was a lot more people coming in asking about digital prints were they should I pay this much money? You know, is this is this pigment print worth 15 $100? Is this a valid thing? And any more just for your kind of everyday person coming in now I get more questions about what is the silver gelatin print? What is a seed print? So there’s been kind of this transition where the digital print has become the most common print I don’t really have people asking me Is this a valid type of print and the it’s more that the silver gelatin prints on the sea prints have turned moved into kind of the alternative process category. But But as part of that, there, there has definitely been a resurgence in analog photography from Polaroids to Platinum prints cyanotypes gum bichromate. I love all that.

Matthew Dols 46:08
I just recently had a photographer do a glass plate, wet collodion portrait of my family, like I love that stuff.

Anne Kelly 46:16
I’m all for all of that. And then there’s also a lot of hybrid processes. For example, Kate brachii, who we represent, she’s making these modern day or atones. Now, so Historically, the aura tone was printed on glass in the darkroom, she’s working with digital printer that’s capable of printing the digital print onto glass, and then she hand guild’s

Matthew Dols 46:42
the back, I have never heard of this process, say it again.

Anne Kelly 46:46
So it’s like the aura tone,

Matthew Dols 46:48
I don’t know what that is.

Anne Kelly 46:49
So the aura tone, historically, you would coat glass, and you would print a photographic image on it. And then usually you would get some sort of gold dust and powder. The back with that. And part of what is it achieves it is it achieves a lot more dimensionality to it. So you take a 1d image, and not to say it turns it into a hologram. But it definitely creates a little extra dimension to it. And so Kate, I would say a number of years ago started revisiting this historic process, but bringing in some digital tools being that she’s printing the image onto the glass, or she’s having somebody print. It’s a very special digital printer. She’s not just running a sheet of glass through through her apps, then

Matthew Dols 47:45
Wouldn’t that be amazing though?

Anne Kelly 47:47
Oh, I mean, maybe in a few years, that’ll be

Matthew Dols 47:52
I want to run a sheet through my 99 hundred’s, you know, the big a four or a Oh, besides print. That’d be amazing.

Anne Kelly 48:02
And then after that, she grabs her gold leaf and hand guilds, the back of the piece. So she is really achieving the same effect is that historic process just approaching it in a different way?

Matthew Dols 48:18
Fascinating. Well, I will look it up and I will put a link to some examples of it probably work in the show notes.

Anne Kelly 48:25
And and Edward Curtis he was he didn’t invent the aura tone. But if you’re looking at the more he’s one of the more notable photographers that worked in aura tones, Edward Curtis, the

Matthew Dols 48:40
one that did the great West and the Native Americans and all that, yes. Okay. Okay, well, then I know what you’re talking

Anne Kelly 48:46
and Kate was visiting it for really the same reason they were both frustrated with the one dimensionality of the photographic print. And someday you’ll have to come to Santa Fe, and I’ll show you one in the gallery, because they are on our website. But seeing them in person is a whole different aspect to them.

Matthew Dols 49:10
Oh, yeah. Almost all photography is. I’m sad to say that I’ve never made it to Santa Fe and my all my travels, but it is sort of on my bucket list of places to go.

Anne Kelly 49:20
Well, I would also like to come visit Prague. So

Matthew Dols 49:24
I’m here we just moved into a new apartment. We have space you’re welcome to come.

Anne Kelly 49:28
Alright, well, I’ll bring one of the keys.

Matthew Dols 49:32
Fabulous. Okay, you mentioned a little bit before about like people questioning whether digital prints were you know, like our digital prints like worth the money and all this kind of stuff. And of course, you know, going back to like my training and stuff, archival materials, are they still as important like do because like, there’s this sort of a trend you know, like with like, a lot of alternative artists out there using non archival material. intentionally? Is that something people still inquire about? And or is it important to the collectors?

Anne Kelly 50:08
They do ask about that. And digital prints? Well, when it comes to color work, color digital prints are certainly more archival and more stable than your traditional see prints. When it comes to black and white work. Of course, you’re, well, maybe not everybody knows this, but your your Platinum print is going to be the most stable of the types of prints that are out there. But overall, any any digital print is going to be stable and Outlast most of us. Yeah, so it’s still a consideration. But sometimes there’s that that fun aspect of the work where maybe somebody is making cyanotypes. And they’re not fully fixing them so that they do change over time. And going back to my love of unique prints. That’s that’s something I’m definitely into. But not not everybody is going to be comfortable purchasing something like that. All right.

