Richard Beavers on Turning Art Into Wealth: Loans, Credit & Leveraging Assets + More

Richard Beavers on Turning Art Into Wealth: Loans, Credit & Leveraging Assets + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up his way?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yep, But Angela yee. And it's time for our Wealth Wednesday.
I'm excited.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm very excited.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Stacy Tisday is here with me. Of course, I'm.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Very excited again.

Speaker 4 (00:12):
Happy Wealth Wednesdays everybody, and we are super excited. It
is a crazy uncertain time. We were just talking about
that nobody knows what to do, where to put their money.
But there's one thing that you all must know. It's
more important than ever that your money does work for
you and go to work pulling out all levers. And
we're going to talk today about investing in something that

(00:36):
you might think is well beyond your reach. We're going
to talk about investing in art with a legend, Yes,
indeed in the black art space, Richard Beavers, who is
the founder of the Richard Beaver's Art Gallery, which you're
going to tell us all about. But let's start at
the very beginning. Your art journey started when you were
in middle school.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
What happened, Yes, it did.

Speaker 6 (00:59):
First and foremost want to thank you for having me
here today, Angela and Stacy. This is amazing, It's a blessing.
I'm really happy forward to this conversation.

Speaker 5 (01:07):
It started out for me rather early.

Speaker 6 (01:09):
I was in my early teens and I went on
a class trip to the museum. Came home from that
trip and my mother asked me what did I think?
And at the time, I couldn't really articulate it, but
I said to her, you know, I didn't really think
too much of it, right, And she said, well, you know,
did you see art? And I said, yeah, I did
see art, But what happened is that I didn't see

(01:30):
anything that was reflective of who I was, and it
didn't speak to my personal experiences or anything culturally. So
my mother took me to a gallery that was in
the city. It was on thirteenth Street between Second and
Third Avenue, and it was owned by two black women
from the Caribbean and the name of the gallery was
Cyberco Gallery. And that was the first time I ever
walked into a space and I just saw.

Speaker 5 (01:50):
All black art.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, it's so important to have art that you feel
connected to, because I always tell people when we go.
I was at the Whitney the other day and I
was with two of my friends and they were like, well,
how do you know, like, what's good art? And I'm like,
what's good Artist's subjective to like what you are looking
at and what you feel like it speaks to you.
Certain things you'll look at it's like okay, but then

(02:12):
you'll look at something and you'll be like wow, you
just feel some type of emotion that connects you to it.

Speaker 6 (02:17):
Yeah, it's a spiritual, it's an emotional personal connection. And
it's important for us to see imagery that's reflective of
who we are and to talk about our culture and
our experiences.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
You know, artists uplifting.

Speaker 6 (02:28):
It's inspirational, it's empowering, it's very important in all aspects.
And for me going to the Cybercal Gallery, it was
really transformational for me. You know, it changed my complete
outlook on art and when it came to art, and
I spent a lot of time in that gallery and
that was really the beginning for me.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
That's dope.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I just I took art too when I was younger,
and I took it when I was in college.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I took this art class and.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I definitely was not connected at all to what it
was that we were seeing. I was like half asleep
in my art class all the time, but I wanted
to because you sometimes I feel like you're not like
it makes you feel like you're not cultured or something.
If you look at something and people are like, yeah,
he splatters the paint and does this and the way,
and you're like, I don't get it.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
We know, it's funny when I look at art, when
especially art I love, I connect with the artist and
their story, and I know that really happened for you
in a big way.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Leroy Campbell, Yes, so.

Speaker 6 (03:22):
Leroy Campbell whom I work with today. He's a mentor
of mine. But I went to his solo show. It
was in the village and I walked into well, let
me backtrack, so en Cybaco Gallery. The very first piece
that I saw was a man sitting on a brownstone
step and he was playing the saxophone as a child,
obviously growing up in Brooklyn and Harlem brownstones, so that

(03:45):
was a connection right there. Then I also wanted to
play the saxophone as a kid. So when I saw
this man sitting on a stoop and his painting playing
the saxophone, that was another connection for me. And then
obviously him being a black man, you know. So it
was three elements within that paint and that painting was
created by an artist his name is Leroy Campbell, and
that name continues to come up, you know, throughout different periods, well,

