Looking for Screens, Finding Art

On the way to a bar the other evening, I found myself looking through the car window and thinking about art.

It was dark outside, and the lights were on inside the homes we passed. House after house appeared for only a moment before slipping behind us. As I looked through the windows, I began wondering whether I might be able to see any art hanging on the walls.

I expected to see screens.

I assumed televisions would be the most prominent objects in these rooms, perhaps joined by computer monitors or other glowing rectangles. Before I had even started looking, I had already decided what modern life behind those windows would look like.

Instead, I saw art.

I could not make out the individual pieces clearly from a moving car. I did not know who the artists were, what mediums had been used, or whether the works were original. But I could tell the difference between a television and a work of art, and there was so much more art than I expected.

One piece was enormous. Another home had what appeared to be a salon wall, with artwork clustered together in different sizes. Every few seconds, another illuminated room passed by and offered the briefest glimpse of another collection.

I do not think I saw a single person.

The homes were lit, but the people remained invisible. All I saw were traces of their lives through the things they had chosen to place around them.

I wanted the car to slow down.

What was that enormous piece? Who created it? Who decided where it should hang? Had the collection been assembled over many years, or had someone recently started buying art? What did these works mean to the people living with them?

More than anything, I wanted to go inside and see it all.

There is a conversation happening throughout the art world right now that people are not buying art. I hear it from artists, gallerists, and others trying to connect artwork with collectors. In San Francisco, the conversation often turns toward the people working in technology. They have the resources, we are told, but they are not interested in art.

I have never felt fully qualified to agree or disagree. I simply have not had enough access to know what is inside people’s homes.

Then, for the length of one car ride, I caught a glimpse.

I do not know who lived in those houses. I do not know when the art was acquired, how much it cost, or whether it was purchased, inherited, gifted, or created by someone they love. But I saw home after home in which people had chosen to give art a meaningful place in their lives.

That complicates the idea that people no longer want art.

Perhaps the people are there. Perhaps the desire is there. Perhaps what is missing is not an audience for art, but an experience through which more people actually want to encounter it.

I do not say that to blame artists, galleries, or anyone else. I understand the pressure they are under. When sales are difficult, visible attendance becomes one of the few available signs that something is working. A crowded opening looks successful. An empty room does not.

I have organized an event with a very small turnout. I know the feeling of looking around a room you worked hard to fill and interpreting every empty space as evidence that you failed. It is painful. I understand why we do everything possible to get more bodies through the door.

But a full room is not necessarily a room full of people engaging with the art.

I attend many exhibition openings, and people arrive with all kinds of intentions. Some come to network. Some come for the free wine. Some come to show off a new outfit, be seen by the right people, or demonstrate their status and philanthropy. None of those motivations is inherently terrible, and openings serve an important purpose. I attend them because I want to support artists, experience their work, and purchase something when I am able.

The Studio Registry will also organize exhibitions and present art in gallery settings. This is not an argument against openings or galleries.

It is an argument for more than one way in.

Sometimes the artwork at an opening becomes the backdrop for everything else happening in the room. People may attend an art event without ever truly attending to the art.

I want to offer people another kind of experience.

I want them to feel excited, inspired, and comfortable. I want them to experience joy, sorrow, whimsy, confusion, and curiosity. Not every work needs to be something they would take home. Sometimes a piece is meaningful because it makes someone stop and think, “What is happening here? Why did the artist make this? Why am I responding to it this way?”

The first goal should be to feel something.

I want The Studio Registry to create the conditions for that to happen without immediately introducing pressure to purchase. I want to welcome people thoughtfully and give them the space to look, ask questions, meet artists, and respond honestly.

When I imagine the experience, it feels like a friend welcoming you home after a long trip.

There should be comfort and warmth. If I know that someone loves an oat milk latte, I want to have an oat milk latte waiting for them. If they prefer wine, a mimosa, or simply a glass of water, I want to remember that. If food would allow them to relax and remain present, I do not want them trying to appreciate art while distracted by hunger.

