Tuesday's Story continued...Previously I had posted that I was going to break this interview down into two parts. I simply changed my mind. I updated the Part 1 post to represent that I have broken down the Ben Konop interview into 3 parts.
- Part 1 - Presents the gestation of Ben's love for art
- Part 2 - Specifically Art Assist.
- Part 3 - Will be posted Tuesday, October 3, 2007. Ben Konop's 'hunger' for a career in politics, and is Ben Konop in charge of the Mayor of Toledo?
Part 2 of 3
Lucas County Commissioner - Ben Konop
Specifically 'Art Assist'
There has been a lot said about about the Art Assist program promoted by Ben Konop. In my questions I focused specifically on the artist side of the equation. John Swaile wrote on Ben's blog, "...after expenses (including time, supplies, rent, taxes and utilities), a local artist would make less than 100 dollars from a 250 dollar sale. That's less than 20 hours of minimum wage work." I wanted to further John's point, by using the portrait My House I recently completed.
Paintings like My House take approximately 80 hours to produce. Suppose I charge $1,000 for this artwork. In my experience galleries charge the artist between 30-50% of the sale of artwork. I will use 40% gallery commission for this example.
$1,000 - artwork price
- 400 - 40% gallery charge
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$ 600 - goes to artist
150 - taxes
50 - supplies
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$ 450 - net for artist
/ 80 - hours (divided by)
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$ 5.63 an hour
Ben is well aware of the issues concerning the survival of artists, galleries, and how much they get paid in Lucas County and Toledo as a whole. Quoting from the Toledo Blade, Jim Zaleski, who owns the downtown Studio 6 and Diva Society galleries and also the Secor Studios, a building of 20 artist workshops... said "there’s another intrinsic problem with Toledo: It is not Chicago, New York City, Berlin, Paris, or another art world capital".
In questioning, I found Ben Konop recognized some of the short comings of Art Assist. Art Assist isn't going to solve everything. According to Ben, "Toledo should aim to become a destination for the arts. You bring in tourism, people from the surrounding communities... Artomatic is a start." He continued, "I think if you get the volume going, then you get a better rate of return." Using the example above, "on each painting you may be making $5.63 an hour, but if you sell 4 of them in a week you will be making $20 an hour then it makes sense. Have the traffic come in, and have Toledo be a beacon for the arts".
The geographic location of Toledo is within 8-12 hours of over 60% of the American population. Ben states, "We should be able to bring in people to buy art. Art Assist is only just a piece of the puzzle". The idea he presented is "... a focused art district. Something similar to High Street in the Short North district of Columbus [Ohio]. That is the way you then have a year-round 24/7 art scene where you don't have to rely on a festival. I think Adams Street has the best potential. There's a lot of store fronts, it's a good walking street, and there's already a couple restaurants in there". He continued, "There's some residences, it's centrally located to downtown, and it goes into the Old West End which has the potential and [is] almost an artist colony. I think Adams Street is the street. So the question is what incentives do you offer? There's discussions going on right now to make that potentially one of the focuses of the art community in Northwest Ohio".
Getting back to Art Assist Ben stressed the importance of looking at the figures and how to improve. Before we can get to any other program it would only make sense to look at the numbers Art Assist presents. If we give the program time to mature we will be able to adjust according to the economic environment and make each successive program even better.
Personally, I am not interested in another Toledo dead end. This might be the first step in our chance to revitalize Toledo. Mr. Konop related, "Toledo needs a place to start from if it hopes to build a base for a community that has been hit hard by the economic times". Art Assist can help, but it is one small piece of the overall pie.
Look, I want to make enough money so my artwork is most of my career, not just 'if I can get an art job'. I don't want to go to Chicago or anywhere else. I want make a living here, in Toledo. So why force me as an artist to move out of the Lucas County area so I can have some semblance of a life? Excuse me if I find it hard to be humble in my talents as a artist. See for yourself!
I've been lucky. The natural progression as an artist, as well as the local tastes in art have melded for me well. This progression has made me better, no doubt. So as a whole if we as artists work to educate not just Toledo, but Northwest Ohio in what it takes to produce fine art, in turn, they can better appreciate the time, effort, etc. to produce the art. Start now, build a base, talk about Art Assist!!
At my heart, in my soul, I am an artist. I love to paint! I would also like to have health insurance, a wife, and maybe a family.
- Is Art Assist perfection... No.
- Is is Art Assist a start? Yes.
- Is this hard? Wow, yeah!
- Do you have to believe? Yes.
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Part 3 or 3 will be posted Tuesday, October 3, 2007. Ben Konop discusses his 'hunger' for a career in politics, and is he in charge of the Mayor of Toledo?
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