(04:07):
really pivotal periods in my life. So moving fast forward,
I went to a exhibition in the city and it
was a Leroy Campbell show and I walked in saw
a piece that I liked. It was the first piece
that I ever purchased, and I reconnected with Leroy and
from there. At that time, I was working at MTV Networks.
Leroy offered me an opportunity to come and work with him,

(04:29):
so him and I began traveling around the country. I
would assist him in doing shows together. So even though
I was working at MTV, I would use my vacation days,
my personal days, and my sick days to just travel
with him and to continue to pursue my interest in art.
I didn't know where it was going to go, but
I knew that, you know, just I had this gut feeling,
you know, this instinctual thing that this was a space

(04:50):
or a place that I was supposed to be at
at that particular time.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Now, you also have a gallery in Brooklyn and Bedstye
and I met you on the street over by where
I heart used to be downtown, and so he was like,
I'm rich to be bus I'm like, wait a minute, I
see I walk past your gallery all the time right
near my house, and it is and you've said this
before that it can be intimidating for people to see that,
like in our neighborhood to want to go in there.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
You feel like, am I supposed to?

Speaker 3 (05:16):
You know?

Speaker 1 (05:17):
How do I do this?

Speaker 4 (05:18):
So?

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Can we talk about you opening a gallery in Bedsty
and why that was important to you?

Speaker 6 (05:24):
First and foremost, it was important because that thirteen year
old kid who lives in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood, that's me,
you know, And I know that there were a lot
of young people that came from my community that I
grew up in in, which was East Flatbush, and they
didn't get the access. They didn't be able to go
to galleries the way that I was able to. You know,
I was very fortunate to have I had a mother

(05:45):
who had that foresight and she understood the importance of
exposing me to different things just to see what would
stick with me and how valuable that would be to me,
you know, further down the road in my life. But
for the young people who were my peers. They didn't
get opportunities to go to galleries. And I always think
to myself, like, what impact could it have made in them?

Speaker 5 (06:04):
You know.

Speaker 6 (06:04):
I come from a neighborhood where it was just so
much brilliance, as we know, but a lot of times
that brilliance is suppressed and then given access and visibility
to certain things. So it was really important for me
when I made a decision to open a gallery that
I wanted to bring it to my community, which was
an underserved community when it came to the arts. But
most importantly, I wanted young people to have access and

(06:25):
exposure to art, young people of color.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
And you've had that gallery for eighteen years now, geesh.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
I mean think about that, because I feel like now.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
People think for eighteen years.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
I know, right, that existed for.

Speaker 7 (06:36):
Eighteen years, eighteen years of my age when I think
about it, you.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Know, but I also, you know, just even thinking about that,
and like Stacey said to her point, because best side,
there is a lot of things in general, a lot
of things are closing. And so for somebody who's like,
because I do feel like art is more of a
conversation now than it's ever been, and which is a
great and positive right. So for somebody that is like, Okay, well,
how do you monetize that? You know, how is it

(07:05):
that you you're able to have a space but also
pay to RAM, pay whatever overhead that it is that
you have to pay.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
How does that work for what it is that you do.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
That's an entrepreneur quest.

Speaker 6 (07:16):
Yeah, so you have to be resourceful, you know. And
I've been able to sustain it, and not only just
sustain it, but be able to scale it, you know,
over the seventeen years. When I first started, I was,
you know, in Union Square selling posters in two thousand
and five for five and ten dollars, and then in
two thousand and seven I opened a gallery.

Speaker 5 (07:34):
And I didn't know a.

Speaker 6 (07:34):
Lot about the business of art, you know, but I've
always been like a natural born entrepreneur. I'm an avid reader,
So I did a lot of reading on the industry.
I went out and I visited like the top galleries,
the ones that really spoke to me from a presentational standpoint,
the type of art that they carried, you know. So
I found my niche, and my niche was I wanted
to represent artists whose work was speaking to my community.

