Art can be a devastating profession, subjecting its most passionate disciples to rejection, woe and penury. Initially, impoverished painter Van Gogh self-mutilated; still broke, he later committed suicide.

Strapped for cash last month, local painter John Grow also succumbed to rage and despair: He gave away a painting he values at $3,800 to a stranger. The painting, “Down the Drain,” took a month of work; though its subject is a redheaded woman, in technical execution and romance, Grow’s careful rendering gives Titian more than a run for his money.

One night in March, the tall painting stood in the Fort Lewis College Music Hall as a crowd of hundreds filed in to see a ballet. Sheila Bishop, a woman from Mancos, admired it, and read the intriguing sign: “Free to a Good Home.” Anyone interested in the painting should talk to Denise Leslie, editor of Arts Perspective magazine.

There was no other publicity. Within hours, Bishop, a single mother, had become the owner of a fine artwork.

Rebellion

Grow’s struggles and talents represent the plight of many Durango artists in an age where it nearly takes a miracle (or a New York gallery) to live off your art.

Grow’s works – oil paintings, often featuring young women – have fetched as much as $17,000. He trained in fine arts at Northwestern University, yet he goes months without a sale. He is cheerful about poverty and readily admits to searching couch cushions for food. But he is increasingly outraged that local artists cannot make a living.

“Giving the painting away was a protest against how little we value art,” he said.

Still, many of Grow’s colleagues feared he was cutting off his ear, so to speak, to spite his face.

Leslie initiallywas baffled by his proposal.

“I thought, ‘Are you serious?’ Because his work is just so meticulous and beautiful: ‘Seriously, you’re going to give a painting away?’”

Grow’s friend, fellow painter Elizabeth Kinahan, was similarly incredulous.

“I wouldn’t be as surprised if it were an average painter. But John has created an incredible body of work,” she said.

Portrait of the artist

Grow has painted for decades. He’s shy. His speech is so labored, self-conscious and precisely constructed, it can seem like English is his second language. Yet when Grow gets going, he isn’t stingy with his thoughts. Recently, after a few sips of wine, Grow worried about being “too fat,” being single and 60, and that he’ll lose his job analyzing medical records on weekends – the income that has allowed him to paint five days a week for 23 years.

His home in north Durango could be nice; as is, it’s a hovel, with every room dominated by unruly tenants: his ever-increasing collection of unsold paintings.

When he recently returned from a show, “it occurred to me when I was wrapping them in black plastic, it would be better to give them away, rather than almost murder them.

“Maybe it was Canadian whiskey, maybe it was because I am in a grumpy mood about greed. I really, really became conscious of the fact that I was putting paintings in storage rooms because I was an American, and by God, I was going to get paid. And when I really processed the thought, it sounded so stupid and wicked,” he said.

Culture, bankrupt

Poverty has a long tradition in art. Monet, Vermeer and El Greco lived in destitution. Yet today’s art market is awash in money. According to French database Artprice, works by contemporary artists born after 1945 generated $17.2 billion in global auction sales in 2013, up 39 percent from 2012.

Just 7.5 percent of art auctioned in the U.S. last year scored 91.2 percent of the cash.

Kinahan said the upper end of the art market is undermining the public’s understanding of art’s value, thereby hurting painters like her and Grow.

“The fact that people have all this money to spend is really messing with us. A gallery comes along and declares Damien Hirst values $20 million – but these prices are ridiculous,” Kinahan said.

On hearing about Grow’s protest, Karyn Gabaldon, painter and owner of the Gabaldon Gallery, sympathized. “Poor guy – he’s so good.”

But she said Grow’s central point – that it’s nearly impossible to make a living as an artist – is spot on. At about $2,400 a pop, Gabaldon estimates she earns 25 cents an hour from her paintings.

“People have no clue how hard it is to make a living off the arts,” she said.

Local painter Phyllis Stapler, whose canvases fetch up to $12,000, said she spent years living under leaking roofs before Sorrel Sky started showing her work.

“It can be heartbreaking, but every time I thought of throwing in the towel, a big sale or an opportunity would come through,” she said. “I think the whole American culture has some sort of cognitive dissonance about artists: We have big moments, but people seem to think the bills and such don’t apply to artists.”

Stapler was at the FLC ballet and saw Grow’s zero-dollar minor masterwork.

“That was a lovely piece. The way I feel about artists of merit like John, I don’t know him very well, but he deserves to sell and be shown,” she said. “It’s just a matter of finding the right gallery – in Denver or New York – then he will. I mean his work is spectacular, but Durango is very limited.”

Brave new world

Galleries no longer work for everyone, however. Kinahan said because galleries face enormous overhead – rent, wages, insurance – they take a 30 to 50 percent cut of any sale.

Though Studio & displays Kinahan’s works, she said the Internet is increasingly vital to her success.

“It’s 90 percent of it. It’s what keeps my business functioning at this level: The fact that someone in South Carolina can get on the Internet, see my painting and buy it. It’s just huge,” Kinahan said.

Jackson Clark, owner of Toh-Atin Gallery, said a part of the problem may be Grow’s price for some of his art: $17,000 is a lot of money to an average middle-class person, but if you make one sale a year, it’s not enough to live on. He said in terms of hourly wages and artistic quality, $20,000 may be cheap for one of Grow’s or Kinahan’s or Gabaldon’s or Stapler’s paintings.

“But an artist can’t price their work based on what they put into it. I primarily do Native American art. But if we’d sold Navajo rugs based on the hour, no one could afford it,” Jackson said.

Grow said giving his painting away had been “the most liberating experience of my life. It’s projecting the painting in the future in some way, so my life’s work won’t end up in a thrift store or a dump,” he said.

Bishop, the painting’s new owner, said though it was free, it is priceless.

“It’s going to be an heirloom. I’m already thinking about which of my daughters is going to inherit it,” she said.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com