I always enjoy, when each October I see the "ARTrails" flyers posted around town. It reminds me and everyone else that there are flourishing artists in our midst.
Sadly, this past October the umbrella organization for ARTrails, the Sonoma County Arts Council went kaput due to lack of funding.
Also last fall, the largest price ever paid for a work of a living American artist was paid, $58.4 million, for a piece called Balloon Dog (Orange), by artist Jeff Koons.
In 2012 a version of Edvard Munch's The Scream sold for $120 million in Europe.
A painting by American artist Norman Rockwell, whom I practically apologized for in my Thanksgiving week blog, had his painting Saying Grace sell for $46 million just a few weeks later.
My thoughts here are about the great disconnect between the people and/or organizations who pay these monumental sums of money for artworks, some works not very many years old, and the vast number of American artists currently producing interesting, quality works. President Reagan's trickle down economic theory doesn't work in the art world either.
I know that the reasons for the dissolution of the Sonoma County Arts Council/ARTtrails are probably not simple. I also know that Sonoma County harbors many wealthy companies and individuals who could be patrons of the local arts. In my idealistic world I would see these businesses/individuals supporting the arts at the local level, rather than spending their funds as big profit art investors. For the love of a rich local culture, rather than for the profit. In an ideal world.
I hope ARTrails is revived somehow. The citizens of Sonoma County would surely benefit from that. Here's a sample of why that is true, examples of some ARTrails participants.
Cumulus, No. 1: Come with Thunder, by Brooks Anderson
Sycamore Leaf Carved Vessel, by Ralph Ramirez
Gower Gulch, by Henry White
The Sun, by Deborah Garber
Bridge Over Salmon Creek, by Charles Beck
The Collector, by Brennie Brackett
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