(07:57):
The things that we see on a daily basis that
take place. It's just everyday life within our community, which
I was not seeing being represented in art, you know,
on the level that I felt that it should have been.
You know, so very early I created a niche for myself.
I identified artists that were underrepresented or in many instances
just overlooked by a lot of the mainstream galleries, and

(08:19):
that became the path that I wanted to go down.
And now there was a huge educational component to it too,
in educating people about the importance of art and that
you can collect art. It's not just for wealthy people,
you know. It is a place in space that you
can feel welcome to come into.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
Two things are we really want to talk about is
the artists, like how you pick and develop artists and
obviously for our audience investing in art. How does someone
with modest or low income even think about it? Because
it's like Angelo was just saying, people think, oh, it's
for the wealthy or I feel comfortable in here.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
How does somebody on a personal level your first piece
that you bought from Lee roy Camp, but how much
did you spend on that at the time?

Speaker 5 (08:58):
I believe it was somewhere between four to six hundred.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Dollars, and how much would you think it's worth valued
at now?

Speaker 5 (09:04):
Now about fifteen twenty thousand dollars?

Speaker 4 (09:07):
I mean imagine that, Yeah, four to six hundred dollars
valued at fifteen thousand.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Okay, we'll back up.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
How does somebody with my income, just like a couple
investment five hundred dollars or something, get involved in art?

Speaker 6 (09:20):
So at a five hundred dollars price point is more
so an emerging artist, and an emerging artist who doesn't
have a developed market hasn't really sold a lot of
their work, and that tends to be kind of like
it started off with my sweet spot, where I would
identify artists that I believe had a really you know,
I had a skill set that the work spoke to me.

(09:42):
And I work with those artists and I began to
build a market out for them. And when I say
build a market out for them, I give them mentorship,
I give them access to be able to display their
work in the gallery. But it's also in who the
work is placed with. You know, I have a really
strong collector base, so I make certain that I sell
the work not.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Just to well people that have that are well to
do off.

Speaker 6 (10:07):
But I look for people in the community that will
become advocates for these artists because the most important thing
is a lot of times people purchase art, but they
just hang it on their home, on their walls. They
don't go out, they don't talk to their network, they
don't bring more visibility to the artists and introduce them
to other collectors.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
And that is a.

Speaker 6 (10:26):
Very important aspect of it, is to bring as much
visibility as you possibly can.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
To that artist.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
I was with a friend of mine who's a creative
director at major gallery and he took me to see
a show and then we I was like, Oh, I
want to buy that. He's like, even if you had
the money, you wouldn't be allowed to buy that. And
I was like why, He's like, because what you're doing
for an artist is that artist only wants me to
sell it to a collector that he knows is going
to bring him other collectors. Like how carefully people you know,

(10:55):
the audience is curated for the artists, and that's one
of the reasons when people would buy art with you
for like a couple hundred dollars or something. You really
know how to create that market for the artist.

Speaker 6 (11:06):
Yeah, so a lot of it is artist development. But
what I make certain that I do is I want
to I want to see to it that the work
is not just made available to board members and trustees
at museums. And that's that's what your friend was talking about.
These are kind of like taste makers, very influential prominent collectors.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
You know.

Speaker 6 (11:24):
If a person sits as a trustee on a museum,
they have access, they spend money at these museums, so
they're able to advocate for an artist. If an artist
is in their collection, then they can recommend that that
artist become a part of a permanent collection of that institution,

(11:44):
of a board that they sit on. So that's why
board members and trustees and institutions are really important, you know.
Or if there's a collector who has a residency program,
you know, residencies are really important, are really important for
artists because residency these are typically ran by very high
net worth individuals that are also art collectors, right, you know,

(12:05):
so they now introduce that artist to their network. And
because that artist has a residency at a very well
known residency art program, now other collectors they're on their radar,
and then other collectors that follow behind kind of like
these trends now they want now, they're interested in acquiring
the work.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
So that's how the art appreciates. And what you can help,
like someone and our audience to do is I'm going
to catch you, help you with you're can explain you
can buy a gallery edition for a couple hundred dollars
because I know how I'm going to develop this artist
and then that painting's going, that's our piece of art
is going to be worth a lot. And one thing
you've told me when we were conversating that blew my

(12:46):
mind is your art is an asset, so you can
use it for things like credit and that type of thing.
Talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 6 (12:55):
Yeah, So the Gallery Additions is Richard Vera's Gallery Editions
something that I launched a year ago and I wanted
to make certain that there was work available at a
price point for collectors who can't come in at a
ten thousand.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
Dollars price point.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Right, what are those price points?

