Travis Hadley – 04.12.10

Travis is a student of political philosophy and lover of the finer things in life.  When he’s not writing his PhD dissertation on Thucydides, you might find him watching hockey and enjoying a Guinness at Andy’s on the square.  Travis is currently on loan from Canada.

Since the departure of Art Prostitute in March of 2006, Denton hasn’t been able to claim either a permanent space for studio artists to show their works or much in the way of art shows at all, with the exception of UNT’s senior shows each spring. While Denton is rightly lauded for both its musicians and its venues that draw bands from almost everywhere, the fine arts community has gone virtually unnoticed. This is somewhat surprising given that both UNT and TWU draw art students to Denton to study everything from drawing and painting to ceramics, as well as printmaking and fibers, to name a few. The opening of Meme Gallery next to Rubber Gloves last month was a glimmer of hope for those of us who know many of these artists and desire to see both some attention for them, and quite frankly, just to finally see their work.

On April 30th UNT Fibers majors Sarah Zapata and Katie Kader aim to do just that with their Denton Contemporary Art Walk, a three gallery, one day show they have organized, with Panhandle House, Burger & Friends, and Meme Gallery all participating. Nine artists will have works in this rare show, with a particular focus on fiber arts. I recently spoke with Sarah and Katie about their upcoming show, as well as Denton’s bizarre real estate practices, the local arts scene, and the truth in an old cliché.

Travis Hadley: Talk to me about your upcoming show, specifically how it came to involve all three of the spaces that are participating.

Sarah Zapata: That kind of happened by accident. Katie and I were looking to start a show and everything kept falling through. She had a solo show, and then I found a space, so we decided to do it on the same night. And then we asked the Meme to do it as well.

Katie Kader: It was a little stressful because we had set a time, to do it before everyone leaves for summer. We had already set the date of April 30^th or May 1^st, so we needed to find a space for that time. And then when we kept hearing “you can’t have this place” from all of the real estate companies, it became more stressful. So my friend Austin who opened Burger & Friends, I went and saw their space. It’s a great space, he’s redone the whole place, white walls and gallery-esque. But it’s not a big enough space for what we were trying to do. So that worked out, and then a week later Sarah talked to the guys at the Panhandle House and that worked out for her. But it was at separate places, so we decided to do the art walk and get the guys from the (Meme) gallery to do it and that’s how it happened.

TH: So what artists are participating in the show and what is going to be at the different galleries?

SZ: At the Meme, Brett Rees, whose stuff I haven’t seen, but I think it’s drawing and painting. And then the rest of us are all fiber artists, so that’s kind of the idea behind it. We actually have a really fucking good Fibers program and no one really knows about it. Especially this year, Katie is graduating and five other people as well, so it was the perfect time to showcase everything. In my show there’s seven artists including myself and then Katie has a solo show as well.

KK: Especially in America fiber arts aren’t even looked at. Nobody thinks of fiber arts as this contemporary, upcoming arts movement, whereas over in Europe it’s huge. But it hasn’t really boomed over here yet. So that’s why our program is so small and nobody really knows about it. I started out in Drawing and Painting, and didn’t even know UNT had a Fibers program. And then after going to some of the studios and seeing some of the classes, I switched over to that major.

TH: You already touched on this a bit with the rentals, but have you had any other difficulties in putting the show together? Or was that the main difficulty?

SZ: The main difficulty was just finding the venues. People would automatically just shut us down because 1) we’re in college and 2) we’re art students, so apparently we have no concept of money, no concept of management…

KK: …we’re rowdy and going to ruin the space.

SZ: So the second we called people they won’t be interested, even though it’s a completely vacant space not getting any money. And we were completely willing to pay them a week’s rent, pay for utilities, pay for a deposit, pay for everything. And no one was interested in it. Even though it’s beneficial to both parties. They get exposure, it’s an empty space, and people could get ideas from that as well.

