Steve Beck-von-Peccoz wrote
this paper on December 4, 1999:
Comments,
Thoughts, and Suggestions
concerning the relationship between
the Artists Guild
and the San Diego Museum of Art
"The following thoughts
are presented to recent talks between Don Bacigalupi, director of
the San Diego Museum of Art, and Artists Guild board members Linda
Drake, Stephanie Goldman, and Donna Baird. Most of these thoughts
have been accumulating over my many years in the Artists Guild,
and during several years until now serving as Database manager o
the board.
My viewpoint is strongly colored
by recent difficulties I have had doing my job as Database manager,
because of the refusal of museum staff member Sara Bush to cooperate
with us in maintaining our database, a valuable asset in attracting
entries to our All California exhibitions. The positive side of
this is that it provides clarity and realism to how we probably
are viewed by the museum staff all the way to the top: the museum
wants to get rid of us.
This is not new, although
in the recent past Steve Brezzo, and to some extent the Trustees,
really did seem to support us. We have had some guild presidents
who really stuck up for the guild. It seemed surprising, in fact,
that the museum was willing to foot essentially the entire bill
for our All-California shows in exchange for only half of our proceeds.
Recently, though, we have been pushed into and have backed into
an increasingly obsequious position, most recently deciding to use
funds to buy a high-level membership in the museum so that our president
can hobnob with the trustees and presumably enhance our standing
in the museum. It seems not to have worked.
Another thing which had strongly
affected my attitude is the recent letter to the San Diego Union
signed by Don Bacigalupi, our director, and Hugh Davies, the director
of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, as well as others,
supporting the proposed Nancy Rubins sculpture over Harbor Drive,
considered by most San Diegans, including me, to be ugly and conceptually
trivial. More important, though, is the arrogance and hubris of
these arts elites looking down on the citizens of San Diego and
castigating them for being uncultured and small-minded. It's as
though the elites believe any art is better than no art, or fame
is more important than the quality of the work. I have seen some
of the latter attitude in the guild itself, where some of us place
more importance on an applicant's exhibition record than on his/her
work. My inclination to renew my membership in either of the two
museums, especially ours, in which the same arrogance and disrespect
seems to reach down to the working level, is waning every day. In
doing some public art myself, I have always respected the feelings
and opinions of the community. It would seem that such respect would
be even more important to a museum and its director and entire staff.
At least they should respect their own members.
Nevertheless, having made
friends here and worked quite hard, as many other board members
have, I really care about the Artists Guild, or at least about many
of its members as human beings and committed, passionate artists,
so I will list a few thoughts which I hope might be helpful in some
way.
Over many years, I have heard
two main reasons why the Artists Guild is a problem and a potential
embarrassment to the museum:
1. The Artists Guild is not
representative of the most renowned artists, even though many of
us are very good. Many well-known artists in San Diego have never
joined the Guild or were once members but have left us. The museum
feels that if they show local or regional artists, their staff should
decide whom to show.
2. The costs of mounting the
Artists Guild shows are far in excess of the proceeds, and other
shows, in their opinion, would be more important to the general
museum membership and the community at large, especially since renowned
artists just don't enter shows.
And currently:
1. Don Bacigalupi has stated
that the museum won't have any space for us to show, almost certainly
not for our guild show, and probably not for the All California
show. This is probably the death to the guild in most members' eyes.
2. The 'Artists Guild Presents'
program is a great achievement. We should find out if the museum
will still display our works under this program, and if yes, we
should press for at least one work to be on display at all times,
not bunch them together at once to get it over with.
3. Do Bacigalupi has stated
that the Artists Guild, as a committee, should be self-supporting,
and that this has something to do with the non-profit status of
the museum and the museum's accreditation. Assuming we want to stay
with the museum, we should recognize, and get the museum to recognize,
that we are not like other committees. We shouldn't be expected
to support ourselves, and until now we were not expected to. Maybe
the monetary prizes we award ourselves and other artists, and whatever
other benefits we receive, really do create tax problems for the
museum, because we are part of the museum. Ironically, neither the
$55 level dues we pay to the museum or the $25 Artists Guild dues,
are tax-deductible, whereas the lowest level dues a the Museum of
Contemporary Art, San Diego are fully tax-deductible. This enters
my mind whenever it is time to renew my SDMA or guild membership
fees, in our case 150 members times $55, or $8,250, when considering
how much we support the museum.
4. I believe the museum benefits
financially, in the form of increased grants, from volunteer hours
we put in, and perhaps we could be credited with the value of those,
too. But it's a bit dubious, because the hours we put in are more
for our benefit than the museum's. At least that's the adversarial
way in which the museum seems to be thinking these days.
5. We have relied heavily
on the fact that the Artists Guild was a co-founder of SDMA. But
after all these years, so what? It's time we stopped making an issue
of that, except for historical purposes.
When all is said and done,
the Artists Guild needs the museum much more than the museum needs
us.
Or do we? When we consider
the energy we have spent over many years trying to make the museum
want us, or at least pretend to want us, perhaps we would be better
off just getting a clean 'divorce.'
How much has membership in
the Artists Guild actually affected our lives or careers? Probably
not much. To my knowledge, very few, if any, of us in the Artists
Guild depend on art for a livelihood, and being a member in the
Artist Guild is certainly not indispensable even for those who might.
