Solo Artists
Acan-do spirit and desire to connect with their buyers have inspired more and more island artists to open their own galleries, based solely on their good names. The challenges - and rewards - are many.
By Marli Guzzetta Independent Arts Editor
In the human brain, the thoughtful machinations behind art and behind business are decamped in two seperate lobes. So it's understandable why the thought of handling both sides of the sale of art - the soul-searching and creation, followed up by promotion, selling and shipping - gives many artists a bit of a headache.

Left: Gail Sharretts during open hours at her home gallery; above: Stephen Pitliuk's apartment doubles as his studio and, soon, a small gallery.

Still, more and more artists are choosing to play ironman, making a space for their art in excess of the "call to schedule an appointment" home studio common on Nantucket. No, we mean, making a commitment to open the doors every morning at a certain time and wait for either the excitement or disappoint- ment of visitors and sales or an empy gallery, respectively.

Stalwarts who set the standard include people like Greg Hill, whose GS Hill Gallery is an anchor of Straight Wharf. In recent years, however, that list has grown to include artists like Barbara Toole, Gail Sharretts, Paul LaPaglia, Paul Galschneider and, a recent transplant from upstate New York, Judy Brust.

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

Mental toughness is necessary for going it alone. In a gallery with other artists, the financial and emotional successes and failures of a show are shared. If you're a solo artist, everyone comes to see, or doesn't come to see, your work.

"I think no one is going to come, and then I get slammed," said Sharretts, who sold a batch of paintings during the sunny and breezy Labor Day weekend.

"I am not only the gallery owner, but also the sculptor, the painter and chief bottle washer," said the artist, whose gallery space is now filled with abstract representations inspired by Nantucket and European landscapes, as well abstracts entitled "Fugues" and concrete castings of the human figure "intended to evoke a sense of the mythical in antiquity."

Located in her converted garage, on Surfside Road (just across from Bartlett Road), Sharrett's gallery is not on anyone's after-dinner promenade route, so if people are coming, they are coming to see her.

Sharretts said one of the things that has assisted her in her journey as a "solo artist" is strengthening her ties to other island artists, especially those in a similiar position.

"It's a big big bonus for me . ... Meeting and sitting with other artists, swapping stories or sharing techniques or advice," she said.

Like Sharretts, Barbara Toole has discovered the strength that exists in the numbers of the disenfranchised. In additon to running her Clay Art Studio, Toole also organized the Nantucket Artisans' Collective - a group of over a dozen island artisans, including some who regularly host shows on Nantucket.

"My vision was to have some sort of an artisans' collective, a venue for people who don't have a place to show their work," said Toole.

But meeting once every few months in someone's back yard requires a bit less risk than paying rent and utilities on a separate building every day.

Most of Sharretts' work seems to sell with summer residents, who take it with them back to the corners of the country from which they came. Sharretts plans to make good on invitations to visit them during the off season, when she often travels overseas to paint spontaneous, plein air scenes on site.

Sharretts said that having her gallery attached to her home has allowed openings to double as house parties - with visitors having the opportunity to see Sharretts' work hung in the context of a home.

"I think they really enjoy the experience, and I personally enjoy meeting them. What I'm thrilled about is actually meeting the people who are buying my art work," Sharretts said. "And that's been the biggest surprise of all of this. Normally, I'm painting in isolation for six months. I have this thing called a show. You kiss everybody you know, and some people you don't, and then you come back home and 30 paintings are gone and you're sitting by yourself again. You have no idea where your paintings are going or who has them. But this is so much more rewarding."

Pitliuk said he is opening his own gallery in the hopes of experiencing the same kind of connection that Sharretts enjoys.

"I also want to be able to keep all the money," joked Pitliuk, who is converting a spare bedroom and plans to have it completed by the fall.

The artist currently shows and sells out of the Nantucket Airport, Lynn Walsh's private space and the AAN and will be having a show at Brust's galleryblue during the week of the Nantucket Arts Festival.

Admittedly, the shows he will have will be small - "my own private Tupperware parties," he called them. Still, they represent a sense of independence that could only be described as artistic or capitalistic. At the very least, American.

"I want to have my own gallery space, because I want to be able to

control it," said the artist. I