Matthew Dols 51:11
We sort of touched on this a little bit, but like technologies and how it’s affected you like it was so you all started before the as far as I can tell sort of like, around the same time the internet was even existing, like the beginning. So like, how has the internet? Specifically, I’m guessing sort of asking about like social media effected the the market from your standpoint, like, is it? Is it better because of social media? Or is it becoming more difficult because of social media?

Anne Kelly 51:48
Well, technology has always been kind of an important part of photo, why we actually had a shopping cart on our website as early as 1996. So in terms of a lot of galleries these days, kind of needing to speed up their digital presence, just because everything that’s going on in the world, that that’s been helpful, that that’s something we’re already doing. And in terms of social media, I don’t think it’s affected us in any sort of negative way. It’s just kind of an extra way to to get the information out there. I believe. And I know you’re not you’re not super into social media, I’ve watched some of the other shows. And and you’ve definitely I think you’re wanting me to say,

Matthew Dols 52:41
No, I’m not wanting you to say anything. I’m just asking because like, it’s Yeah, I’m just a bit. I think I’m, like one generation too old to be able to understand how to use it effectively. And so like, I’m always sort of wondering, like, how are people doing it? How are they using it? Well, because God knows I cannot seem to use it well, and so I’m sort of looking for some advice, like, what are you doing that works on social media? Cuz I can’t make it work?

Anne Kelly 53:10
I think it’s a consistency thing. Really?

Matthew Dols 53:14
Yeah, I’m not consistent.

Anne Kelly 53:16
Yeah, I think Yeah, consistency and, and engaging with the people that you’re communicating with on there. Of course, if you’re starting a brand new Instagram page or something like that, it just really takes a while to, to get it going. And of course, when you start it and you post something, maybe you’re lucky if anybody likes it, but kind of once you get enough followers, the more followers you have, the more followers you build up. And I think if people can expect that you’re going to post something at a certain time of day. That type of thing is all very helpful. I’m so bad at that. It’s a commitment. I mean, it’s a whole other commitment. Like like the show you’re making if you were not committed to scheduling the time to talk to people, and when you were going to do that, and when you’re going to edit if you weren’t doing all of those things, you wouldn’t be able to pull this off. So I think it’s kind of the same thing.

Matthew Dols 54:18
Yeah, but I don’t do with any amount of consistency. That’s the thing, because like I would the way I would do these, these podcasts is I am because everybody’s all around the world. I can’t say like, Oh, I’m recording from nine to 12 on Tuesdays. Are you available at that time because of course people are in different time zones. And then I often will do like a bunch of conversations like in two weeks, and then I won’t do any for two weeks. So like I sort of batch my recordings and then take some time off and then batch my recordings take some time off. Because to a certain extent, it’s really interesting because I find that taking a little bit of time off allows me to reflect on Some of the things that people have said, because if you know if I’m if I’m just going in conversation to conferences conversation, I don’t stop and like sort of say like, oh, okay, wait, what they said that was something I could do in my own career until they having that time to reflect, actually I find to be very beneficial, because it makes it so that next time I come to do some conversations that I, I have integrated that in the previous information better so that I can then say, like, okay, I learned this thing. So now what what can I learn on top of that thing?

Anne Kelly 55:34
Absolutely. But in terms of, I can expect that next week, there’s going to be two episodes, therefore, I’m going to look and see what those episodes are. And I think it’s kind of the same thing with social media, as well.

Matthew Dols 55:52
Yeah, now, I just got to step up.

Anne Kelly 55:55
I mean, you know, you don’t have to think it’s gonna kill you not to do it. And you’ve also kind of got to want to do it or have a good reason to feel like it’s important.

Matthew Dols 56:07
Yeah, it’s really interesting, because like, I find that, that there is zero correlation between my activity on social media, and the amount of listeners I get in any given day. Like, there are days where I will, I will post, you know, two stories and a thing on Instagram and a thing on Facebook, and I’ll have no marketable difference in the amount of people listening. And then one day, I will like it, and then I won’t do anything on any social media for like three or four days. And suddenly, there’ll be 1000s of listens, like for no reason.

Anne Kelly 56:46
So you had Lou Mitchell on your show, recently, and I follow him on social media. So I saw that he was on the show, did you happen to follow any of his posts and see any correlations between views and his posts? I’m just wondering from the perspective of having the guest.