That may sound like a small detail, but it expresses what luxury means to me.

Luxury is not formality for its own sake. It is attention. It is remembering what someone enjoys and creating an environment in which they feel considered. It is making an experience personal enough that the person can relax and give their attention to the artwork.

Some people may want to visit several studios with a group. Others may prefer a private viewing or a quiet studio visit that feels like something special they are doing for themselves. Art can be therapeutic, and the way someone is welcomed can deepen their ability to experience it.

The environment should support the encounter rather than compete with it.

If someone leaves without purchasing anything, that does not necessarily mean the experience was unsuccessful. I would hope they leave thinking, “I cannot wait to come back.”

That is one of the beautiful things about The Studio Registry. I am not inviting someone to return repeatedly to the same white box. The next experience could take place in an entirely different artist’s studio. It could introduce them to several artists, an unfamiliar medium, a hands-on event, or something they did not even know they were curious about.

I want each experience to fulfill curiosity while also creating more of it.

Eventually, that curiosity may develop into a relationship with a particular work of art.

For me, deciding to purchase a piece begins when I encounter it and realize the conversation is not over. Something about the work tells me that I need to see it again. I may not completely understand why, but I know I want to keep returning to it.

It is a little like meeting someone who may eventually become a best friend. You do not know what the relationship will become during that first encounter. Something simply tells you to keep this person around and continue the conversation.

When I bring a piece of art home, I am committing to that conversation. I will see it in different light, moods, and periods of my life. My understanding of it may change, and the person I become while living with it may change as well.

Sometimes that conversation eventually concludes.

There are pieces in my own collection that I have lived with for years and now feel ready to rehang, sell, or pass along. That does not mean those relationships were unsuccessful. They may have simply reached their natural ending, allowing the artwork to begin a new conversation with someone else.

That is part of what fascinated me about the art inside those illuminated homes. I was not only seeing objects hanging on walls. I was catching glimpses of private, ongoing relationships.

A studio, a gallery, and a home each hold a work of art differently.

The artist’s studio is where the work is born. It remains connected to the materials, thoughts, experiments, failures, and decisions that brought it into existence. Meeting a work there allows someone to encounter it in conversation with its maker and the place that formed it.

A gallery offers a more temporary introduction. The artwork enters a space for a limited time, meets an audience, and eventually leaves. The encounter can be meaningful, but it is brief.

A home represents commitment. Someone has consciously invited the work into their life and agreed to live beside it for the foreseeable future.

The Studio Registry exists somewhere between the studio and the home, but I do not think it is the relationship itself.

It is the invitation.

It is the introduction. Perhaps, in some ways, it is the matchmaker. We invite someone into the studio, introduce them to the artist and the work, and create enough space for them to discover whether a conversation has begun.

That is how my own relationship with art developed.

Open Studios at the Hunters Point Shipyard first opened the door for me. Later, after I had my own studio here, I could continue visiting artists and learning about their practices. I was not limited to encountering completed work on a white wall. I could see where it was made, speak with the person who made it, ask questions, and understand something about the life surrounding it.

I want to offer other people that same opportunity to explore and discover.

The Studio Registry is an invitation to experience art again. Not as the backdrop to networking, drinking, status, or social performance, but as the reason for being there.

Come look closely. Feel something. Ask the question. Meet the artist. Stay with the piece long enough to discover whether the conversation is finished.

That car ride left me feeling more hopeful. Somewhere behind those windows were people already living with art. They had collections, histories, preferences, and relationships I could only glimpse from the street.

Now I want to find them.

I want to invite them into The Studio Registry and show them what these artists and their studios have to offer. I want to ask about their collections, learn their tastes, and understand why they chose the pieces they live with. I want another glimpse through the window, so to speak, into their relationships with art.

I do not want to know them merely as potential buyers. I want to know them as people.

Honestly, I want to be their friend.

Roman Guillen
Founder & Director, The Studio Registry