Speaker 6 (13:12):
Price points for a gallery edition can be anywhere from
eight hundred dollars to thirty five hundred dollars. Okay, it
just depends on the type of print. It depends on
the addition size, and it also depends.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
On the artist.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
If you can get a designer bag, you can get
a gallery edition eight hundred artwork that would be in.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Your home for as long dollars.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, for real, you really can and these art that's
a great gift though for someone to also gift you, like,
instead of yeah, somebody buying you a bag, how about
you buying me a piece of art that's meaningful that
every time I look at it, I think of the
person who gave it gifted it to me.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
So gallery editions, how would somebody get access to that?

Speaker 6 (13:49):
So gallery editions, they can come directly out to the gallery,
or you can go on our website, which is Richard
Bevers gallery dot com. And these editions are exclusively available
through our gallery.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
And they're really smaller sizes.

Speaker 6 (14:00):
We keep the audition sizes in between say twenty to
thirty in the addition, and we want them to sell
out because as they begin to sell out with the demand.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
They increase in value.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Oh, it's like real estate.

Speaker 6 (14:11):
It's like I say a lot of times, you know
we're in Bedford Stuyvesant, but think about the real estate
market in bed.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Style fifteen years ago, tell me about.

Speaker 6 (14:20):
It and people overlooking it because it's bed sty. So
it's the same thing with my gallery. A lot of
times people look at the gallery. H's which Wild Beaver's gallery.
It's in Bedford stuyves in Brooklyn. I could be any
place in the country that I choose to be, but
my intentional aspect of it is I want to be
in bed Stock And the artists that we've had that
have come through the gallery as emerging artists are some

(14:42):
of the most sought after African American artists that have
gone on in the contemporary art market right now.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
I mean he had a Hebrew Brantley.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
I remember that and then and I will say, he
did send me the price list.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
I was like, oooh, not today, so we have payment
plans listen.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
I wish I could you know, get that, But I
do think that's valuable and as far as even people,
I remember, Mashanda has actually been really helpful to me,
and she's been collecting art with emerging artists and so
now I got to make an appointment to come to
the Richard Baver's gallery is.

Speaker 5 (15:17):
A phenomenal dealer. And then the hooking me up. Yeah,
art financing. Do you want me to go over here? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (15:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
I wanted you to explain that people can actually leverage
their art for loans.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yes, and credits.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
So I'll give you this is a real life story, Okay.

Speaker 6 (15:31):
In twenty eighteen, I was one of Nathaniel Mary Quinn's
first dealers. So, Nathaniel Marry Quinn is an artist who's
going on to be tremendously successful. He's represented by Gogozian,
and Gogosian is one of the top four galleries. You
have Goagosian, you have houseling Worth, you have Pace, and
there's one other, but it's tough, and David's warner there

(15:52):
you're going, yes, and David's warner. So Quinn is with
Gogozian now Gogozian and sells a billion dollars worth of
So in twenty eighteen, I'm working with Quinn. I'm not representation,
but one of his first art dealers. And it had
been like maybe eight years, eight to ten years since
I left MTV. So I get a letter in the

(16:13):
mail from MTV informing me that I have a pension
that I did not know about.

Speaker 5 (16:18):
So in this pension they're.

Speaker 6 (16:20):
Saying that I have a certain amount of money in there,
and they're moving providers of the pension, and I have
a one time opportunity to pull that money out penalty free.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
That's nice. Yeah, a letter like that, I'll never get
a letter like that.

Speaker 6 (16:34):
So I say to myself, Okay, I can leave it
in there, and I can get what twelve percent interest
in SP five hundred index fund, you know, over the
next ten years, or I can pull that money out
and invest in two Nathania Marry Quinn works. So I
made a decision to pull the money out, no penalty.
I purchased two works from him twenty five thousand dollars,
and that was eight years ago. Those works now are

(16:57):
worth four hundred and fifty thousand.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
What a great purchase and great decision.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
More than fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Okay, Now tell someone how you can take the money
that's that piece of art and also use it as
an asset.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
For a loan.

