How does art created for a dictator differ from art created for a freely elected leader? In what was is it the same?

His most famous contribution to the area is the Santa Prisca Cathedral, built in the Spanish Baroque style which can be seen from anywhere in Taxco as it glistens in the sunlight.Mexico’s war for Independence during the 19th century saw many of the mines destroyed as the Spanish barons fought to prevent them being lost to the revolutionaries. It wasn’t until a chance comment was made to William Spratling, a US citizen and architectural professor who came to the area in the late 1920’s to study Mexico and its culture that Taxco future potential as the world silver capital was realised.

Apparently the US Ambassador commented to Mr Spratling that Taxco had once been the site of seemingly bottomless silver mines for centuries but had not ever been considered a location where jewellery and object of silver where designed and made. This got William Spratling thinking and he set about finding and nurturing the potential talent in the locals and motivating the artisans in the Taxco area to rediscover the craft of silversmithing.Using his own designs he created an apprentice-based training system, training the artistic young and eager people of Taxco and giving them the opportunity to develop their skill as artists and silversmiths.

Within just a few years the quality and beauty of the silver workmanship coming out of the Taxco area gained worldwide recognition for Mexico and other cities where silver was mined soon followed suit.Williams first apprentices are now considered the old masters of Mexican Silver and Antonio Pineda, Hector Aguilar, Margot de Taxco, the Castillos, Ledesma and Chino Ruiz have produced and continue to craft some of the most highly prized and collectible pieces. Mr Spratling became known as “The Father of Mexican Silver” before his death in 1967 in a car accident and a silver bust of Mr Spratling resides in the towns museum to commemorate his contribution to Mexico and the town of Taxco.Every November Taxco holds it world famous ‘Silver Fair’ called ‘Feria Nacional de la Plata’ where craftsmen, artisans and silversmiths show their work and compete to win the prized award of ‘Best Silver Artist of the Fair.’

The local senorita’s also vie for the title of, “Queen of the Silver Fair” and the fair is celebrated with fireworks, concerts, dances and exhibits.Taxco which is pronounced Tahs-ko, itself is located in the hills between Acapulco and Mexico City and is a city with a natural ambiance and charm with its red-tiled roofs, narrow, cobblestone streets that wind up and down the hills of Taxco. These streets are a bustling hive of activity during the day with street merchants, taxi’s and shoppers all vying for space. Over 16,000 silver shops line the tiny Plasa Borda, all streets lead to this, the main plaza in Taxco where bartering is an exciting adventure.

Silver jewellery of every design can be seen in this tiny plaza and exquisite rings, necklaces, bracelets and bangles can be seen flashing in the sun and artfully draped over black clothes to test even the greatest willpower. For those looking for silver it is a Mecca and no-one can help coming back to their accommodation without snagging a bargain or two.

Mexico has three cities where silver jewellery is manufactured; Mexico City itself, Guadalajara and Taxco. Taxco is known s “The Silver Capital of the World.”Mexican silver jewellery so prized around the world for a number of reasons:

As the biggest silver producer in the world today, it is easy to obtain pure silver and most silver jewellery coming out of Mexico is made of sterling silver or 925 silver. Other countries more notably some of the Asian countries tend to dilute their silver to make it go further and it is common to find jewellery at .800 silver content.
Most pieces are hand finished by artisans called silversmiths who hand down their craft through traditional apprenticeships and along with an education these apprentices are given a passion and a love for their art.

Mexican jewellery can be found in every corner of the world and retains its value over the years because of its quality and unmistakable style.

The photography gallery of Yossi Milo exists upstairs from a taxi garage. The PaceWildenstein’s Minimalist mausoleum on West 25th is down the street from old artist’s coops. Elite art collectors rub shoulders with auto mechanics as they walk through the streets. But despite this unusual relation­ship, after more than ten years of growth, the Chelsea neighborhood possesses more than 250 galleries that extend from West 13th to West 29th Streets and from 10th Avenue to the West Side Highway in Manhattan, about twice the amount of galleries SoHo had in the early 1990’s.

The migration to Chelsea is a large scale New York City event that has never hap­pened before. All species of art galleries exist in Chelsea in different stages of development. Its crop of galleries consists of parallel reali­ties catering to different audiences and mar­kets from the avant-garde to the academic. With art from places as far as India and as close as Williamsburg, Chelsea reflects con­temporary art’s global marketplace.

“Chelsea is now the dominant mar­ketplace for art culture in New York,” said Renee Vara, an Adjunct Professor at New York University and Lecturer at Guggenheim Museum, where she teaches art history, art theory, and museum studies, and is a private independent curator and art historian. “It offers efficiency and a separate enclave with a collective and attractive element.”

