A Tip for Serious Art Dealers

Psssst! Yoo-hoo! Mister and Ms. Serious Art Dealer! Pretty Lady has some Exclusive Advice for your very own sophisticated, wise, avant-garde ear. She has a Tip for the Knowing. That Tip is: Art Bloggers. Art Bloggers are Where It's At, Up and Coming, and Sustainable for the Long Haul. Art Bloggers are a Sound Investment.

Now, Pretty Lady is not giving you this advice from mere narcissistic Self Interest, no sirree. This is a deeply considered, experiential opinion, backed by both Theory and Practice.

You see, Pretty Lady has once been a Dealer herself; she knows all about what it is like to work with promising Young Geniuses. She has, personally, represented talented young people who forgot to bring half of their show to the gallery on the day before the opening, and forgot to give her a price list, and when Pretty Lady found an interested buyer, insisted on a price five times as high as what was remotely realistic. She has worked with tantrum-throwers, liars, self-aggrandizing narcissists, and vulgar thieves. She has worked with Charming Extroverts who lacked a shred of talent or self-discipline.

And Pretty Lady is here to tell you that you do not want to work with these people. Not if you want to spend your golden years in a state of health, sanity and financial solvency. What you want, my dear beloved visionary impresario, is to build yourself a stable of brilliant, deep, dynamic, creative, visionary and reliable artists.

You may protest. You may say, to yourself and to Posterity, "Reliability is so pedestrian! So boring! So je ne sais rien! Reliability obviates the Fire, the Youth, the Risk and the Glamour of association with the capricious World of Art! Do not talk to me of Reliable. Are you trying to make me into a mere Shopkeeper?"

Not at all. For it is Pretty Lady's fiery, dynamic, visionary opinion that Reliability and Creativity are not polar opposites, but rather twins who were separated at birth, or at least in myth. And fortunately for you, the medium of Art Blogging gives you, my entrepreneurial friend, a simple and substantive Litmus Test for discovering artists who possess both depth and staying power.

Think of it! An Artist who Blogs is, of necessity, literate, competent and responsible. This person is capable of organizing his or her thoughts in a more or less cohesive manner, and implementing them upon an interactive New Medium. He or she Shows Up in public upon a regular basis; he or she is Available for Conversation, in a creative and charismatic manner which is bound to impress your patrons.

And, as Pretty Lady is empirically discovering, Art Bloggers ship their work on time, and send Pretty Lady emails and tracking information to let her know when the package will arrive. They do their own publicity. They offer to help with hanging, and bring their own tools. They Communicate. They have not yet thrown one single irrational, narcissistic tantrum among them.

Art Bloggers Rock.

And, as you can see from this handy template, they are phenomenally gifted, in a wide range of styles and media. So you, dear Dealer, do not have to sacrifice Personal Vision for the sake of Stability; you may go right to the source and select an Art Blogger who fits your own Artist Family!

But you had better get in there quickly, or all the other dealers will snap up these paragons before you, and you will lose your glamorous space in Chelsea, and have to move to Newark, which will never gentrify, not in your lifetime.