First, let me apologize for being out of touch for so long.
Muse Gallery is alive and well, and continues to represent some of the best artists in the country. We are, like many businesses and groups of people, keeping a low profile, and are seeing a lot less visitors and people in our various locations. But as the weather cools and the COVID pandemic has drug on, more and more people are going back out, eating at restaurants, shopping, and inviting me into their homes.
I just returned from a trip to Chicago, where enthusiastic new collectors invited me into their home and took a leap of faith, purchasing Signe Stuart, Russell Whiting, Randall LaGro and Sol Halabi.
I ventured out of my own bubble into the Sarah Gormley Gallery, and purchased two pieces by the very talented Kyla Zoe Rafert. And the feeling was mutual - Sarah purchased pieces by the inimitable Signe Stuart. Community is everything. And as much as I’m an introvert, I have people and places I love to support. Places like Reed Arts, Brown Bag Deli, Hammond Harkins and Sarah Gormley Galleries, the Pizzuti Museum, Clay Cafe, Ohio Craft Museum, Scott Clayton (my chiropractor), G Michaels and many many other restaurants. The point is that we all need a community, people we enjoy seeing and patronizing, people we are close to and turn to in times of need, and people and places that can feed our souls.
Art feeds your soul. Too many people look at art as a way to decorate or fill a space, but what we really need to do is look at art as a way to fill a need. . . for conjuring up emotions, tapping into our most intimate and private feelings and memories, for connecting to a world we sometimes cannot fully explain with words. That world, what we want to say or remember or document, is not always pretty, or peaceful, or even clear-cut. The art that you choose, then, should help with that. The biggest piece of advise I can give anyone who wants to collect or just buy one piece, is to buy something they react to and “feel” instinctively. Maybe it doesn’t match, maybe it’s not something that is easy to understand or to explain, but it sets the wheels in motion to think, to ponder, to discuss. That should be the piece you buy.
Get out and look at art. Patronize the galleries. Support the artists. We all need art. You may not know it yet, but you will always need art.
