Shop Talk With George Boutwell

TEXAS WILD BUNCH, 1979  top row: Al Richardson, George Boutwell & Russell Cushman

bottom row: Randy Souders, Harley Murray & John Cogan

George Boutwell was one of several established Texas artists who generously took me under his wing. When I was a young aspiring artist, he graciously encouraged me, framed up my humble array of prints, and  took me along to art shows, filling my ears with very practical business theory. Those were some wonderful times. When I met George he was "king of the mountain, " and he still is.

I have found over the years that I was able to take most of what he taught me to the bank, so to speak, and have caught myself quoting him many, many times, as I have passed on what he told me. Lately I have found myself at a crucial professional crossroads, and I sometimes, even now, ask myself, “what would George say?” I guess I got tired of wondering, and I went to see him recently at a one-man show he was having in Richland Mall in Waco.

When he recognized me, we engaged immediately, as if we were still at a mall art show thirty years ago. I told him I needed to talk to my old mentor. I think he had absolutely no idea what kind of impact he had on me so long ago. I told him I had some new questions. He met them with a ready smile. George is a very generous person. He has always been that way with other artists as well.

He used to tell me that he was glad to tell us everything he knew. He knew that after we saw how much work it was to be a successful artist, he had nothing to fear.  And he was right. Few artists would or could walk a mile in his moccasins.

Texas Wild Bunch cutting up at Alamo Village in Brackettville, Texas:

Charles Chupp, David Nicolas, Jack Cannon, Ernie Roche & Harley Murray.

I'm the dead one. 

 

When I ran with George, we were herding (like cats!) a bunch of Texas artists into an art show circuit called the Texas Wild Bunch. The loose knit group of western and wildlife artists had been the brainchild of Harley Murray, another of my early mentors, who envisioned an artist’s co-op where artists promoted shows for each other in various parts of the state.  I might put one together at a Houston bank, or Memorial Mall (photo above), Harley might arrange one at the LS Ranch in Bosque County, or the Thistle Hill Mansion in Ft. Worth. This concept never worked for me financially but I had a lot of fun and made some valued friends.

Soon I was learning how George did it. On the road. All over Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana. Malls and festivals. Almost every weekend out of the year. And soon my wife was concerned how we were ever going to make a home and a family with me gone all the time. I had to choose my wife, and my life in Plantersville over the weekend art circuit. It was an easy decision, as sales for me were pretty flat most of the time, and I was always having to hustle or rustle money or materials or something. I prayed for God to provide me a different way to make it as an artist where I could be home and go to church on Sundays. And eventually He did. But still, I missed those valuable conversations with the man at the top of the mountain...

Boutwell: When "Waiting for the Bus"- GOT RUN OVER!

I always treasured those days on the road with George Boutwell. I have lots of stories from those times, but perhaps the one I’ll never forget was at a show at Baton Rouge…

We were hustling our goods and equipment inside the Bon Marche Mall. George travelled then as he does today, in a motor home, pulling a trailer full of his art and show fixtures. What he schleps around from show to show is staggering. He does the work of three men, and has a fairly well designed system, with everything on wheels.

Waiting for the Bus

He was loading a pile of large framed paintings onto a four-wheeled dolly.  A drunk guy came around the corner in his big pick-up truck, not expecting George's dolly to be there and ran right over it!

On the dolly, among the debris, in shambles, was one of his all time greatest paintings, “Waiting for the Bus.” It was a full sheet watercolor painting on illustration board, under glass.  Not only was it a popular “print piece,” having been reproduced in a signed and numbered limited edition, but it was also SOLD, and paid for, its value at the time around several thousand dollars. 

That evening, I’ll never forget watching him pulling the thing out of the frame, splinters of glass impaled into the illustration board, all scratched up. It was like looking at a dead body. I was just sick about it.

But George looked at it with fascination. He was already seeing the challenge of repairing it. Very calmly he picked out the glass…with that winsome smile “I’m just wondering what I can use to repair the surface… so it will take watercolor like paper… I have some ideas...” I shook my head. Here was a great work of art, almost ruined, a customer about to find out his art had been severely damaged. The pain was just beginning for him.

George was unruffled, calm, deliberate, even though he was going to have to tell an important collector that somebody just ran over his painting, a beautiful work of art placed in his custody, in a parking lot in Louisiana. And it was… totaled. But not to worry!

Sure enough he fixed it, beautifully, but ended up changing the sky completely, and ultimately helped the collector sell it again. George was always game for whatever came up.  He practically lived in that motor home, traveling as far as Chicago or Atlanta in a giant box on wheels crammed full of art and a few clean shirts and a sawed off shotgun. He has to have sold more art than any living American artist. And amazingly, most of it went directly from the artist to the patron. There is no American artist who has a larger customer base, and who has met most of them!