The breakthrough into Chelsea be­gan in 1988 with the opening of the Dia Foun­dation, now Dia Center for the Arts. This cul­tural pioneer set up camp in a vicinity where spaces were large and rents were cheap. By late 1994, Matthew Marks, then a young Up­per East Side dealer, expanded to West 22nd Street and started the “art party scene” in the new neighborhood. At the time, it was impos­sible to predict how Chelsea would be trans­formed or how fast changes would happen.

Paula Cooper arrived in 1996. Cooper had opened SoHo’s first art gallery in 1968 and then joined about 15 other art dealers and moved to far west Chelsea. The space in Chelsea opened in an old garage on West 21st Street, between 10th and 11th av­enues. Because of Cooper’s prominence in the art world and her role in developing SoHo, many art and real estate entrepreneurs took her move as a sign that the neighborhood west of 10th Avenue and bound by 20th and 26th streets was about to be transformed.

The transformation of Chelsea was the answer for rents that had spiralled out of control in SoHo. With most galleries renting and not owning their spaces in SoHo, galler­ies sought out new ventures in other territo­ries where rents were cheaper or the option of owning a building was presented. The idea of Chelsea was ripe for its time when the art world was ready to break old traditions with SoHo. They found them in Chelsea.

As Chelsea dominated the art scene, Mary Boone signaled another stage in her personal evolution as a dealer by estab­lishing a Chelsea branch of her high profile gallery. Gluckman Mayner Architects created a dramatic Chelsea gallery for Boone. Rich­ard Gluckman’s association with Boone dates back to her days on West Broadway. He also designed her gallery at 745 Fifth Avenue.

Boone opened her first space in SoHo on Broadway in 1979 moving into the same building that housed Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend’s legendary galler­ies. Boone later looked for space on 57th Street in the traditional neighborhood of the New York art world.

The layout and details of the Chel­sea gallery originated from the design of her uptown space. The architect created a pow­erful juxtaposition between the details associ­ated with his work and the rugged quality of original wood trusses and wood plank ceiling, which are exposed arcing over the space. The floors are steel-troweled concrete slab, which mimics the floor treatment uptown. And the fa-cade’s storefront of translucent glass reminds one of Gluckman’s design at Boone’s West Broadway gallery. In Chelsea, all three rooms receive natural light by way of the translucent storefront windows in the reception area and through a small central skylight in the rear. The 12-ft.-wide main exhibition area contains a translucent skylight that traverses the entire length of the 24-ft.-high display wall. Spot­lights provide additional lighting.

As the Chelsea area continued to transform, people moved into the area’s first pricey loft conversion on West 22nd Street. Savanna Partners, a young real estate development firm, bought that property at a July 1994 auction for $3 million. Because of zoning requirements, it took Savanna Part­ners one and a half years to get approvals, even though there was very little manufac­turing activity and little hope for any more industrial growth.

Today, Savanna builds huge lofts and rents the street-level spaces to galler­ies and restaurants. Not far to the south, on 17th Street, World Wide Holdings Corp. does something similar, and the Meatpacking District of the far west Village has practically disappeared as old warehouses are being-turned into apartments.

Among Chelsea gallery spaces are other SoHo exiles like John Weber, Barbara Gladstone, Metro Pictures, 303 Gallery, Bose Pacia Gallery, and Agora Gallery.

“Chelsea affords you access to critics and curators that make the rounds regularly to look at galleries,” said Dr. Steve Pacia, co-founder and co-partner with Dr Arani Bose of the Bose Pacia Gallery on West 26th Street.

Bose Pacia Gallery, established in 1994 in SoHo, was the first gallery in the West specializing in contemporary art from South Asia. During the last ten years, Bose Pacia has held over 30 exhibitions and is internationally regarded for promoting the South Asian avant-garde. Visual artists from South Asia work within a unique space that is informed by many cultures, languages and re­ligions. Bose Pacia fosters an active discourse between these artists and the international art community by featuring exhibitions that contextualize contemporary art from this geo­graphic region within its rich artistic traditions and current social tensions.

Established in 1984 in SoHo by a fine artist, Agora Gallery more than doubled its space when it moved to Chel­sea in 2003. A gallery without borders, Agora was one of the pioneer galleries pro­viding representation to both national and international artists.

Recent interviews by its director, Angela Di Bello, in Business News Weekend (NBC) Hellenic Public Radio, and the Wall Street Journal have brought additional atten­tion and visitors to Chelsea.

