| | | | BoundlessGallery.com In The News 
 Online gallery helps artists, buyers connect
BY TED PINCUS
If you're not a dabbler but a genuine artist trying to earn a living at it, how do you gain national exposure for your work? In the kaleidoscope of fine art being generated daily across the country, how can your work stand out?
As a business, art was perhaps never more daunting, and if a livelihood depends on it, "starving artist" is more than a proverbial term today.
Nevertheless, many Chicagoans -- like painters and sculptors everywhere -- are finding a new route to instant visibility: the online gallery. Moreover, they've found not just any online gallery, but an exceptional one established eight months ago by an unlikely tech entrepreneur in the unlikely spot of Carbondale. He's 43-tear-old Peter Gregory, and his showcase is www.boundlessgallery.com.
"It's really an incredible site," says Chicago oil-on-canvas painter Michael Weyhe, 47, who earns a living turning out realistic landscapes and street scenes from his Tinley Park home studio. "It has attracted excellent work by strong artists. Most importantly, it's unique in that it enables us to have national prominence for free. Unlike other online sites like eBay, it doesn't charge an upfront fee and only takes a 25 percent commission."
The passionate painter
Weyhe is a passionate painter.
"I lost my job due to my love of painting, and it's my sole support," he says. "I've been in local shows, but this new online gallery offers my first chance to let buyers everywhere find me. Art has truly entered the computer age. In fact, the only downside is that it's impersonal. I may never meet the buyer and watch his face light up as he sees my work."
Gino Savarino shares that optimism. He's been earning a living doing contemporary abstract acrylic on canvas at his Itasca studio.
At age 35, he's supporting a wife and two kids. Since showing his work on Boundless Gallery a month ago, he's pleased that the exposure has prompted five potential buyers to beat a path to his suburban door to see his 30 paintings first hand.
Peter Gregory tells me the site now features 5,500 pieces of sculpture, oils and other paintings, photography and numerous other types of fine art. Launched with 10 artists last November, it displays the work of 735 today, including ones with established national reputations such as Robert Lyn Nelson, whose underwater seascapes have a large following.
"We're now attracting over 2,000 unique visitors per day to the site, up four times from six months ago," Gregory says.
Explaining the venue's popoularity, Gregy says, "The art buyer's prime reason for visiting is efficiency. If you were to do a gallery walk in Chicago, you'd be exhausted well before viewing 1,000 pieces. But at our site it's easy, fast and effortless to view 1,000 or more, in living color. And when you see one that interests you, a quick click blows it up for closer viewing."
Another big appeal, Gregory says, is economy. "Most of our artists have yet to have a solo show in any gallery. Thus, we enable a buyer to discover high-quality, emerging artists whose prices don't yet command a premium."
That's why Gregory forecasts that online galleries like his will capture 10 percent of the $15 billion U.S. art market within the next five years. Speed is another attraction, he says. A buyer can place a bid on the site for a chosen piece, and have his offer accepted or rejected promptly. After taking possession, he can return the work for a full refund within a week.
Back to Carbondale
Gregory of course can afford to run the most liberal terms in the industry. A computer science grad from Southern Illinois University, he paid his dues as a programmer in Silicon Valley, then founded Bsquare Corp. in Bell-view, Wash in 1994. After conceiving the software that later became Windows CE for Microsoft, plus other hits, he took the firm public in 1999, became in instant millionaire, and retired to wood sculpture back in Carbondale.
When he found virtually no local entrepreneurs with viable business plans, he volunteered to help them get the same start he had. He founded the Southern Angels Business Plan contest in partnership with the state of Illinois.
Now in its third year, it assists young business people in developing models, then offers $40,000 for the best. With Gregory's tutelage, I'll bet that at least one of them might be the next e-retailing wonder.
Ted Pincus is a finance professor at DePaul and an independent communications consultant and journalist.
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