Watching him set up his travelling art show was almost as interesting as watching the circus come to town. I‘ve never known anyone to work so hard, and always with complete serenity, in my life. Then after everything was just so, he sat down and started cranking out art... original art, as if he was sitting in a Texas pasture looking at God's Creation. I always thought George was one of the most disciplined and astute businessmen I ever met. And as long as I have known him, he was bringing in six figures every year. He earned every penny of it.

George was printing and distributing his own calendar every year, an annual series of limited edition prints and greeting cards, and mass marketing all of these publications with a catalogue which he sent out to a huge mailing list of past purchasers. I remember when he finally could print his annual inventory without having to lean on the bank to finance it. He probably had 10,000 names on his mailing list. George was rockin’ and rollin’.

Anyway, here are a few things he taught me… As a young artist... valuable ART marketing strategy...

1)    The DECOY: Never consider someone talking to you in your booth as a nuisance, even if you know they are not going to buy something. That presence of two or more people conversing is a great decoy to draw others into your space. People do not like coming into a quiet zone where they will be stared at. They feel safer if the vendor is somewhat distracted. Keep talking, watching your prey, and then when you sense they are ready, say “Excuse me!” and walk away… The decoy will understand!

2)    In order to sell, you have to know your audience, your target market. After you identify them, you look, dress and act like them. Even emulate their body language. They will trust you faster and buy from you more readily. Whenever they do decide to buy art, they will remember the guy whom they so well related to, the fellow they “liked,” and they will go out of their way to find him. They probably will not realize why. They might even think you are the best artist alive! But it starts by being an accessible and engaging social mirror.

3)    Study shoes. Know expensive shoes from cheap ones. Even tennis shoes. Lower and middle class people wear crappy shoes, and cannot afford art. Nobody likes to be uncomfortable, and everyone will buy the most comfortable shoes they can afford. So if a person has on expensive shoes, he can more probably afford you art. You can almost tell who will buy art by what they are wearing. Wealthy folks dress down… but with expensive brands. Learn them. Sometimes, when your space is full of people, you need to be able to select the most likely to purchase from the crowd. Look down!

4)    Paint what you know: Be authentic. Paint from your own personal experience, not your idea of something outside your realm that you think might sell. Every person has a story to tell. Tell YOUR story! Your work will have more heart, have more edge, it will communicate the soul you put into it. That will make your work unique and help your sales.

5)    Never give up on a piece of your work. If you thought enough of it to paint it, somebody will think enough of it to buy it.

6)    Don’t worry about what the critics say. To hell with them. Awards mean nothing. Many judges are college professors and cannot paint, cannot make a living with their art. Never worry about something having been painted before, becoming old hat.  Just as the subject may be new to you, there are buyers out there who will also be experiencing it for the first time. The only opinion that should matter to you is your own… if it pleases you, and the people who are buying from you. If they like it, and lay their money down, that is the best affirmation you will ever get.

And it went on and on! I was very lucky to meet George and be able to remember and use a few things along the way. As I say, I have quoted him often... and I have tried to always give him the credit.

So now you may understand why I needed to talk to him again …

Boutwell: Tectonic Changes in the Art World

George Boutwell

I went to see George Boutwell to discuss the significant changes in the art industry in the past decade, which have brought me to a career crossroads. I wanted see him, and hear how he was facing these changes, because I knew he would have the most positive outlook, if not the solution, already in implementation. As usual, talking to George is an education. It was well worth the trip.

George is now in his 70’s, but still, as always, seems younger than me, with great hair and complexion, and has not changed. He has no plans to retire. I found him at his notorious modus operandi; Sitting quietly, intriguingly at work with a watercolor painting in his lap, seemingly oblivious to the world, in the midst of a grand display of his varied, colorful Texas scenes, plunked down in the heart of a crossroad of middle-American commerce.

For over forty years, George made his living from a huge customer base, which became a monster emailing network. He has thousands of active names of customers. He uses Catalogue sales very successfully, travelling many weekends out of the year to some kind of event, meeting and selling to his collectors personally. How could that go wrong?

First we discussed the death of the so-called “art show circuit.” George was one of the most aggressive, successful artists in that circle. Most conventional art shows that artists depended on for decades are now gone. Many Invitational art shows are gone, and charity art shows are no longer around… they gradually died out, as did the volunteerism and public support that fueled these prestigious art shows.

The Texas Wild Bunch we helped to get started is no longer active. So he is doing fewer shows - and is no longer focused on regional art shows and mall art shows. He only does a few pure art events these days, as they became too political right before they became unprofitable.