It would make more sense for
us to be associated with the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
than with the SDMA, since we are contemporary artists. On the other
hand, most of our artists work in a traditional manner, and from
that standpoint, maybe it makes more sense to be where we are. Also,
the museum probably has no place for us, anyway.
Bacigalupi's idea of easing
us over into the San Diego Art Institute is interesting to me: I
have long thought that might make more sense for us to be associated
with or be members of the San Diego Art Institute. They have a good
exhibition space, their outreach into the community had been more
extensive than ours, and they have their own fund-raising mechanisms.
At the museum we can't raise funds in our own too well because we
would be competitors of our parent for funds, another reason why
the museum would want to be rid of us. The Art Institute had some
terrible political and survival problems for a while, but they seemed
to be more stable now. Also, they have paid employees to handle
their finances and database, although the latter had gone through
some gyrations.
Many artists, including even
some in the Art Institute, think the Artists Guild is 'better' than
the Art Institute. But what material effect does being in the Artists
Guild really have? Even if it 'looks good' on your résumé,
does it really matter? Probably not as much as being in one commercial
gallery.
One of the best parts about
being in the Artists Guild, to me, is associating with other people
who happen to be artists. But we rarely have time to associate with
each other at guild functions. I have enjoyed working for the guild
on the database because it has been a good exercise for my mind
and given me a chance to contribute to the guild and work with other
board members. But our social gatherings are very few, and the feeling
that we constantly have to justify ourselves to the museum really
takes the fun out of it. If we were independent we might enjoy life
a lot more.
Dottie Stanley has recently
mentioned the possibility of our being attached to a major university
art gallery that is funded and will be created. This is certainly
something we could explore. But one wonders why the university would
want us attached to them. The same problems could occur as with
the museum, judging by the exhibition schedules of UCSD and San
Diego State university galleries. They tend to go for the famous
artists, too, or sometimes show their own faculty, students, or
alumni. How could we fit in?
What about becoming completely
independent? Maybe we could even become a tax-exempt organization
and do our own fundraising. I personally would have no interest
in this, because I see no reason for artists to be a charity, but
the Art Institute apparently does okay with it. Doing it as a separate
organization could distract us from making art more than our ongoing
struggles with the museum. And to be tax-exempt, we would probably
have to do things for the community, which would be another distraction.
Suppose we did decide to just
have our own, independent organization. Here are a few ideas about
that:
• Could we, should we,
retain the 'Artists Guild' name? Would this require a legal agreement
between us and SDMA?
• If we were no longer
members of SDMA, we could pay the total of our $55 SDMA dues and
$25 Artists Guild dues each year (already not tax-deductible) to
our new organization. At $80 total per person and 150 members (assuming
all would switch, an unlikely case), that would give us $12,000
per year.
• We would probably have
to get some legal and accounting help to avoid getting in trouble
with the IRS, but if we weren't tax-exempt, it would not be as complicated
as if we were.
• We would need someone
to handle our database. Evidently, we don't have this ability among
our membership, or at least no one willing to do it. I have enjoyed
doing it, but I've done it long enough for free and I wouldn't want
to do it even for pay. On the other hand, we probably wouldn't have
the wherewithal to have an All California show, so wouldn't need
a database, and just about anyone with a computer could handle our
own membership list.
• W should have a newsletter
and publish an annual or semi-annual roster. These are important
for a sense of community with other members.
• And we should have
get-togethers, probably at least twice or four times a year.
• If we had our own organization,
or even if we don't (if the museum would let us), we should have
our own Web Site, and it should be possible to deliver prospectuses
via e-mail and automate acceptance notification, so that an artist
doesn't have to fill out notification cards in addition to his/her
entry forms, and to make our own administrative processes more efficient.
• Our Web Site could
provide the opportunity for every member to display his/her art
and résumé, with contact addresses including e-mail
address and links to the artist's own Web site, if he/she has one
(some already do).
• The new organization
could have a membership category for neophyte, fledgling, emerging
or whatever you call them, artists. No credentials would be required.
Along with this there could be some kind of protégé
program, some way to advance to a more distinguished level, etc.
• Where would we show?
Places like the San Diego Rep, maybe the San Diego Art Institute,
maybe commercial galleries. This is probably the biggest thing to
most guild members. But since SDMA has pretty much told us that
our show ride is over, we must address this problem no matter what.
What a lot of trouble it would save, especially for the hardworking
board members, if we didn't have any shows at all! But that is not
how the guild is.
The more I think about it,
the more hooking up with the Art Institute makes sense for some
of us, maybe many of us.
The large majority of us will
probably do just fine even if the Artists Guild ceases to exist.
The saddest part for me would be missing the chance to get together
with other artists once a month at board meetings, and better yet
at our infrequent, larger social gatherings. The board meetings
have ceased to be enjoyable because it feels as though we're hanging
on the gunwales of a lifeboat while the museum stomps on our hands.
But luckily, Like Nancy Rubins' boats, we're not even in the water.
We're not even 100 feet above the ground, where boats and people
don't belong. We're right here on the ground, and we can just let
go.
It won't be a catastrophe
if the Artists Guild is no more. Anyone who needs the Artists Guild
for career advancement reasons shouldn't be in the guild anyway,
because our entrance requirements demand that an artist's career
already be pretty far advanced.
Let's have a joyous holiday
season and a happy 2000, whether we believe that it's the first
or last year of a millennium or of our organization!
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