KK: Sarah was painting at the Panhandle House the other day and I was thinking how old Denton is and how many vacant places and warehouses are behind all of these little shops. For a gallery, it can be an alternative space. It doesn’t have to be a gallery with the whitewashed walls. It’ll be exciting to see the difference between Burger & Friends, which is more like a typical gallery show, with track lighting and everything. And then you go to the Panhandle House. I don’t know how old it is, but it’s a brick warehouse with windows bricked up and the rafters without track lighting and that’s something to work with, getting all the lighting. From one space to the other, to see the drastic changes, I think that will be exciting.

TH: There seem to be a lot of fine art students in Denton in a lot of different programs, but there are very, very few shows. Are these types of problems the reason for that or why is it that we only hear about art students when they’re doing their senior shows? Is it just the logistical problems that hold the artists back?

SZ: I think the logistics of everything is a big problem, but also, you’re dealing with artists, artists who are complacent and aren’t necessarily realistic. We think creatively. I’ve thought of this (show) tons of times, I’m sure Katie has too, and even other people as well, it’s just they’ve never taken the initiative. It’s never been done before. It’s just not something that’s typical, which it should be. We have so many house shows and so many talented musicians, and just as many talented artists. There’s house shows all the time and you see venues for it. It comes down to money obviously. There’s no market here for people to buy, but it can still be done.

TH: That leads into another question I have. Why haven’t there been more house shows along with the music? Would it be beneficial to what you two are doing to have it attached to bands all the time, or does it maybe then become a secondary draw.

KK: I think these are things that we’ve both struggled with – because there are so many students and there is so much work being made, it doesn’t mean that there’s so much good work being made. And so when you have shows, they might be looked down upon because they’re not filled out well. So when we were getting the show together, we wanted to make it as professional as possible. Both of us have interned at galleries and seen how they work in Dallas and wanted to take that and put it in Denton. So we both have that experience and not everyone else does. Some people can just tack something up on the wall and call it an art show, but that isn’t something we wanted to do. Art Six is a great space but I wouldn’t call it a gallery. I wouldn’t call Oxide a gallery in the same sense either, it’s more of a décor place. That just might be the contemporary sense, the new movement of art that’s being made. It’s not still life, it’s more conceptual, and that’s what we like and that’s what we wanted to bring and see.

SZ: And when you’re going for that aesthetic, it’s difficult to find bands that fit into that. There are obviously a lot of bands, but you need to find art that’s cohesive. But it’s difficult to draw the line between a house show that happens to have art. I’ve been to a house show that happens to have art and you don’t take it seriously. It’s something that we definitely did not want to do. We did not want to have this in a house because it’s so easily done, it’s so over-done, it just falls under noise.

KK: We wanted to bring it to the more commercial side. That’s why we called commercial companies because we wanted it to be in Denton’s downtown area, so that people can know about it. House shows are more of a Facebook event, whereas people can walk around the square. It’s something to do on the weekends. We don’t want only kids in college to stop by and see the show, but also somebody that’s just walking down the street getting coffee or wine, to stop in and see the art. That’s what I was thinking about it. Not just going up to somebody’s doorstep and walking in, which can make people hesitant.

TH: Let’s talk about how you imagine this working, with the concept of the art walk as opposed to just having everything in one huge space.

KK: The timing we did is that my show is from 6 to 9, Sarah’s is from 7 to 10, and the Meme is 8 to 11. So we have it progressively going so that people will have time and not miss one.  They are kind of far apart, so I don’t necessarily know if it will be a walk…maybe a bike ride. But I don’t think that will hinder people from coming and going to all three.

TH: Is the use of these temporary spaces ideal or would Denton be better served if it had a permanent gallery-type space?

KK: No, I would love it if it had a permanent space like Art Prostitute. That was a great space, but galleries don’t have a lot of money coming into them. Even Dallas has dealt with it recently with the economy. A lot of the galleries there are closing down. So I don’t know how practical that is. The use of these temporary spaces is a bit more feasible, especially with the help of business owners, and that’s the main thing. If a leasing agent offered a vacant space for people to come in…but you have this connotation of rowdy art students who are going to trash the place, so I don’t know if that would ever happen. A permanent space would be wonderful and ideal, but I just don’t see it happening.