Speaker 6 (17:10):
So now that those two works, I can leverage them
and I can use them to get a loan.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
Are financing.

Speaker 6 (17:18):
So you have Southerby's, you have Christie's, you have JP
Morgan Bank of America leads a private banking and I
can leverage that and use that to secure.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
A loan just like a mortgage or something just like.

Speaker 6 (17:31):
A mortgage, and you can get anywhere from forty to
The loan to value ratio is anywhere from forty to
sixty percent.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
It just depends on the artist.

Speaker 6 (17:38):
It depends on how divers your collection is, you know,
how the work is sold in a primary market secondary
market meaning resale at auction, and Quinn has a very strong,
you know, auction history when it comes to reselling, and
there is an extremely strong demand for his work. So
I can get forty to sixty percent loan to value
ratio on that, and the interest would be depending on

(17:59):
your credit worthiness, and in some instances, depending on the works,
they may.

Speaker 5 (18:03):
Not even run a credit check. Wow, you know, isn't
that something?

Speaker 6 (18:07):
So I can get along and the interest would be
anywhere from say six to fifteen percent. But if it's
a short term loan, you're looking at three to five percent.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
That's great. I don't know if I have anything valuable enough.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
To That's what I was going to ask you. How
valuable does something have to be? Because I think a lot
of people are still thinking of art it has to
be valuable, it has to be a lot of money.
But you're talking about being able to enter this market
for like eight hundred dollars.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (18:31):
So when I purchased those Quinn's work, the Quinn works,
they were under twenty five thousand dollars, you know. And
I've had other artists that have I have worked with
early on Visa Butler.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Oh my gosh, I love Lisa Butler. Listen.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
I was like I told her, I was like, one day,
I'm getting it. But it's you know, as time goes by,
it's getting more and more expensive.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
But her work is amazing.

Speaker 6 (18:50):
But so example, eight years what six years ago maybe
eight years ago, Lisa had a solo show at the
Brooklyn Gallery, right, and the most expensive in that show
with six thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
I would have been on that because even when you
just look at the textures, the colors, like everything that
she does is so beautiful and so like, she's one
of my top people that I really enjoy her.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
That was the most expensive work.

Speaker 5 (19:14):
That was the most expensive one.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
You imagine the range there.

Speaker 5 (19:17):
The range was twenty five hundred to six thousand.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
Dollars, Okay, and imagine what that's worth now sixty.

Speaker 5 (19:24):
She's one of the most sought after textile artists in
the country.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Right So now it's what's the range.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Now.

Speaker 6 (19:30):
I believe works start off for eighty thousand dollars and
that's if you can get one that's all primary and
I know that, I know she has a wait list
of at least.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
A couple of years.

Speaker 4 (19:40):
And that's what your gallery editions offer people the opportunity
to do get get something. You said you limit the amount.

Speaker 6 (19:47):
Yeah, they're really small addition sizes. The addition sizes of thirty,
which means there's only thirty of those limited editions available
of that image, and each one is signed, numbered, and
dated by the artists. And it comes with it's a
how would somebody know?

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Because you know, you have the foresight and the research
and all of that, but say the average person is
like and somebody one of my my best friends told
me because she actually has a Cahindri Wiley that he
did of her, that he actually was commissioned to do.
So she has this huge and she did this super
early on and even back then it was expensive. But

(20:23):
I can't even imagine what it's worth right now. But
how would somebody know that, like this artist may not
be you know that yet, but they're going to blossom
into this. For the average person who doesn't have the
insight that you have, Richard, we have to gess community, education, community, and.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Even if it's not what I always say that doctor
Henry Lewis.

