Selling subscriptions to art that surprises
By Laura Casey/Photos by Jane Tyska
Contra Costa Times
06/17/2009
Stephen Russell likes surprises. He’s a subscriber to a community-supported agriculture service and a variety of fresh produce from a local farm shows up at his house every week.”I think it’s pretty nice,” he says of the delivery. “You never know what you’re going to get.”So when an artist whose work he enjoys told Russell he is participating in the Compound Gallery’s Art in a Box program — which is modeled after produce subscription services — Russell didn’t hesitate to sign up.”I recently moved into a new apartment and I am looking to get some new art,” says Russell, a transplant from the East Coast. “Art in a Box seems like a cool way to get introduced to Bay Area artists.”
Art In a Box was created by the Compound Gallery’s Matt and Lena Reynoso to do just that — introduce people to some of the best artists in the East Bay, one small piece at a time.Here’s how it works: Each month, subscribers get a new work by a local up-and-coming artist. A $30 subscription is for pick up only; a $50 subscription includes mailing the work. All subscriptions last at least three months, and the art is yours to keep.
The Reynosos, who’ve been running the Compound Gallery on the Oakland/Emeryville border for about a year, have hosted 13 shows, including a show by Numi Tea co-founder, Reem Rahim.Artists themselves, they say they love to transform spaces. The venue they operate out of had a troubled history as a liquor store before it was a boarded-up blight. Today, the gallery is bright and lively. Artists stream in and out to chat or to work on projects. The Reynosos rent locker space to artists and give them an area to work. One of those artists, YaChin Bonny You, suggested the new art-selling strategy. It was an idea the couple quickly embraced.
“I just thought ‘Oh my God’ that’s ingenious,” says Lena Reynoso, a UC Berkeley student working on her doctoral degree. Lena Reynoso is also a painter and printmaker. Lena Reynoso sees the program as a way for art lovers to not only beef up their home collections, but also receive works they can give as unusual wedding or birthday gifts. An Art in a Box subscriber can choose what medium they would like their work to be in but they cannot choose the exact works they will get monthly, hence the surprise factor.
“Like when you subscribe to a vegetable box you can say ‘I hate leeks, don’t send me leeks’ and they won’t,” Lena Reynoso says. “It becomes sort of a surprise what you get.” On the program’s launch night earlier this month, the gallery was filled with works from the 11 participating artists. Sharing wall space with a lovely, delicate and small birdlike sculpture by ceramist Crystal Morey were the strange human/animal Photoshop creations of Eric Sanchez. You’s colorful Pop art pieces stood out while Kerry Lee Johnson’s drawings were more delicate and subtle.
Matt Reynoso, who in addition to running the gallery makes custom metal and wood furniture and paints murals, stresses that the program is affordable and local. And the gallery is in one of the most exciting spots for new art in the Bay Area, one of the dozen or so galleries that swing open their doors for the ultrahip First Friday Oakland Art Murmur.On the first Friday of this month, when the program launched, the Reynosos were pleased that 12 people bought subscriptions.And Russell, a subscriber, was happy, too. He got a colorful, abstract work by Tallulah Terryll that he has already bought a frame for.The Reynosos hope their program will sell many more surprises.
“It’s a big experiment,” Matt Reynoso says. “We’ll see.”
Contact Laura Casey at lcasey@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-952-2697.
For more information about Art in a Box, including how to subscribe, visit the Compound Gallery’s Web site at www.thecompoundgallery.com.