Changing American values, increasing travel costs, and a shrinking economy have made the veteran artist think leaner and meaner. He no longer travels out of state. He has to work harder to capitalize on a shrinking market in his target area. Turf has become much more important, and he notices that local artists are becoming much less collegiate, less magnanimous. Many art leagues have disappeared, and fewer people are getting into the business. And artists who move into his region are not finding a hospitable environment. The American art pie has shrunk, galleries have gone south and protective cliques have replaced clubs.

George had to stop buying back, or brokering his work for his collectors… which he had always done in the past. His collectors got desperate and pushy, and ungrateful for this unusual service, which he had taught me to provide to my customers. A lot of his collectors have died… And because of the shrinking middle class, they are not being replaced by the next generation.

George no longer uses many of the old sales strategies. Everything has become a crap-shoot. More and more he goes to shows where sales are flat, and it is very hard to break even. As a businessman, he has had to discontinue many of his travels and associations that he enjoyed.

 

What happened?

Even with his technologically sophisticated system, he is not enjoying the growth and profits he has earned.

So I just asked him:  Is the art market flattening due to the economy, or are we watching something die?

He did not even have to think about it:  “We are watching something die.”

America is going through a major realignment of values and priorities and art, artists, art merchants, art suppliers, and art appreciation over all are the big losers. As a general in this increasingly difficult battle, George has seen a lot of casualties, and he has shown amazing determination and resilience.  

George went on to explain how he has had to re-invent himself a couple of times over the years to keep up with the changes in our social and cultural landscape. And he admitted at this point, nobody knows where it is all going. He does not know what to do about what is looming on the horizon. But he is far from quitting.

George has always been a survivor. And one of his strengths is that creative mind which loves to take shattered things and put them back together.

Nowadays he does flea markets, trades days like at Canton, or Fredericksburg every month, and Round Top twice a year; anywhere there are people shopping. They may not be looking for art... but they have not yet met George.

His paintings still hearken Americans, Texans to enjoy and take pride in their rich heritage, and a few still find in his work a reminder of the memories in their personal hard drives that they want to relive.

And in this re-invention process, George continues to find new audiences.

He has learned to appreciate the advantages of non-art venues; shows where he is one of few,  if not the only artist present.

Like Bre'r Rabbit,  he hustles the central Texas region, his own brier patch, reading his market with a flexible attitude, and stocking up with prints and canvas gicles, which he prints and frames himself.

Boutwell's prices have not gone up much in a long time. They are certainly not rising with the cost of travel expenses. A smart collector can still buy a George Boutwell major original for less than $2500.00.  I was stunned at what I saw in his booth. George wisely never let his prices leave the middle market. Therefore his business is still going, where many others have faded away. His work is the steal of the day... grand works, done by an official Texas State Artist… Texas treasures, for the price a big screen TV. Outrageous.

George clued me in to his current world, which I have thankfully avoided for the past thirty years. He graciously agreed for me to share his observations with you. Here are a few changes he (and I) will be grappling with:

 Huge change in demographics:

*Young Americans (20-30 yrs) don’t buy much art at all. But when they do, his nostalgic renderings of vintage classic cars are the bridge over the generations.

*Malls are aimed at a very young clientele, and are no longer a good place for an art market.

*90 % of his originals are sold to Hispanics; They are now the rising class of professionals, optimistic, living the American dream. Hispanic clientele has been the source of some of his MAJOR purchases and repeat business. One Hispanic gentleman called him one day and ordered over $18,000.00 worth of art for his offices in South Texas.

*Although representing only about a quarter of his inventory, 40% sales are prints of vintage cars… These subjects have always done well… but George is most famous as a Texas bluebonnet painter. His booth is crawling with giant paintings of Texas longhorns, farm houses, wonderful storms, Texas country life in hundreds of different scenes… That has been his “pigeon hole” but that is changing. Vintage cars are a cultural link to our youth, who are all about TECHNOLOGY.

*He does not see the white, upper middle-class thirty-something male entrepreneurs collecting art anymore. They are almost extinct.

*His buyers are now much older, well over 40, male and female, and from diverse backgrounds, and diminishing.

I will keep in touch with George as we try figure out how to survive in what appears to be an American Dark Age on the horizon. There will always be art and artists, and George, ever our vanguard, will no doubt lead the way. But I’m sure he would agree that it would be tough for him to try to do what he did in his career again, under today’s circumstances.

And that is bad news for tomorrow’s next generation of painters.

Well, that wraps up my research. And my rant. I told everyone of the artists I interviewed that I wanted to be wrong... and please change my mind. Each found more concerns about the concept than I had. I have provided these opinions purely to make available the best information from real, professional artist's points of view.

Maybe we are full of prunes. But I cared enough to ask around, from the most qualified people I knew, and not rely on my own knowledge or ignorance.

Good luck to the City Fathers, whatever they decide to do.

And thanks to my friends who generously discussed these questions with me. It was great to visit with all of you!