Speaker 6 (20:45):
Kay says, the first key to community is the sharing
of information, right, And that's another reason why I'm in
bed stye is as I began to learn the business
of art. It is a place where wealthy people preserve
their money. It's an unregulated industry, so there is I mean,
there's so many opportunities that exist out there. But what
I do say is, first and foremost, you purchase what

(21:06):
you love and what you can afford. Then down the road,
if the work appreciates in value and the artist goes
on to have a tremendously successful career, then you benefit
and you have something that you can leave to your
heirs or to your children, you know, and continue to
pass on generational wealth. You know, we work during the daytime,

(21:26):
but we build wealth at night. And art is an
excellent way to diversify your portfolio. You have real estate,
you have stock, and then you have an art portfolio.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
And that's what she said. She was like, are you
planning to sell it? She was like, because if not,
you're buying what you really want to have in your home.
It's not like I'm over here, you know, reeling and
dealing in art. I'm just buying things that I like that.
I'm like, this is you know, this is speaking to.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
Me and you can done it, can leverage it and
leverage it.

Speaker 5 (21:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (21:53):
So for me, and this is what I advise you know,
unless you're a distressed seller, is that.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
You don't sell your assets. Yeah, you leverage them. You
know you can.

Speaker 6 (22:01):
You can leverage your stock portfolio. You can refinance on
your home and now you know you can you know,
financi your art. It's a forty currently right now in
twenty twenty five, the art financing business is a forty
billion dollar a year industry and it's projected, I believe
over the next ten years to be a four hundred

(22:22):
billion dollar a year industry.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
People leveraging.

Speaker 6 (22:26):
Yeah, and then numbers of I mean astronomical. There's like
statistics say there's over two trillion dollars worth of art
and collectibles and private collections.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
So it's an untapped industry.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
How would somebody work with you?

Speaker 5 (22:41):
Reach out to me. I'm always available.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Make an appointment.

Speaker 5 (22:44):
Make an appointment, yeah.

Speaker 6 (22:45):
You know, go to my website and you know, schedule
appointment to come in.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
And then you can come to cut right after you
could walk down the block come to my coffee shop.

Speaker 7 (22:53):
Yeah, okay, so you know we can actually we should
do something like we can.

Speaker 5 (22:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (22:57):
You know because a few weeks ago we had the
the Art Council, the Black Art Council for the for
moment come out to the gallery.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (23:07):
Now would not have been nice if they come to
the gallery and then we leave from the gallery and go.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
To your coffee shop.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, listen, I would love that. And we're open at
night now because we have.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Once your weather warms up, we still open late too.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
We'll do a Wealth Wednesday's event there with that, But
you have some upcoming events please yes.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
Now, we'll be in Chicago for Expo Chicago that is
April twenty fourth to the twenty eighth. We're going to
be at the Expo Chicago Art Fair. Our booth is
one eighteen. And then while we're in Chicago on the
twenty third, I believe I'm going to be at Soho house.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Leave that conversation.

Speaker 5 (23:44):
Isn't it really nice?

Speaker 6 (23:46):
I'm going to be in conversation with myself, Leroy Campbell
and Lynthia Edwards. And then on the twenty third, during
the daytime, we're taking a family photo day to Chicago.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Now, so that's something that you've been doing in Brooklyn
where you are actually are doing these family photos in
the community for people, which I think is a beautiful
give back because these are things that people will have forever,
you know, and those family photos when you get some
good ones, that is phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
What made you think of that?

Speaker 5 (24:15):
When I was a kid, It's just all of these
experiences and things that I did with my mother.

Speaker 6 (24:19):
You know, every year we would have a family photo
or you'll really connect to this when we would go
to forty second Street on Eastern right, you know, we
got one out flying flying out there, you know with
the street photographers and the backdrops. So you know, I'm
just this is just this is my community. These are
the things that's it I was exposed to. So and

(24:40):
last year we had Jamelsia Baz come out.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (24:42):
Jamelsia Baz was one of the photographers. He donated you know,
his time, and he took photographs of people from the community.
We had brit Sense as another documentary street photographer. I mean,
just a brilliant sister. She came all the way from
San Francisco to participate.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
So just imagine having that as your family photo that
you can and at the story behind it, because I
think that's what it is when it comes to artwork
and things that you have in your home.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
What is the story behind this?

