Daily Hampshire Gazette, October 7,1993
by Bruce Watson
Check, please. Can you wrap up the rigatoni to go? Oh, and how much is that
Impressionist landscape on the far wall?
Since churches and royal courts stopped supporting them, artists have hung their hopes
and paintings in galleries and museums. But in the Pioneer Valley, with more art than spaces to hang it, artists show their work wherever walls are bare Ñ in banks, copy stores, furniture stores, and especially restaurants.
Donna Estabrooks will have her first show in New York this fall at a private gallery. But in the meantime, ice cream lovers will see her “Healing Landscapes” at Bart’s in Northampton. Her “Tea-Room-Freedom” series of oil pastels is on view at Cafe DiCarlo in Amherst, while other paintings hang in Steeplejack’s in Sunderland.
Estabrooks, a full-time artist billed in Florence, has done 23 shows this year, some in galleries but most where the eatin’ is good. “I used to think showing in restaurants was a bad deal, that I’d ruin my reputation ” Estabrooks said. “But my work gets seen more in restaurant, than in galleries.”
Restaurant owners are finding that fresh art makes dining a little finer. “It changes the atmosphere of the restaurant every six weeks or so,” said Bonnie DiCarlo, co-owner of Cafe DiCarlo. And as a tight economy causes gallery owners to rely more on proven talent, more artists are making reservations to hang their paintings in gourmet galleries.
Steeplejack’s walls are booked until mid-1995. Artists submitting slides of their work to restaurant owners will have to wait almost as long for wall space at Cafe DiCarlo. The Black Sheep Deli in Amherst has shows planned through next spring.
“Word has gotten out,” said Kimberly McCarthy, co-owner of Steeplejack’s. McCarthy selects
all the artists for the restaurant’s six-week shows. Striving for variety without ruining anyone’s appetite, she alternates new artists with old favorites. “The right paintings make the restaurant look great,” she said. All right, it’s art, but is a restaurant the place for selling it?
“Artists need a place to hang their works but there are many drawbacks to hanging art in a restaurant,” said Daniel Grant, Amherst-based author of “The Business of Being an Artist.” “Art needs a special setting before it’s taken seriously. In a restaurant, art is not taken as seriously as in a gallery. Also, in many restaurants art is hung above the table where smoke or steam can get into the picture and damage it.”
But Leverett artist Louise Minks doesn’t mind hanging her landscapes at Steeplejack’s and elsewhere. “I love showing in restaurants,” Minks said. “People have to make a conscious decision to go to a gallery, and they frequently don’t. Restaurants have a steady flow of traffic. I made my biggest sale at Steeplejack’s last summer.”
Unlike galleries, local restaurants charge no commission for hanging paintings. When Estabrooks sells a painting at Bart’s, priced from $100 to $300, she will keep it all. Some restaurants allow their artists to hold opening receptions for their work. Artists set their own prices. A few shows at Steeplejack’s have sold out, McCarthy said. But most artists report fewer sales, perhaps one or two paintings during a show.
“You don’t, sell a lot,” said Leverett artist Lynn Peterfreund, whose paintings have hung in many local galleries and restaurants “I’ve sold about five paintings in restaurants in recent years.”
Showing art in restaurants also requires more initiative and carries more risk. Artists must
frame and hang their own works. If a carefully crafted painting is splattered with pesto, it’s not
insured, as it would be at a gallery. No local artists have had their own work im-pestoed, but the
risk is always there. Why expose one’s career to the danger?
“I do it mostly for exposure,” Estabrooks said. “I sold a painting in a Vermont gallery to someone who remembered seeing my work at Bart’s. A woman who’d seen my work there accepted me for a one-woman show at Greenfield Community College next spring. A year ago I wasn’t selling a ton of work, but now that I’ve had so many local shows, it’s getting easier. Putting paintings in restaurants is like planting seeds for the coming year.”
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