The Gallery Date: Episode 5 - Back To School with Jenn & Tonic

SHOW NOTES

Welcome to The Gallery Date, a weekly date with Jenn Singer to chat about art and life and perhaps the art of life, all in bite sized, not-at-all fancy, but definitely savory episode nuggets!

It's back to school time, which Jenn Singer is super excited about! Clearly her inner nerd is revealed this week, along with:

  • One of Jenn's favorite questions from her recent Art Frankly feature

  • A rapid fire round complete with Jenn's Gin & Tonic recipe, a prerequisite for life in the UK

  • And a very boozy Crazy Art World News story

Links to the stories & products mentioned:


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You can email your questions for Jenn to gallerydate@jennsingergallery.com.

Instagram/Facebook: @jennsingergallery
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Twitter: @jennsingernyc

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to The Gallery Date. I'm Jenn Singer, founder of Jenn Singer Gallery. Thanks for joining me for our weekly date to chat about art and life and perhaps the art of life all in bite-sized, not at all fancy, but definitely savory episode nuggets. Let's mingle my friends.

Don't forget to press record Jenn.

Hey there, thank you so much for joining me today for our Gallery Date. I am so happy to see you! And can I just say you look great.

You know, it's back to school time and I don't think I've ever been happier for the summer to end, and I don't even have a kid in proper school yet. Honestly. I love the summer and summer break but 1. I didn't take a proper vacation this summer and 2. it seems like EVERYONE else in the world did and I'm like hello! Let's get back to work people! I know. I know. I'm a crazy person who loves to work. Don't get me wrong. I love laying on the beach in Greece swimming in the sea and unplugging. Yes. Yes. Yes. But this year with just not the year for me to do that. I spent my Summer learning planning building and creating and it's so it really really felt so good. I really needed that and it didn't hurt that the British summer was actually summery. I live in the English Countryside so things are pretty chill when I'm not working, but I've been thinking about it and I was so productive and it was such a therapeutic summer for me despite the lack of Seaside adventures and I saw everyone's amazing pictures from all over the world where they were traveling, it looked incredible, but I don't have FOMO I make a mean Greek salad and I have a vivid imagination so that helps anyway, okay. I'm so excited to sharpen my pencils and officially welcome everyone back to work and school. Yay. Now, let's do some amazing things with the rest of this year.

Why not?!

"Don't you just love New York in the Fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of freshly sharp and pencils if I knew your name and address."

Okay that last part sounds creepy people, but it was Tom Hanks and 1999 and they were chatting anonymously via AOL. Things were just different back then.

Okay. Our first question actually comes from Art Frankly who interviewed me for their blog earlier this year. It was such a fun question and I thought I'd share it with you all and expand upon it from the interview. If you don't know Art Frankly, they're free network of over 25,000 art professionals. You can post available jobs available spaces residency programs and grant opportunities for artists. So it's worth checking out. And by the way, they have no idea I'm talking about them on this podcast. I just really like their genuinely lovely team and appreciate their support. So I'm sharing the love.

Now back to their question. What was the most important thing you learned at your first job in the Arts? Well to answer this question I have to start with my first paid job in the Arts in general which was many many years ago. I was in a Safeway commercial in the 1980s when I was a little girl. For those who don't know Safeway it's a major grocery store chain in the States. Truly the most important lesson and pretty much the only thing I remember from working this first job was that you can get paid doing something fun like the commercial which I thought was really cool and also there was Craft Services, which meant free food. All right, I was so young I probably didn't understand the free part, but there was so much food and I probably loved it because my mother is a terrible cook. Probably.

Anyway, so I went on to become a performing artists throughout my childhood, teens, 20s, and early 30s and when I found myself working in an art gallery in my 20s almost by accident, I was job sitting for someone and I felt at home immediately. I sold my first painting on that first day on the job and I got to watch I remember this specifically I really watched this couple fall in love with this painting and they were checking out and they connected with it and they loved it. They agreed both, you know, both people in the couple agreed and they bought it. I was so excited. It was about $8,500 and I was excited for them. But I was really really excited for the artist. I had no idea how much the artist made on that and it spurred that question - how much does the artist make? This was an important question for me to ask because in my experience as a dancer in New York City the path to becoming an artist and making a real living from one's art can be an expensive and tiresome struggle.

So later on in the day when the gallery owner came in, I asked him. I was like how much does the artist make? And he said 50% of the $8,500 sale and I was hooked! That was a great payday for them and I learned that this particular artist's work sold really well. This artist made a living doing what they love the most and that was my "why". I was just in awe of that because that wasn't really my experience in the past. So it wasn't my first job in the Arts but it was an important one that led me down the path that I'm still on today. The most important thing I learned on that first day of work in a gallery, my first job in the visual arts, was my "why". I sell art to help artists earn a living from doing what they love and I also have the added bonus of keeping myself connected to what I love. So it's a win-win.

So I forgot to press record again. Your reward for doing this episode is a gin & tonic. Now for some rapid-fire...Pichoo Pichoo Pichoo.

Okay. Next up is around a rapid fire questions. These are questions that have come in from different people that I think I can answer super quickly. So let's see because I'm not always known for my brevity. Thanks to everyone who sent these in and please keep them coming. You can DM your questions to me @jennsingergallery on Instagram and Facebook.