Speaker 6 (25:07):
Yeah, and how can we use art to make an
impact in our community, you know, to bring about change.
You know, we had one there was one family that
came out. It was an older couple. They had four children,
and the wife came up to me and said that
her husband had stage four cancer and they had never
had a family photo taken, and she felt that.

Speaker 5 (25:27):
This was going to be the only opportunity. So she
was so thankful and that was the.

Speaker 6 (25:30):
First family photo, professional family photo they ever had taken,
you know. So that's those are the stories that really
resonate with me. And I've done extremely well in the business,
but far far more than anything, it's the impact that
I can make in our community. And when it comes
from a business standpoint, you know, like we should be
the major stakeholders and decision makers when it comes to

(25:51):
our cultural assets, you know, so that means job creation
from you know, art writers, curators, directors, salespeople. You know,
these jobs and opportunities are not being created. And a
lot of these galleries that exist outside of our community,
but they sell black.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Art, right, you know what I want to ask you
working with artists?

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Of course, artists their work is very precious to them,
priceless to them. Even how do you tell them what
the price point should be? Because I have to imagine
that is a back and forth.

Speaker 5 (26:22):
It's not the easiest conversation.

Speaker 6 (26:24):
But one of the things that I say to artists,
and it doesn't always it's not always received really well,
it's just that what would you pay for your art?
You know, if it wasn't you and you were purchasing
the art, could you justify purchasing it for the amount
that you a price that you.

Speaker 5 (26:42):
Want to put on it?

Speaker 6 (26:42):
And then when you when people have money, people have
money for a reason because they understand how to manage
their money, right, and they understand, you know, what assets are.
So you just have to be realistic. If you don't
have a resale market. You know, you start your prices
off very moderately because the worst thing you can do
is come in too high with the prices, you know,
because you don't want to lower them. But you always

(27:03):
have the opportunity to raise the prices as you develop
your CV, as you begin to have a sales history.
But first and foremost, the most important thing is to
be able to sell the work. You know, not only
does it help you to be able to reinvest back
into your practice, but it's a good feeling and it
gives you confidence. And these early collectors are going to
be the major major advocates for you.

Speaker 5 (27:25):
You know.

Speaker 6 (27:26):
So my thinking is early on, you give people more
for their money and they'll always return back.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
And what do you think about prints?

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Like say, somebody can't get an original piece of art,
but they're like, okay, well they do have these limited
edition prints available for us to be able to purchase.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Is that valuable?

Speaker 5 (27:42):
Yeah, it just it depends, you know.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
I don't know if they're valuable at fifteen hundred or
two thousand in an edition, you know. But that's why
I created Richard Beaver's Gallery editions so that now we
can make the limited editions and the prints available, but
we can keep them at a really small edition size
and give people opportunity to purchase something that will also
appreciate and value over time.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
And people can do that on your website.

Speaker 6 (28:03):
They can do that on my website, yes, or they
can come into the gallery.

Speaker 7 (28:07):
You know.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
I always always want.

Speaker 6 (28:08):
People to come into the gallery, you know because historically galleriestimidate,
Oh yeah, go to the website. Let me say this,
when people travel from all different parts of the world,
they come to Brooklyn like we're on their list.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
We play with us things I am surrounded by.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
And now you can do virtual Do you do virtual
showings of your artwork if somebody wants to purchase but
say they're not going to make the trip.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
Yeah, I have an OvR catalog that we can send
to them.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Okay, isn't that great modern technology because that's kind.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Of the wave.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
Yeah it is. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
All right, So happy wealth Onesdays, everybody, and your to
do today is to go to Richard Beavers Gallery dot
com and.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Let's make our appointment because I've been wanting to do
that because I know during the week it's appointment only
and then it's open.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
So now now when the weather warms up.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Okay, I'm coming by.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
Yes, we're open Tuesday through Friday from twelve to six
p Tuesday through Sunday from twelve to six pm.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Come in and then come and then we're going to
bring everybody with us to Cup.

Speaker 6 (29:12):
Yes, then we walk over to Cup and we should
do some collaborations.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
I'm serious, we are.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
Yeah, Yeah, let's let's do it.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
All right, Wealth Wednesday's taking y'all on an art tour
Love This

Speaker 5 (29:28):
Way Up.