River North Dealers Attack a “Tacky” Gallery
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Vance’s taste in art and the way she has chosen to market it have bothered some gallery owners. AK Galleries is very different aesthetically from the majority of galleries in the River North district,” says Susan Sazama of the Sazama Gallery, adding, “We’re quiet and low-key.” Another dealer said simply, “It’s tacky; I don’t think Vance is upholding the standards that the rest of us uphold in River North.” Vance’s neighbors speak disdainfully of the gold lame swags that have decoratively framed the gallery’s front windows for weeks, and of the bows sighted on some paintings for one opening. “I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do for Valentine’s Day,” snapped one gallery owner.
But Vance wanted to be in River North, whether or not the rest of the district’s dealers think she belongs there: “I chose this location because it draws the true art collector.” Vance began collecting about five years ago in South Bend, Indiana, where she still resides, and opened a small gallery there in a bed and breakfast she ran. She decided to open a gallery in Chicago in part because she had grown frustrated with the way she claims some art dealers here handle their customers and wanted to introduce a new approach. “I find there is an attitude that the dealers want to sell to you and then forget about you.” Vance says she intends to build her business by developing long-term relationships with her clients.
Cartoonist and painter Nancy Drew has turned to writing. After coming out recently with the self-published Not Everything That Quacks Is a Duck, a squeaky-clean novella about a child’s summer on an island, Drew is finishing up The Benson Journal, a longer, steamier work about two couples in a southern town who commit adultery. “It’s about things that happen between people that shouldn’t,” said Drew, who oversees six stores across the country that sell clothing, furniture, and objects that she’s decorated with painted figures. Drew is currently trying to interest New York publishers in The Benson Journal.