All right. Rapid fire question number one. Why did you move to the UK? Well, that's an easy one. First off. I was looking for new gallery space and found a British husband instead. Second, I was living in New York City and he was living in Florence Italy. So I thought, why not England?! And third the Brits love beer, meat and potatoes almost as much as me, so it was a pretty easy choice people.

Okay, next. Rapid fire question number two. What style of art do you like best? Oh gosh. Well, I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to the type of art I like. For me, it's not really a style of work that I'm drawn to but the feeling of work gives me when I see it. What it makes me think about and experience. Then I take a closer look at the overall body of work, as I mentioned in episode four. You've watched episode 4, haven't you? If not, go to thegallerydate.com to check it out after this episode, but if you take a look at jennsingergallery.com/artists you can see the artists I represent and perhaps see a pattern in what I'm drawn to, but it really just depends on the artwork itself. So there you go.

Okay getting through these. All right. Let's do rapid fire question number three: least favorite thing about working in art? Oh man, this one. I think it is the dodginess that the art world has thrived on. You know, a lot of old white guys helping a lot of old white guys make a lot of money and a lot of that has been by manipulating markets. So, you know, there's story after story of dealers manipulating auction sales, selling fakes, or not paying their artist commissions on sales and some of this is from major major galleries. It's not a flattering picture of the art world and it's definitely not the entire picture because there are a lot of really good honest art dealers out there, but it can be so dodgy and I just really steer clear of that, you know, malarkey and I stay true to my authenticity. So yeah, dodginess.

Okay. Rapid fire question number four: Ideal meal after Gallery Date? Oh easy! Steak frites and a Bordeaux. Followed by a cheese course and more Bordeaux and then a nip of whiskey - Scotch whiskey - before bed or whatever's next. Next!

Okay, rapid fire question number five: Have you learned how to make a proper G&T yet? Is this because I'm married to a Brit and I live in the UK? I'm pretty sure it is. Well, I, ugh, YES is the answer. My British husband wouldn't have it any other way, so I'll tell you how we make ours and I just happen to have some gin right here. So it's crucial to start with a proper G&T glass. Which is this nice tall drink of water here. It is filled with a massive amount of ice. So you have to really like go heavy on the ice - to be honest it used to be up to here, but I've been talking a lot so it shrunk down a bit, but I would really top this up with a massive amount of ice. Next, the lemon don't go shy with the lemon. I like to squeeze it right over the ice before pouring in the booze so I'm gonna do that. I have my cute little pink dish here.

Go with a massive wedge of lemon. Squeeze it over the ice people. Oh lemon going everywhere squeeze it over the ice. And then next you get your gin. Now I'm using this is what we like to drink - one of the gins we like in our house. It's Padstow Gin from Cornwall and we love it clearly. Hello.

So if it's a Tuesday make it a single, if it's a Friday, go ahead and make it a double.This happens to be a Friday that I'm shooting and I happen to be the only one in our household right now that doesn't have covid so I'm gonna make it a double people. All right, so let's get my trusty little measure. So that's the single and that's the double. Let's make it happen people. Exciting. Oh, just gonna struggle now. Oh what a fun sound! Alright so I'm gonna make it oh and pinky's important don't forget the pinky people. Don't forget pinky. So you pour that right over your lemony ice, yes you do and then you get your trusty tonic water, and you know Schweppes is a good choice and that's also a really nice sound. So refreshing. You just top it up people and then stir with a proper stir stick.

So you gotta stir desperately and ferociously people you gotta make it count. This is not James Bond. We are, you know, it's not a shaken, not stirred situation.You gotta to make it count. That's it.

Cheers! Oh that's good. Cheers to not having covid yet. I am an actual expert at this. That's a damn good gin & tonic I can tell you that.

Cheers y'all, I think I'm gonna take this with me to our next story which is crazy art world news. This is the headline. It's from the Metro News in the UK.

"Man who bought eBay sculpture after finishing a bottle of wine set to sell it with a 70,000 pound profit. Mm-hmm. So basically this Brit named Gareth Palmer had just finished off a bottle of wine by himself and I'm not judging I'm only jealous that he was able to stay awake after that. Anyway, he does a drunk scroll of eBay and finds a 14 foot sculpture listed. This is not just any sculpture. This is a sculpture by Scottish artist Malcolm Robertson called Twisting by the Pool. So Gareth naturally starts bidding and

the price keeps going up, but he keeps bidding and it keeps going up and the price is approaching nearly 20,000 pounds when good old Gareth realizes he's been accidentally bidding against himself the entire time. He says "the price kept going up and I thought I'd been outbid then I realized I was bidding against myself. I have two eBay accounts one o n my iPad and one on my phone. I eventually outbid myself and won it!"

Luckily for Gareth, I don't even know how this happens actually, but luckily for Gareth he realized the sculpture is worth more than the nearly 20,000 pounds he paid for it, plus 5,000 pounds to transport it and another 800 pounds for a police escort that a 14 foot sculpture requires, so it's going to auction.

Garrett aas listed it with Hansen's auctioneers in the UK and he thinks it could sell for around 100,000 pounds. Which if it does sell for this amount, I mean, I think it just actually makes him a stinkin wine drinkin genious, I mean, you know, so anyway cheers to you, Gareth. I hope you win the big one.

Okay, that's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning in to The Gallery Date. Join me for our Date every Wednesday for a bite-sized episode on thegallerydate.com.

Please subscribe, follow, rate, and review The Gallery Date on YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much again for joining me and I'll see you soon.

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