Matthew Dols 57:09
Yeah, I, I, I do every now. And then I’ll be like, okay, you know, what I need to do I need to get somebody who has lots of followers on Instagram, and then I can like, talk with them. And then when I post an Instagram, then they they’ll repost it on there. So they’ll put it in their stories or whatever. And that will then drop off. Nope, no marketable increase? No, no, it’s really surprising. Like, I just don’t get it. I feel like, I feel like like the early adopters, the the the system, the algorithm, the whatever was really clear and obvious sort of how you could connect with people, and how could you use hashtags and, and how you can tag people and like, and people really were sort of engaging in that way. And I don’t feel like it’s as that maybe it’s the algorithm, that’s the change in the algorithm has done it, but they’re not as sort of like, Hey, I like blue Mitchell. And he’s on this podcast, I probably would like this podcast. And so then they listen, like, it just doesn’t come out that way. And I don’t know why.

Anne Kelly 58:11
And it’s, it’s kind of forever changing, as well. I mean, you hear about on Facebook, maybe just for whatever algorithm reason, they stopped showing me your posts or vice versa. So I’m, I’m not an expert on the subject. But

Matthew Dols 58:30
I was looking to you as an expert, you’re so you’re not? Well,

Anne Kelly 58:32
I’m gonna say consistency and engagement is, is where I found the most success.

Matthew Dols 58:38
Fair enough. Alright. So to wrap this up, I have two questions. One’s a new one. So if you’ve listened, you haven’t heard this before. I would like to know three artists that you admire and or believe deserve, should, should be getting more recognition and why.

Anne Kelly 58:58
So the first artist I’m going to mention is Edward Bateman. And he’s somebody we just started working with this year. And he’s a professor in Salt Lake City, Utah. And he is just mind blowingly creative. One example I will give is an exhibition that we featured as part of an online show this year. So basically, he had always wanted to go to your somebody, and he had never been and couldn’t go during the pandemic. So he went online and research yo somebody. He has a 3d printer. So he 3d printed your psalmody and he’s been photographing it from his kitchen table during the pandemic. And they are just amazing. At one point he decided he wanted to make a solar wreck. clips. So he went out and got some LED bulbs and and he’s just always up to something amazing. He’s also done a lot of work where he’s used old cabinet cards and found photography and incorporated robots. So he’s, he’s really just a joy to work with. But everything he creates, just kind of blows my mind, I have to say, so he’s definitely the first person that comes to my mind.

Matthew Dols 1:00:33
I totally understand why.

Anne Kelly 1:00:35
And then Christopher COBOL, I wouldn’t say that he’s, he’s pretty well known, but I feel like he could be even more well known. I don’t know if you know his work. But a lot of his work is cameraless. And he exposes silver gelatin paper with gunpowder. So more specifically, he lives in Arizona, he’ll go out into the desert, and he’ll place the silver gelatin paper on the desert ground and the process of igniting it actually makes the exposure. So it’s a combination of the way that the heat is interacting with the chemical. It’s also exposing the paper as well. And they’re they’re just amazing. So talking about creating one of a kind works, there’s there’s no way to really recreate those works, either. Absolutely.

Matthew Dols 1:01:36
I just noticed also, I was flicking through your website again that you actually represent Linda Connor, my professor at San Francisco Art Institute. We do Yes. She didn’t like me. But it’s fine.

Anne Kelly 1:01:48
Well, I bet she would now.

Matthew Dols 1:01:53
I should reach out to her actually. But I’ve spoken about her in the past. She She Yep. I spoke about her in the past. She doesn’t like me.

Anne Kelly 1:02:04
Well, I think it’s tough to as a young student in art school, you go in with specific, I don’t know, a specific way of working and then all of a sudden, you’re the professor show up with all these rules. And and I mean, I definitely had butted heads with some professors in art school. Who told me Oh, you can’t do that.

Matthew Dols 1:02:30
Oh, but Well, I mean, and I was such an arrogant little shit. When I was a kid. And I, I there’s one that I’ve talked about on the past. But Frank Turner from the Corcoran, he constantly railed means like, you shouldn’t be using text with your images. It’s a crutch, you should put more work into making the images more expressive instead of relying on the text. And I kept telling you, me, No, fuck you. This is the way I want to do it. Blah, blah, blah. And 10 years later, I was teaching somewhere and a student turned in some work with image and text. And I literally heard myself say, you shouldn’t use image and text. It’s a crutch. It’s literally I was speaking Frank’s words to my student. And so the next chance I had when I saw him, I apologized greatly to him for that because he was right.

