The Michael Garman Museum & Gallery Newsletter
May 25th, 2017
Issue No.49
In This Issue
Spring Sale Begins Tomorrow!
Autograph Day - Saturday, June 3rd
Adventures of a Vagabond Sculptor: Learning the Art of Business


The next edition of Adventures of a Vagabond Sculptor  is here!

In this edition, Michael Garman sets up shop in Manitou Springs, Colorado, and learns the art of business .  You can learn more in the DVD: The Life & Work of Michael Garman .


Begins tomorrow!
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60% off Sculptures
50% off Sculptures
40% off Sculptures
30% off Sculptures
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Saturday, June 3rd
Noon - 4:00pm

2418 W. Colorado Ave, Colorado Springs

Learning the Art of Business
Manitou Springs, 1971
In 1971, I was just getting settled in my Manitou Springs studio.  Producing great new characters - mostly Western Series guys like Saddle Tramp and Taking the Rough Off.  I worked day and night sculpting, casting, painting, and selling.  Finally, I accepted the idea that I was going to have to hire some help.
It started with the Bales brothers - Rocky and Forrest, two wintering cowboys.  Each spring they'd go down to Arizona and work the ranches, so they had some strength to them.  And they needed it.  We carried on our backs something like 7 tons of material each month up and down the stairs to the 3 rd floor studio I'd rented above Pitkins Drug Store.  We had these 100-lb sacks of Hydrocal, 150-lb bales of sisal, and cartons of flattened boxes.  All that stuff had to go up into the studio as raw material, and then come back down as finished product to be loaded onto trucks and delivered to gift shops all over Colorado.  But we got the process down.  In fact, we turned ourselves into a big little outfit.

There was the one kid, Calvin Gordon.  Hiring him was a fluke. I was sitting on a park bench drinking out of this vodka flask, just enjoying the day when I spotted this hippy kid with long hair and flip-flops.  He turned out to be such a smart kid, but I didn't know that at the time.  All I saw was a spark in his eyes.  That was all I needed to see. 
 
So there I was, staring at this kid, giving him this hard glare that I would play just to see how intimidating I could be.  Then I walked over to him and grabbed him by the arm.  I said, "Come on.  You're coming with me."  He took one look at me, and thought, "Oh man!  This guy's arresting me."  He was scared stiff because I had a hold of his shoulder and was steering him in the direction of the police station.  When we got to the bottom of the steps, he finally got up the nerve to ask, "Where are we going?"
 
I said, "You're coming to work for me." 
 
"Aw, man!" He sighed this big relief, "you mean I'm not arrested?"
I didn't have any idea what I was going to do with this kid, I just liked the look of him.  At that time, I assumed nobody could cast as well as I could or paint like me.  I had learned all of it myself through trial and error.  So how could I teach it?  Turned out, I learned that if you hire the right person, someone hard working with a bit of a twinkle in their eyes, they will exceed all your expectations.  Over time, I hired painters who could paint better than I ever could, detail artists who expanded my own vision.  It certainly shot my ego to hell.  Here I thought I was this magnificent a guy with more talent in my little pinkie than . . . well, you get the idea.

What I had were my original pieces, these faces and hands, these characters that came from inside of me.  I would create the original and make the molds for each one.  Then I gave them over to my guys who handled most of the reproduction.
 
After a while, I decided to move to a ground-level studio.  I don't know if my knees or back could have survived much longer.  We found a spot right on Manitou Avenue, smack in the middle of the shopping district. Through the big storefront windows people would see us casting and painting, and they'd come in to ask what we were doing.  Whoever was closest would simply wipe his hands on his apron and give a quick tour.  That's how the retail end of it got started.  

We put up some planks old barn wood, set sculptures on them, swept the place out and called it a gallery.  Truly, it was a mess.  I look back on it now and shake my head.  But at the time, I was very, very proud of it.  I didn't know that art galleries were supposed to be all fancy and elegant.  Maybe that actually helped.  People saw the work that went into each piece.  They saw us sweating, laughing, having ourselves a hardworking-ball, and they liked buying into that.
I didn't know anything about running a business, hiring employees, withholdings or that kind of thing.  For the most part, I hired guys like myself, ne'er-do-wells.  Not the Bales brothers-they weren't ne'er-do-wells.  They were good Christian gentlemen.  Sure, they drank hard, fought hard, and worked hard, but it was all good cowboy stuff.  

I had no plan.  We learned it day by day, got the job done, and had a great time figuring it all out.