Sunset and the Art Glass Ceiling

I promised myself that I wouldn’t spend any more on arts this month, but I saw this Vietnamese handmade embroidered piece from a local curator in Virginia, and I immediately knew if was mine. But also, I was livid at the price I paid for it.

You see, at a list price of $50, I know the most the artist got paid was $40 - about 25% of the average monthly salary in Vietnam, and definitely far more than what the artist in the poor remote village of Phú Xuyên (where the piece originated from) would have gotten paid if they solely relied on domestic demand.

Do you see the seamless blending of colors, painstakingly sewn together stitch-by-stitch? If I turn off the lights in my room, the sunset glow on the fabric would still illuminate the space. That is how talented the artist is.  And she got paid $40, at the most, simply because she was born in a poor remote village in a developing country, which means she has zero negotiating power. Had she been in the US, she would have been able to ask at least $200-$500 for this piece.

But simply boycotting the small curators who themselves cannot afford to pay more, is not the solution.  It would actually hurt the artisans who are still getting paid a higher wage than what they would have made without the international contract. At the end of the day, it’s still a far better option than purchasing mass-produced prints from Walmart or any of the corporate retailers.

As mentioned, after my visit to the DC national art galleries, I realized how absolutely lopsided the US art scene is, and I’m determined to change that. It is my goal to open my own art gallery and fill it with the arts from people I know, arts from the poorest villages, arts that carry cultural traditions that are on the verge of extinction, arts from talents who never would have been given a chance simply because of where they live.

Because arts shouldn’t be reserved for the elites. I don’t even care about “smashing the glass ceiling” anymore. They can keep their glass ceiling. I will pave my own path and build my own ceiling, and it will probably be weaved with dried coconut leaves, squash vines, and a rusty tin roof.