Anne Kelly 1:03:17
Well, it’s funny how all of that happens. And my specific memory from my freshman year of art school is I think I wanted to pursue a project that included both van dikes and cyanotypes. And this teacher told me I could not do that I had to pick one or the other. And now I find myself later kind of explaining to photographers, similar things or or that okay, you can do both of these things. But they’re different bodies of work and you have to put them in, in different boxes. But

Matthew Dols 1:03:51
you can put them on top of each other. Yes, Van Dyck Brown with a cyanotype. They can be printed together.

Anne Kelly 1:03:57
Oh, yes. Yes. Definitely. Just not on separate pieces of paper.

Matthew Dols 1:04:01
No, yeah, a series of a single cohesive series is not cohesive if you mix those two mediums.

Anne Kelly 1:04:08
Yes, yes. And I did not want to hear that. Well, that’s all part of the part of the process.

Matthew Dols 1:04:18
It’s amazed sometimes I it amazes me that my like, I didn’t get kicked out of some of these schools from the shit that I pulled with them, but anyways, alright, third person.

Anne Kelly 1:04:30
I’m gonna go with the NASA Marsh, who is a San Francisco based artist, and all of her techniques are just really unique. Most recently, she’s been working with lumen prints. And they’re kind of photograms. But not exactly so she had created these landscapes out of cut paper and wood. make multiple exposures using the different pieces of cut landscapes as kind of the photogram elements on silver gelatin paper, and where the lumen printing comes in, for those who aren’t familiar, is should be using gold toner as the fixer, so it’s silver gelatin paper. But the end result, in her case is actually kind of a variety of pinks and oranges, and just this very different color palette than you’re going to get typically, with silver gelatin.

Matthew Dols 1:05:38
Yeah, one of my previous guests, Amanda marshawn, is actually she does lumen prints as well.

Anne Kelly 1:05:43
And the other thing that’s really interesting with those I want to add is, is depending on where you’re making them, you’re gonna get completely different results. We had one of our artists fly out from New York, back when you could fly with old toner in her suitcase, somehow she made it because she just wanted to know what the lumen prints would look like, in Santa Fe versus New York?

Matthew Dols 1:06:10
Oh, yeah, it’s very different. I ran into that, because I learned how to do lumen prints in I think, San Francisco. And then I was in Ohio, and I was trying to teach it to my students. And like the results were completely different colors were different than ever even those the exact same process, exact same materials, the the, the quality of the light, something about the difference, like of the longitude or latitude, I’m always really bad, which one’s the higher towards the north pole. I think it’s latitude, I don’t know, higher towards the north pole. Like you get very different results. Because I also tried to again, do it in the United Arab Emirates, in you know, near the equator and colors were completely different. Because of the intensity of the light and the UV, I don’t even know why. All kinds of reason, crazy chemical processes.

Anne Kelly 1:07:04
I love all those types of things. So going back to the one of a kind prints and all that’s definitely something I am into.

Matthew Dols 1:07:14
Love it. Alright, last thing, advice. Any advice for the young artists out there that are desiring gallery representation, things they should do or things they should not do in trying to achieve gallery representation.

Anne Kelly 1:07:31
In terms of subject matter, I have been asked by artists, is there something I should photograph or should not photograph because it will be more commercially successful and just that idea that concept, you should just throw in the trash, you’ve got to create what you’re driven to create. And in doing it any other way, I just don’t think you’re going to be successful. And some of the best advice I’ve ever been given just in terms of creating art is is just working harder than anybody else is, is going to take you a long way. You can’t expect to just go out and make some pictures and and make a career out of that you got to keep you got to keep doing it. And then in terms of approaching galleries, the simplest way I have come up with to explain it is because I think there’s a lot of mystery to that. And just how do you even do this, so people do crazy things. So I always advise of consider it. Like you’re trying to get a job. Right. So if you want to get a job at the bank, you don’t just go storm, the bank manager’s office and demand an interview on the spot. And and and sometimes that does happen in the gallery because my office is in the middle of the gallery. So people sometimes would just show up when I’m eating lunch and start pulling out prints. So if you want to show your work, do you photo why, for example, if you go hunt through the website a little bit, there’s a little button and it says submissions. And if you click on that little button that tells you everything you need to know so that’s where I kind of parallel it to getting a job. There’s usually some sort of strategy and some galleries websites I found that said you know, maybe they only look at work and March or but most most have rules and most have some sort of information. Their

Matthew Dols 1:09:38
first rule of getting a gallery is follow the rules.

