The Art of the Art Deal
Like many soon-to-be college graduates I was optimistic and naive and did not watch the news. In general, this is probably a good way to go about living your life.
However, in 2010 it would have been beneficial to know that the economy was still in the proverbial toilet from the 2007 housing crisis. There was a general awareness, sure, but in the same way I was aware The Yankees had won The World Series that year without having watched a single game of baseball.
Upon graduating I was in for a rude awakening that I was too optimistic and naive to realize was rude. I was new to this fraternity of labor, and if being in a fraternity in college had taught me anything it was that the new guy has to get beat up a bit while bobbing his head to ear-bleeding levels Rage Against The Machine.
So, I bobbed. With great optimism in the midst of angry noise, I bobbed.
I landed a one-year contracted job with AmeriCorps in Raleigh, North Carolina, a much-needed cold shower after my college bubble experience, but the following August I was back on the market. As someone who’d never taken advantage of his university’s career center, I took to the only reliable job search platform I knew: Craigslist.
And that’s where I found my new career prospect as an art dealer. The job post listed qualifications as ‘a love of art and reliable transportation, previous sales experience a plus’. The latter not being a requirement felt inviting, even avant-garde—and so I decided two out of three ain’t bad.
I instantly began to daydream of schmoozing in my gallery with Raleigh’s elite, the cheeky afternoon glasses of red wine turning them from customers to confidants. We’d tilt our heads in unison to admire—or snidely critique—the oil on canvas. I would own a scarf.
My GPS led me to an industrial enclave on the outskirts of Raleigh: nondescript, cookie-cutter grey buildings with placard signage by each push-to-open door. Not the opulent gallery I was expecting, but who knows, maybe these guys dug more of a steampunk vibe? The interior was equally drab, the walls painted off-white, the concrete floors thinly carpeted in dark grey. Of immediate concern was the absence of people—both patrons and employees—and not soon after, the lack of any art.
The one person who was there, the head of this operation, was casual in every sense of the word. His essence was unabashingly I don’t really give a shit, both in the way of a high school civics teacher who was clearly ‘over it’ and a person who was generally just ‘over it’. Still, I’m the kind of guy who likes to be liked and needed a job, so when he asked if I would be interested in doing some immersive training the next day I bobbed my head. With great naiveté, I bobbed.
The next morning I was pleased to find that the building had now been populated by more people, presumably former Craigslist searchers like myself. Like me, most appeared to be in their early twenties and enthusiastic, they even did this all-hands-in sort of cheer to get everyone excited for the day. As a former summer camp counselor, I found this endearing. I also quickly learned why the building was devoid of art: it was all in the trunks of these people’s cars. They were door-to-door art salesmen, the kinds of people that “No Soliciting” signs are designed for, if not specifically.
My mentor for the day would be Ray. He was a white guy, maybe a hair over six feet tall, skinny, shaved head, a chain smoker, and an energy drink chugger, which made him wildly enthusiastic about hitting the road to sell art.
This was Ray. And this was technically art.
The Mona Lisa is art, but so too is a six year old’s smattering of glued macaroni on colored construction paper. This particular art, the one we would be hawking, was stock-image-on-canvas measuring approximately 12x18 inches. Martini glasses. Vases filled with flowers. A laughing Bob Marley. Basically, all the hits.
After a firm high-five and about three nanoseconds of pleasantries, it was time to hit the road with Ray in a champagne-colored 1997 Toyota Camry. A proud driver of a 2001 Honda Accord in 2010, I had to question what kind of path I was on here, metaphorically.
The path I was on literally was US Highway 264 East. This was perhaps the greatest surprise of all. I had figured Ray and I would be spending a couple hours cruising the shopping centers and office parks of Raleigh and its surrounding suburbs. Instead, we were en route to Greenville, North Carolina: a two and a half hour round trip. No stops, just cruising with some tunes, quality time, and Bob Marley’s gaping laugh from the backseat in the rearview.
Ray was a great sales guy. And this is not particular to the art he was about to pawn off, he was also selling me. He started with a discovery phase: What’s my story? Where’d I come from? What were my interests? Here, have a Monster energy drink on me. We’re not so different, you and I. For the purposes of that day we were to be buddy-buddy, just two guys in the trenches together who presumably loved art and had reliable transportation.
As for door-to-door sales strategy, Ray postured it as a numbers game. I soon saw this put into action as we parked-and-barked at every possible storefront in the seemingly never-ending strip mall that is peripheral Greenville, North Carolina. For Ray, there was no massaging a sale or coming back later: he must turn a cold call into a hot lead into a done deal all in the matter of a couple of minutes, “No Soliciting” signs be damned.
When inside the car, Ray spoke a mile a minute but once in front of a potential client his pacing was calm and controlled. Upbeat, he walked in like a welcomed guest, the first face he met an old friend. But the choreography mostly fell flat as we hit hard times at barber shops and stationary stores, a particularly ornery receptionist at an urgent care who had apparently been bugged by Ray-types all week.
Ray didn’t allow himself to eat lunch until he had made at least three sales. The one thing more lowly than being a starving artist has got to be being a starving door-to-door art salesman. We lucked out when a something-or-other Bar & Grille bought a grimacing Al Pacino and Ray upsold them on a matching martini glass two-set. Three sales, time for lunch. The restaurant had a special on 25 cent wings and Ray ordered six. I did the same. This would be my free lunch. For the first time that day Ray looked a little relieved, even rejuvenated.
Back in the car, Ray pounded another energy drink eager to get back to business. This proved to be more of the same: a recurring series of no’s, maybe later’s, and immediately being asked to leave. But every time Ray would reset. Every door he walked through was the door of opportunity.
The long day growing shorter, Ray and I started the trip back to Raleigh, likely because he was on the verge of legally abducting me. Some of the smoke from his upteenth cigarette managed to seep out of the cracked driver’s side window, but most burrowed into the car’s cloth interior. The clock ticking, Ray moved into the emotional hard sale of selling art. It is a lifestyle, he told me. You are an entrepreneur. A man in control of your own destiny. And that destiny, for Ray, was to make as much money as possible. Art? That was just a means to an end.
He pointed his cigarette below the radio towards a polaroid of a blonde woman about his same age.
“That’s my girlfriend,” he said. He tells me about all the things he’s now able to buy her, how he treats her right. He tells me that they recently got a single apartment together.
“Hot, ain’t she?” he asked. And I didn't have to lie to agree. But now that I had seen his moves, there was a sneaking suspicion that he might be. It could have been a photo of anyone really, but hey, maybe that’s what it took for him to close the deal on me. This art of the art deal had given him a great life and we’re not so different, him and I.
But I knew I didn’t want this life. I knew the minute we had pulled out onto US Highway 264 East, so I just let his words hang in the air. With my stomach growling from a meager lunch and my energy waning given my abstinence from all-you-can-drink Monster, I just didn’t have the gusto to entertain him back.
The conversation at a standstill, Ray turned on the radio. He twisted the dial up, and the PTSD-inducing sounds of Rage Against The Machine from my fraternity pledge days blared out.
Still looking to end the day on a high note, Ray craned his neck towards me and said, “This band fucking rocks, right?”
And with whatever enthusiasm I had left, I bobbed.
Possibly the print-to-canvas that bought me lunch (but was actually probably worse)