More Fake News

The TaoSt*r Monthly                                                       

May 2021

Online Presence, IRL Experience

By R. Sage

Amelia McRae is no longer the new kid in town. In part because new businesses are finally opening again in Madrid. March saw the opening of a Native pottery studio and in April a specialty chai café with revolving watercolors for sale welcomed the public. More important, however, has been McRae’s intuition and well-honed business acumen. This month, her main street gallery and sometimes impromptu music venue, will celebrate its third anniversary. The virus that shall not be named made the twos more terrible than ever before, but McRae has been able to curate and sell more pieces than pre-pandemic through different online platforms.

“If anything,” McRae said, “the pandemic drove sales. I don’t think the [stimulus] checks really mattered. The bigger thing was people being shut in at home all the time. You worked there and lived there round the clock for pretty much two years. People who never would have thought about purchasing [art] realized they needed to decorate their little worlds. They realized how important it is to make a space beautiful, to have the right aesthetic.”

Her decision to name the gallery Social Medium says it all. McRae was well ahead of the curve. The idea when she opened was to acquire and display works from artists who built up niche followings online. The purpose was twofold. First, it would distinguish her from the crystals and desert landscapes that saturate most galleries in the Southwest. Even though she admits to loving turquoise and the endless New Mexico sky as much as any other transplant, McRae knew that market was too divided and competitive to entertain another entry. Second, the focus on social media provenance and sales attracted a different demographic to her gallery. Of all the tourists who stream through Madrid, McRae skims off the twenty and thirtysomethings who are largely ignored by neighboring businesses.

This is a strategy that bodes well for longevity. People tend to remember where they started to collect and who they first worked with when they began collecting. McRae is reluctant to brag, but her repeat buyers are the envy of other gallery owners. Part of that has been her determined effort to build in accessibility for first time art buyers. “From the get-go I’ve found low cost, ephemera that are of very high quality and very attractive to newbies. Instagram and TikTok have thriving scenes for sticker artists and graphic zine creators if you know where to look. These items are always limited to certain numbers, but don’t carry the heavier price tags that a painting or sculpture would. It’s my way to make sure we’re offering something for every budget. People who love our collection want to take something home that’s tangible to remember it by. I guess it’s sort of like our ode to a museum gift shop without the disappointing candy and mass production.”

Content creators are also thrilled by the prospect of selling an entire batch or run of objects without the hassle that comes with setting up merch tables at local arts and crafts events. Her reputation now well established, more often than not, creators reach out to McRae instead of the other way around. When you look at the trendiest of art trends on social media apps, the gallery and owner’s name are almost always hash tagged. It was impossible for her to keep up with everything flooding her inbox, so McRae recently hired a paid intern to manage her main accounts across different platforms and screen for the most interesting artists active in the digital space. Ultimately, she still makes every decision on what her gallery will show and how it will fit in with the rest of her discoveries.

Another key to success at Social Medium is its responsive seasonality. Something most other small businesses choose not to keep up with. Last October, McRae showcased metalwork and prints produced by a self-described queer collective of artists who work out of Salem, Massachusetts, not far from where she grew up. Their work is heavily influenced by symbols and motifs taken from Tarot cards. Just the spooky sort of thing Halloween fans are looking for. That collaboration introduced McRae to other artists who focus on merging Zodiac signs with fine art. “Our generation really likes their birthdays. The Zodiac items have found a permanent place here for now. They outsell the other high-ticket things and it’s not even close.”

Although McRae has hit on new ways to run a successful gallery, she refuses to commit to innovation for its own sake. When non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, were gaining traction and public interest, she stood pat on her decision not to offer them at Social Medium. Her older sister, Dr. Evelyn McRae, a professor of computer science at Nashaway Institute of Technology counseled her against it. “Once Evie explained to me in great, great detail what it was all about, I knew it wasn’t for us. SM is about giving new voices a chance here in the real world. Whether its neon sculptures from Taiwanese artists, or wearable pieces that makers are producing from recycled materials in Nigeria, we’ve found a way to turn those images on your phone screen into physical objects that you can interact with in three dimensions. NFTs can’t do that for you.” So far, it’s proven to be another savvy call from the now veteran dealer.