TH: In your experience at UNT, do the professors give you some kind of guidance on this or encouragement? Or are they a hindrance? Do they encourage you to do this sort of thing or is there just no talk of that at all?

SZ: Our professors have been 100% supportive the entire time, but no guidance. But we’re Studio majors. Maybe it’s different for Art History majors because it’s a completely different thing. Because our program is small we have the advantage of developing our ideas and they’re very helpful in that aspect, but not really once you graduate.

KK: Yeah. I had one professor earlier in my student career, one of my first Drawing teachers, and she got me the internship. She was here when Good/Bad Art Collective was here, so she saw how that was working and pushed us to research that. To show us we could do these things. That’s what I wanted to do a couple of years ago, start a collective. But that didn’t work out because you have students who say they want to do it and then don’t want to do it.

SZ: You’ve got to bite the bullet and if you want to do it, you’ve just got to fucking do it. This is what I want to do for my career, so if anything I wanted experience before I leave here. Denton is, once again, so much opportunity but no one takes advantage of it.

TH: Your interning experience, what was that like and what did that teach you about what you needed to do to get these shows well-attended and organized. What did you get from the Dallas experience?

KK: I know from the gallery I interned at, it was Road Agent gallery, all of the gallery owners are very close.  So they actually do hold openings, once a month, all on the same night, kind of like what we’re going to do. They all promote together and people go from gallery to gallery to gallery. They’re all working as a community. The Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas, all of the galleries are part of that organization and they promote together. It’s not just random people, but the same people every month coming. That’s another thing Sarah mentioned, that the Fibers program is so small that it is a community, so with these girls we’ve been pushing each other to make work that we think is decent. With the show coming up, not everything is going in and we’re going to hold each other accountable if we think your work sucks. I don’t think all of the studio programs have that. Drawing and Painting is so big that you don’t have those kinds of relationships.

SZ: I still intern at the Dahlia Woods gallery in Deep Ellum and she’s also part of Dada in Dallas, and once again you do see a community. With her, she has a successful career, but I always see things that I would do differently. If you want to go into this business you need to have experience, not only to put on your resume but to know if you like it. Some people hate it. It’s a lot of sales.

KK: I loved it but it’s a lot of really hard work.

SZ: It’s not just fun and setting up lights and curating shows and shit. It’s work, to find something, to know what sells, what’s going on. To be with it, with everything that’s going on in the community. And then every different city and every different gallery has a completely different buyer. There are so many aspects that people don’t realize. That’s the thing that’s frustrating for me is that people think they want to be a curator but don’t really know what’s going on. You have to have a tough skin. You have to have a good head on your shoulders and be business-minded.

TH: So obviously the business side of things is a bit of problem in Denton. But we did just see NX35, which was very successful as a weekend event. Can you imagine something like that in the future in Denton for the studio arts? To bring in people from outside of Denton who would be interested in seeing and purchasing these works?

SZ: That would be ideal, but the problem is that the population is transient. There’s a constant turnover of people. It takes people to stay and people to be interested in it. And then getting other people interested in it. I would love for this to be an annual thing.

KK: You have to have people investing in artwork. You have to have people, even students, willing to invest in a $20 or $40 piece of art. It can be small. It doesn’t have to be thousands of dollars but it starts somewhere. You have to know your clientele in the city. I know we don’t have any huge buyers. There are no art collectors in Denton I know of, but if people want to see this become an arts community and have galleries here, they need to support it. Not to sound cliché, but they need to support the local arts.

DENTON CONTEMPORARY ART WALK is on April 30^th at:

Burger & Friends – 6-9pm
108 W. Oak St.
Featuring: Katie Kader

Panhandle House – 7-10pm
313 N. Locust (Recording Studio Back Room)
Featuring: Kat De Froy, Carlynn Field, Natalie Khan, Lisa Kruger, Emily Robertson, Sarah Westrup, and Sarah Zapata.
Performance By: Abacus

Meme Gallery – 8-11pm
411 E. Sycamore
Featuring: Brett Rees