Article 2.
Arabesque Study II (detail)
How My Fine Art Gallery opened at The Greenbrier
I lived in New York City in 1981 and 1982. In those two years, a few remarkable things happened; with very little money and even fewer contacts, I had the good fortune to have two One-Man-Shows of my paintings. The first was at the Lincoln Center Gallery in the Metropolitan Opera House. The second was at The Harkness House Gallery on East 75th street; a gallery affiliated with The Harkness Ballet which gave me the title of Artist-in-Residence… granting me full access to the facility. In 1981 my artistic focus was on painting ballet dancers and, as it happened, The American Ballet Theatre was on strike that year and used The Harkness House as their facility of choice to practice, so I had access to some the world’s most elite dancers. Unbelievable bit of luck there! (Details of how these events came about are outlined in my upcoming book, Wisdom and Luck)
It was also at this time that three of my ballet paintings were published by Bruce McGaw Graphics for distribution worldwide. Before long, I was receiving calls from magazines to do ballet paintings for their covers. I began to see that I was getting pigeon-holed, or type-cast, as a dance painter and it began to feel a bit restrictive.
To escape the brutal summers of New York City, I began visiting friends who lived in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia. The contrast was as extreme as one could get. When I’d arrive in West Virginia, surrounded by the green of the landscape and the quiet of the hills, my soul would say “Ahhhhh.” When I returned to New York, via LaGuardia Airport, getting hit in the face by the diesel fumes of the departing busses as I hailed a cab, my soul would cringe and say, “Aggggh.” So, it was just a matter of time until I heeded the urgings of my soul and moved from the Big Apple, with its One-Man-Shows and publishing contracts to the quiet solitude’s of the Mountain State.
I lived on my friend’s property; 200 or so acres high in the mountains, on a dirt road, far away from the ubiquitous honking horns and blaring lights of the city. We made maple syrup in the spring. We grew vegetables. We swam in the Greenbrier River. My soul was happy. I could breathe here.
Due to space limitations, I began painting in watercolor. When I had a small collection of paintings, I’d head out to cities and sell directly to galleries. This seemed to be a workable lifestyle. One day, my friend happened to say to me, “Your paintings are getting pretty good. You should show them to The Greenbrier.” I asked what The Greenbrier was and was told that it was a famous, world-class, five-star resort, complete with three championship golf courses, located just an hour away from or little slice of heaven.
Well, I’m no fool and I know when someone is having one over on me, so I refused to fall for the ruse and dismissed the suggestion. Some months later my friend took me car shopping out of town. Of course, everything was out of town from our remote location, but this trip was out of state. As we headed back to our mountain retreat, and as we approached the White Sulphur Springs exit off the freeway, my friend made a sudden turn onto the exit ramp. “Where are we going,” I inquired. “You’ll soon see,” came the reply. We cruised down the main street of the little town on this Saturday night, and I rolled my eyes at the scene; girls hanging on the side mirrors of boy’s pickup trucks in parking lots in the Saturday night dating ritual of this Appalachian community. Gun racks in the trucks. Baseball caps on the heads of the bearded young men. NOT Manhattan!
My chagrin soon turned into wonder as we turned into the front gates of the world class resort known as The Greenbrier. It really existed! I could hardly believe my eyes. Sixty-five hundred acres of manicured landscaping, golf courses and, of course, the grand Georgian structure of the hotel.
Next day, I arranged to see the Director of Operations for the resort. My hope was to sell some paintings to the hotel. He told me that he wasn’t interested in purchasing any paintings for the hotel (although later, he did purchase some for his own collection), but offered me my own gallery on the grounds. I thanked him for his time and his offer, declined, and headed out of his office. My hand was literally on the door knob and I had one foot over the threshold when he called me back and began to tell me about a group of privately owned shops called “The Art Colony.”
He asked me to hold off on my final answer and encouraged me to interview the shop owners. This I did, and I soon came to realize that this arrangement would work better for me than the out of state trips I had been making to sell to galleries. This new arrangement would have the world come to me! It was here that the elite guests of the resort discovered my work.
William Wolk Fine Art was at The Greenbrier for twenty-five years before relocating to beautiful Sarasota, Florida.
