My Small Gallery Lost Money at an Art Fair. It Hurt.
When sales are robust, it confirms that producing and selling art is actually a viable activity. When sales falter, our world begins to feel untenable.
by Debra Brehmer 
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I shuffle alongside my friend. Every object makes me cower. We drift into a new room. One wall holds an array of rectangular shapes covered in silver. I don’t recognize the artist, but I pause. The shapes are actually mailers and found packaging. The humble veneered materials feel like an antidote to the thousands of over-intentional objects colored with disappointment that have populated my week. I’m not sure why I find such pleasure in this. Maybe it is the layering of waste and wonder (discarded mailers, silver sheen), or perhaps this piece by Mexico City-based artist Abraham Cruzvillegas makes the portent of transformation tactile, while also holding firm to bits of the world or one’s path through it. At the museum, in front of his piece, I feel my spirit re-enter my body, as if I had lost myself, then tenderly found a bit of it again, in this forest called the art world.
Soon, all the work we didn’t sell will be in a van driven by my son and gallery manager, careening across the country with its nose aimed at Wisconsin. They will drive straight through, 26 hours. Somewhere in Georgia, there will be fog. By Tennessee, it will rain.
Back home in the gallery, I get a text. It is an inquiry about our largest, most important work at the fair. Currently, it is still under consideration by this client. I wait, fingers crossed.
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