Anne Kelly 1:09:42
Well, you know, that sounds like really boring advice. But another thing to really consider is if I’m entering a relationship with an artist, it’s a long term relationship. It’s not just a one time thing. So I need to trust that if, and this all sounds so boring, but it’s all part of it. If I’ve asked you to fax me some prints on Wednesday, and I don’t trust you’re gonna do that that’s, that’s gonna be a problem or I’ve heard of artists who have entered juried shows. And maybe there’s some specific rule like you have to hang the frame on a wire at so and so height, and they don’t do it. And guess what, they don’t hang their work on the wall. So you don’t want to get thrown out of the show, you know, you you’ve done the work, you’ve made the work, you’ve got accepted. You printed, framed, shipped the work all that’s a lot of work. So to get thrown out for something like that. That’s terrible. And I’ve really never been one to color on the lines or draw straight lines when they told me to in art school, but a lot of the gallery interactions, it’s it’s business, it is a business. So important.

Matthew Dols 1:11:12
Wait, one last thing? I have a question. Okay, so let’s take, let’s say like the unique print thing. These days, I’m making sort of like unique artworks, I don’t even know how to explain what I do. But anyways, I find that it’s very difficult to submit for with unique artworks, because oftentimes, there’s texture or depth or things that like sort of, it doesn’t represent well in a single image of a thing. So like, when you’re receiving works, do you I didn’t look at your submission thing. So like, do you say like 10? Like no more than 10? Or like, what’s your criteria?

Anne Kelly 1:11:49
You can submit as many images as you’d like to, but usually there’s, I think 25 per submission. Literally, it would be different images.

Matthew Dols 1:12:03
Well, the question is, though, like, is it legitimate these days to like submit, like a, you know, a shot of the entire image, and then like, some details to show some of these sort of unique qualities about the thing.

Anne Kelly 1:12:15
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily common and that everybody does that. But if, for example, someone did that, and they had a reason such as that to be doing that, I would be, I would be open to that. I think it it makes sense. Kind of like I was talking about Kate’s or atones. If you just look at the JPEGs online, you, you don’t fully get it.

Matthew Dols 1:12:40
To a certain extent, I really wish like submission people would like allow for like short videos, so that even just like so that I could just turn the print so that like, you could just see how it looks when it’s sort of seen it from different lights or different angles. I look forward to that being included in submission opportunities.

Anne Kelly 1:12:58
Right. And I egg, I can’t speak for everybody. But if if someone had a reason like that, but it was not just a straight digital print, and it required extra images to get the idea I would be I would be receptive to that.

Matthew Dols 1:13:14
Okay, good, I feel better. Because I’ve always been scared about submitting my newest works. I’m like, Fuck, I don’t know what I can how I can do this because a single image doesn’t express it.

Anne Kelly 1:13:24
That can definitely be tricky. And that can also be tricky, too. If you’re, for example, showing in multiple galleries, and there’s only one just in terms of, you know, if I have a piece that’s on our website, and maybe some of the other websites we sell on, I need to be sure that that it’s available, you know that the other gallery didn’t sell it or something like that. So, again, boring, boring advice, but

Matthew Dols 1:13:54
it’s not important advice.

Anne Kelly 1:13:57
It’s important, but it doesn’t sound very exciting. So

Matthew Dols 1:14:00
okay, any last topics that we didn’t touch that you want to talk about or things that you want to flesh out that I didn’t give you a chance to expand on?

Anne Kelly 1:14:10
Well, I would like to mention that photo eye has been doing some pretty amazing online exhibitions. In this past year, we really haven’t been doing physical exhibitions. It doesn’t make sense. And, and a lot of people have been doing that. But what does that even mean online exhibition. So what we’ve been doing is one of the other arms of photo II is this website creation tool called visual server, which Rickson also invented. And there’s a new version of visual server that’s currently in beta its visual server acts. So we’re using one of the templates from visual server acts for these online exhibitions and all of the images can be seen And 3k. And you can actually zoom into the images to see little details a little better. So, particularly since everybody’s all over the world, these exhibitions are definitely worth looking at. We did one earlier this year with Mark Club, which was in honor of his retrospective book, there’s about 100 images in that particular exhibition that exceeds an exhibition that we could have actually installed in the space. There’s an Edward Bateman exhibition. And by the time this airs, there’ll be a new one with Richard Tishman up. So in terms of you were asking about just kind of digital format and getting the work out there that that has been our strategy this year.

