GAZING FORWARD: Whitney's new sidewalk gallery. |
Enter the Real Estate Artist
2007 will see the beginnings of the climb to prominence of a new form of cultural producer in Greater Portland: the artist/developer. Now that the real estate market is ripe for buyers, the loose-knit semi-organized collective of young artists who have spent the last couple of years preparing themselves for the downswing are ready for action, ready to lock in their interest rates, close their deals, and get in the ground before vernal pool restrictions are finalized and prices for copper outstrip gold.Most of them got their real estate licenses before state law changed on July 1 — they’re still close enough to their college and grad-school experience to have done all that was necessary to avoid the many extra hours of class time that today’s new licensees have to sit through.
The cleverest and most ambitious of the bunch began bi-weekly study groups to discuss real estate guru Gary Keller’s two best-sellers, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent and The Millionaire Real Estate Investor.
Taking their inspiration from a highly-influential but little-studied lineage of artist-developers — such as the notable example of George Maciunas and his pioneering development of what came to be the Soho artist loft, and of artist Hans Haacke’s famous study of real estate holdings, and dealings by New York’s elite art patrons (whose practices, perhaps even more than Haacke’s own, offered some fine instruction) — this handful of artists has decided that the days of fleecing their parents and angling for patrons are gone, that life without passive income is a dead scene.
And so the simple working group that got its start in a casual conversation a few years back, among a few students chatting after a visiting-artist lecture at a local college, has become an extraordinary entrepreneurial outfit — a cross between a think-tank, art collective, curatorial team, investment bank, and realty trust.
Combining idiosyncratic studio-based inquiry, varying degrees of historical knowledge and critical sophistication (a few admit that they weren’t as engaged in their art history classes as they now wish they’d been), and an inventive and surprisingly principled business acumen — this handful of artists (three are now pursuing their MBAs and two are going for NASD licensing) has big plans for some of Greater Portland’s prime real estate.
Portland = Whoville
Reach back to your childhood (or a couple weeks ago if you have children or are a kid at heart) and recall the beautifully animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Despite an absence of decorations, gifts, and roast beast due to the Grinch’s abominable deed, the people of Whoville still gather in the town square, clasp hands, and sing into existence a giant, swirling, psychedelic ball of spiritual goodwill. That’s enough to make anyone’s heart grow three sizes larger!
Now take a glimpse at Portland and its perpetually complaining Arts scene which, on a Grinchy bad-hair day, sees itself as bereft of funding, organization, and support. What 2007 is all about, what it can be about, is putting this attitude aside and joining together in a spirit of full-blown creativity for its own sake.
