I find it much easier to write an interview of Olan without looking at my notes from tonight’s dinner meeting; I met Olan down at his Gallery and we had dinner next, and he game me one of his small paintings as well (the painting was based on the image below - of a young, homeless, gay woman the artist befriended).   I was attracted to the face of a larger painting of this model and he gave me a smaller version of it.

We spoke about his current show which will be coming down soon and it’s success.  I asked Olan to define the metrics for a successful show - that started a conversation where different arragements of sponserships and other commissioned works leads to a profitable show.  The money part of art was something Olan did not really want to focus on  - he wants to be free to do his art and not have to get involved with the politics of gallery dealers and collectors.  We talked about how difficult it is to do art and live in NYC and that society, as it is today, is focused on the wrong things - like getting ahead at the cost of hurting other people. 

Olan thinks deeply about this and tells me he did not care for what happened recently on The View and how Star was replaced.

We moved on to another subject, using the internet to go past dealers and reach fans directly - Olan was intrigured with the idea of The Long Tail and using the internet to sell his work - but did not really know how to go about it.

I mentioned Amy Crehore, and her devoted fan base plus the writeups in Boing Boing as an example of reaching fans and buyers without going through dealers (though she also does have dealers of her work).  Also the recent addition of Charles Saatchi’s Your Gallery website which Olan Montgomery used to create his own mini-site with his work.  Olan found out about the Saatchi online gallery through me, as did a friend of mine, Drew Knapp, who did the same thing (posted his work).

In fact, I used the Saatchi online gallery to discuss the first instance, to my knowledge, of a Major Gallery Dealer getting involved with Social Marketing, Viral Marketing - it’s as if Charles Saatchi gets it - he understands that many artists want a legitamate way to reach dealers like himself and Saatchi also wants to discover new artists - so he makes it possible to do so with the Your Gallery website - and become the most progressive art dealer.  Yes, I give Charles Saatchi credit for seeing something that needed to be done in social media and doing it (and he did a good job with Your Gallery).

Olan mentioned the Chelesa art galleries in the West 20’s where some artists are able to get sponsership but to just survive and do their work, is such a struggle (it always has been).   Olan mentioned that being an Art Dealer was a good business to be in - but being an artist is much harder.   I interjected and said it was always like that with a couple of artist superstars (ie: Picasso is a prime example) making a most of the money while most other artists can hardly make anything.  

In fact, with the Long Tail, created by the economies of the internet - many artists can thrive in ways that would have been much harder even 5 years ago (and that is not generally understood yet) - I think Amy Crehore is an example of that - an artist with a strong fan base - who really can do well with internet publicity - and you don’t need to be a Picasso (or the modern version of that - or even be part of the Whitney Biennial (see my review of the Whitney Biennial here) to utilize the power of internet to magnify your brand.

In fact, there’s much that I did not discuss with Olan tonight - I will have to cover in the next interview.  For example - Olan’s site uses AdSense and Affiliate Marketing, along with a series of articles and news - and it was only by looking at it in detail tonight - after speaking with him (where he mentioned he does write articles and post to his site and on other sites as well) that I went back and took a look at some of what he posted.  What I see is we need another interview do discuss how he approaches his website marketing of his own work and brand and what kind of volume of visitors his site generates.  These are questions for Webmetricsguru.com but they apply here as Olan clearly is using the power of Google Advertising and Affiliate Marketing to  make part of a living. 

Olan suggested we get together again, on a monthly basis to continue this conversation.  We also talked about having me interview his mother, who is also an artist and a very interesting person. 

Getting back to the interview I did tonight -I found out an interesting metric - it takes Olan about $700.00, or more to produce one painting using the techniques and media he employs (there’s often the cost of the paints, strecher, linen, photo transfer, etc) and that he sees all the work he does and what he makes off it as a way to continue painting - in other words, much of the money made on a show is re-invested back into this work - and I think that’s the right thing for an artist to do, personally.

The meeting ended with a walk back, next door, to Ward-Nasse Gallery where Olan showed me the work of other artists in the Gallery and introduced me to the Art Dealer who runs Ward-Nasse.   I also took the opportunity to look at some more of Olan’s paintings near the back of the Gallery that I had not really looked at as well as some of the other artists who have shows at Ward-Nasse.

By the Way, Olan did treat me to dinner which included Pasta and two glasses of red wine each.  Olan had his dog with him, and the dog was begging us for food - I ate all of mine so Olan put out part of his pasta plate - about a third of the dish and the dog finished it.

And that’s it for tonight’s interview with Olan Montgomery.