Matthew Dols 1:15:52
And has it worked? I mean, obviously, it’s not going to like literally replace the the physical exhibitions, but like, has it done a decent job for you all?

Anne Kelly 1:16:03
It has, it definitely has. And then we’ve also paired that with our photo eye conversations series. So if you go to the photo lab blog and type in photo eye conversations, you can find a number of those. Both the Mark clut exhibition and the Edward Bateman exhibition, we actually are the artist and I collaborated on virtual walkthroughs of online exhibitions. So this is not something you would have seen in past years. But I think Mark and I spent a good hour and a half walking through his entire online exhibition, virtually.

Matthew Dols 1:16:51
And as the gallery director, did you find it to be sort of like the utilizing these new technologies, even though there are technologies your company created? But like utilizing these new technologies? Was it? Did it save you all time, like silly in the long run? like did you spend less time than you would physically installing way and or money for that matter, than doing a physical exhibition,

Anne Kelly 1:17:16
you can definitely put together an online exhibition a little bit faster, and that there’s no, you don’t have to worry about shipping and framing or how, you know, maybe we wouldn’t have been able to show 70 by at peace. Because we didn’t have the space for it, when you’re looking at online, it really doesn’t matter, you don’t have to worry about those details. In terms of the programming, Rickson actually designed a whole new template specifically for the online exhibitions. So there, there was a lot of work that went into that, we still have plenty of things to do. It’s just a different way of going about it.

Matthew Dols 1:17:58
Okay, last little bit, I swear I keep saying last question last. Because you brought up this new technology kind of stuff. In your head, I’m not really asking you to prognosticate the future. But like, as your experiences of doing both like brick and mortar exhibitions will probably continue once everything is opened up again. Do you foresee still continuing to do these virtual exhibitions also? Or are they are you going to stop planning to stop doing those once you have brick and mortar ability,

Anne Kelly 1:18:29
hard to say but but I, as of today, I believe will probably continue to do both. On a certain level, the technology and the websites always been a big part of what we do to begin with. So I think just this strange year, we’ve all had have just kind of pushed us to be a little Yeah, however long it’s been going on, has pushed us to be a little more creative. And just think of different ways that we can reach our audience. And a lot of our audience is actually outside of Santa Fe. So having the online exhibitions and the talks on zoom will be helpful. I think moving forward, even when we can resume business as usual, or whatever, that’s going to be more

Matthew Dols 1:19:22
true. Okay, well, thank you very much for your time.

Anne Kelly 1:19:26
Hello, you’re welcome. Nice to meet

Matthew Dols 1:19:29
you too. Hopefully, you’ll come to Prague and you’ll bring that print with you so I can see what this or atone process truly looks like in reality.

Anne Kelly 1:19:38
I’ve got to add just because I love them. They look different in different light sources. You can you can lower the lights and that any ambient light in the room will just bounce off that gold. So that’s one thing that is missing in the online exhibitions.

Matthew Dols 1:19:57
Again, video submissions to this one I’m talking about got to be able to do these kinds of things to show people how things can look different in different situations.

Anne Kelly 1:20:07
I think it’s important

Matthew Dols 1:20:09
in the future,

Anne Kelly 1:20:10
yes, in the future.

Matthew Dols 1:20:14
I enjoy making these podcasts and having all these great conversations. I hope you’re enjoying them as much as I do. If you enjoy and appreciate the podcast, please give us a five star rating and a nice comment would also be greatly appreciated. Please tell your friends to listen to them subscribe. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if there’s a professional person in the arts industry, any level of the arts industry, I don’t care if they’re institutional museum curators, or if they’re your local gallerist or artists. If you would like me to have a conversation with them, please send me a message through Instagram and I’ll do my best to get them as a guest on the podcast. Additionally, if you have any questions, but specific questions, not vague, open ended interpretive questions for future guests. Send them to me and I will be happy to ask them on your behalf. Please be sure to follow us on Instagram and tell your friends about us as well. We will be starting a newsletter in the near future which will keep you updated with our future plans, our future guests and everything else that we’re going to be doing associated with the podcast. Please sign up at our website wise fool pod.com. And whatever you’re doing right now be sure to have fun

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com