Sculpture Source

You’ve browsed the Internet, visited several gallery websites and have located a piece of sculpture that you absolutely love. Problem is…you know nothing about the gallery selling the piece.

By asking yourself some questions to help gauge the overall quality and professionalism of the gallery, you’ll be more likely to enjoy a positive overall art-buying experience. Following are a few questions a potential online sculpture buyer may want to ponder:

Quality website
Is the gallery’s website well-organized and easy to navigate? Do pages load quickly, without errors? Is the content timely, without typos and out-of-date information? Are works displayed professionally with well-shot, high-quality images, multiple image views, dimensions, descriptive text, and pricing?

These are all signs of a professional gallery that takes its online business seriously. The gallery devotes staff time and resources into making the online experience easy and informative for the buyer.

Staff professionalism
Do gallery staff respond promptly, efficiently, and cheerfully to your emails and calls? This demonstrates the efficiency and organization of the gallery, and is a good indicator of whether the purchasing and shipping or delivery process will be smooth and worry-free.

Helpfulness and hard work
Do gallery staff provide detailed, complete answers to your questions? Are additional photos and information about the piece you’re interested in enthusiastically provided? Are staff willing to contact the artist directly to get clarification or more detailed information for you?

Extensive follow-up and personal assistance indicate a desire to ensure you have all the data required to make a thoughtful, educated purchase instead of an impulse buy that may be regretted later.

Mutual understanding and trust
Can gallery staff clearly articulate your needs and constraints, including your price range, time frame, desired style, and any concerns you have about art placement? Are other options in different price ranges presented for your consideration? Are staff knowledgeable about art, and genuinely enthusiastic about your inquiry? Do staff suggest sculpture offered by other venues which might also be of interest?

These are signs that the gallery is listening to what is important to you, and that your best interests and long-term satisfaction are being taken to heart.

To make a purchase you will be happy with over the long term when buying sight-unseen, you need to trust the gallery’s art knowledge, ability to understand and respond to your needs and finesse at “matching” the best piece of art with those needs.

Visit A New Leaf Gallery and Sculpturesite Gallery’s websites, or call and let us know how we can assist you in acquiring the perfect sculpture.

Often, visitors to A New Leaf Gallery are surprised to learn that many sculpture collectors are “window-shoppers,” but not in the traditional sense of the word. Many collectors nowadays locate, evaluate, and even purchase artwork over the Internet.

Sculpture is offered online through a variety of sources: sculpture studios and cooperatives, auction houses and non-profit auctions, art retailers and portal sites, and art galleries. Each virtual venue has its benefits, but eager shoppers also need to be wary of the potential pitfalls of buying sculpture online.

Although buying direct from a sculptor or co-op may seem appealing, your selection will be limited to the work of that particular artist or group of artists. Evaluating different choices will necessitate visiting a number of different artist sites. This can be a time-consuming and frustrating process since many (but not all) of these sites are non-intuitive to use and can be poorly executed.

Buying successfully at an online auction requires some saavy. To avoid overpaying or acquiring a piece you will be unhappy with later, you need some knowledge of the sculpture market, as well as up-to-date information on the valuation of the work that caught your eye. And you may have difficulty locating a piece that interests you, since sculpture offerings at auction are few and far between.

Art retailers and portal sites do sell a vast collection of art. The problem to watch out for here can be quality. Very often, the profit motive far exceeds the quality of the work being offered. If you are looking for gallery or museum-quality work, you may be better off looking elsewhere.

Of course I’m biased, but I believe that the benefits of purchasing online from a gallery are several. For one, a lot of the legwork involved in locating sculpture in a style and medium you enjoy has already been done for you. A gallery acts as curator, selecting only the highest-quality work of leading artists from all over the world. If you see a few works that appeal to you on the homepage, you will often appreciate most of that gallery’s selections.

When purchasing from a reputable gallery, the staff will work hard to represent your interests as well as the artist’s.  You can be assured that the price of your favorite piece is representative of its true value in the marketplace, because gallery staff are both art market experts and shrewd businesspeople. They work with artists to price their pieces in a way that accurately reflects their value and does not take advantage of the customer.

Gallery staff act as go-betweens before, during and after the transaction. By working with a gallery, you will gain an objective, 360-degree picture of the piece you’re interested in purchasing. Staff associates will do research on your behalf on the medium, process and maintenance of the piece you’re considering, and can suggest other works that may be of interest to you. They can broker a commission of a unique sculpture created just for you. And their familiarity with packing, crating and shipping will make sure your selection arrives at your door quickly and intact.

Most of the sculpture offered for sale at A New Leaf Gallery and Sculpturesite Gallery’s websites can still be shipped for Christmas delivery: visit us today!

Detail of "Grieving," by Jerry Ross Barrish

We participate in consumption – the satisfaction of wants resulting chiefly in destruction, deterioration, or transformation.  The objects we create experience consumption – the progressive wasting away of the body. It is an efficiently detached relationship.  Whatever emotional connection, if any, to our belongings we have, eventually they lose their hold on our attention and we consign them to landfills or the depths of the sea.  We have little time for empathy when ephemerality is the standard.  But some of these castaways are resilient.  They push against our enmity.  They resurface or wash ashore.

This is when Jerry Ross Barrish finds them and breaths life into the inanimate. This is not creation ex nihilo but creation ex vetus adveho novus – out of the old comes the new.  They combine and reconstitute into more than the sum of their plastic parts while still maintaining the markings and scars of their former life.  Bent, distorted industrial drainage tubes, series 73681-82000, become a subtle set of controposto hips and legs.  “Made in Mexico” containers transform into a hunched torso. The curve of a misused snorkel creates a cradling arm and hand.  A cratered and scuffed toy ball marked “Supper Tuff” is a makeshift, downcast, mournful head.  Refuse - discarded, unwanted, isolated – reconstitutes itself through anthropomorphic redemption.  But this is not all.  Barrish has one more act of transformation and transcendence.  As if in defiance for the once consumed, he has cast several of these assembled detritus into bronze.  Ephemerality is now corporealized.  Ironically, decay is permanently preserved. Long after the consumers themselves have passed away through consumption, those who were once the objects of consumption will live on.

Through this multi-layered transformation, Barrish requires a reconsideration of human empathy.  His objects of castaway materials take on the form and likeness of those who have discarded them.  But they are more than human in form.  They are also human in substance.  Feeling. Emotive. Empathetic.  Despite their lowly genesis, they have transcended their own fleeting material by communicating the very thing that was originally denied them.  They have the last laugh.  Yet, these do not seem to have the disposition of vengeful irony.  They remember their humble history.  They do not gloat.  They look back on us and give in the face of thoughtless waste.  They were treated apathetically yet they reveal what can be of highest nobility - emotion. Joy. Sorrow. Play. Contemplation. The desirable attributes of the consumer have been mastered by the consumed.  Roles have reversed.