The New Museum also left SoHo for an interim spot in Chelsea but has closed its doors, with the exception of its bookstore space at the Chelsea Art Museum, for a year and a half until the construction of its much anticipated new building on the Bowery is opened. Designed by the acclaimed Tokyo based company of Sejima and Nishizawa/SA-NAA, the new 60,000 square foot, seven-sto­ry New Museum will be the first art museum building constructed in downtown Manhattan in over a century.

While natural objects often inform artists, few powerful artistic perspectives emerge solely from viewing nature. In fact, until the 19th century most serious artists viewed painting or sculpturing from nature with skepticism.

Spending time with artists has helped many to formulate new perspectives. For the wealthy, it has always been possible to buy lessons from the leading artists of the day who didn’t earn enough from making art to support themselves. Some art students traveled to Europe to gain that exposure. Without the need to earn a living, wealthy artists could indulge in whatever creative work inspired them until something useful developed.

For the not-so-wealthy, schools often provided the basics through studying art produced by others and developing fundamental skills like drawing live models. From the Renaissance on, male artists often supported themselves by serving as assistants to established male artists. In the 19th century, women began painting in large numbers, and many earned a living by copying masterpieces in museums like the Louvre in Paris.

Those pathways worked well for those who were wealthy or knew they wanted to be artists at a young age. What could the others do?

Choices were limited. You had to earn a living and carve out a little time to do what young artists had already accomplished by the time they were 22 or so. Without a background in art, you couldn’t hope to earn a living teaching it.

This was a classic Catch-22 problem (when you need what you don’t have to get what you need) for aspiring adult artists with limited backgrounds until online education expanded the art world. With a computer you could travel the world from your bedroom, see the great masterpieces reproduced, and hear the works discussed by countless art historians. College art lectures had long featured showing lots of slides in dark rooms while an art historian commented. The view on a computer screen was often better than from the back of a crowded, overheated classroom. You can also “visit” major art historians online without attending their lectures in person providing much flexibility for those with limited time for travel and study.

What does the future hold for artists who want to further inform their perspectives? Online education provides an unparalleled additional opportunity.

Let’s consider the case of Ms. Raeda Ashour to appreciate how large the changes are. Ms. Ashour is a native of Saudi Arabia. While growing up, she didn’t yet feel a calling towards creating art. Instead, she felt attracted to literature and the chance to learn English during her studies in Egypt. As a college student at the American University in Cairo, she deepened her understanding of Middle East culture through reading Arabic literature.

In the process of her Middle East studies, she gained some exposure to Arabic art. She discovered that she loved to paint and took up this activity as a hobby. She also visited galleries and began reading about art.

After graduating from college, she could not obtain a work permit in Egypt and had to bide her time until she gained exposure to book publishing through some friends. Eventually, she founded a publishing company with two partners and especially enjoyed designing book covers. Her artistic hobby also expanded to making collages that friends admired.

After seven years, the publishing business started losing money and was closed. Ms. Ashour was unsure what career to follow next.

Soon thereafter, she married a Lebanese photographer who encouraged her to spend more time working on her art. Ms. Ashour held a solo exhibition in Cairo that was well received.

When the couple moved to Saudi Arabia, she continued to focus on her art and soon built a following as one of Saudi Arabia’s leading artists. In the next twelve years, she added a base of collectors through six solo shows and twenty group exhibitions.

In 2005, Ms. Ashour found that she wanted to expand her artistic vision and improve her perspective. By adding a solid art education, she hoped to gain new insights she could apply to her work. She also realized that a master’s degree could also help her gain either a university teaching job or consulting assignments with companies. The wildly fluctuating income of a freelance artist can be stabilized through such activities. In addition, she wanted to write about the potential for art to play a larger and more helpful role in Saudi society.

How might she gain those educational perspectives while living and painting in Saudi Arabia? The possibilities of an online education to serve her needs soon attracted her keen eye.

After considering many online degree programs in art, she selected Rushmore University as her school. Why?

Here were some of her reasons:

1. The possibility of designing a custom major.

2. She could start classes immediately.

3. She could earn credits for her previous life experience.

4. She could study as much as she wanted and accelerate her graduation date.

5. Since many of the university’s students had published their work, it gave her confidence that her master’s degree writing might also be published one day.

6. There were no exams.

7. The tuition fees were affordable for an artist.

After she graduated in 2007 with an M.A. in Arts Education, I asked Ms. Ashour to share some thoughts with me about her distance learning experiences. Overall, she described this way of learning as a very rewarding step in expanding her artistic vision. She felt that she accomplished several things including:

1. Enhancing her knowledge about art and art education to help improve her career as an artist.

2. Regaining her research and writing skills.

3. Improving her credibility in the artistic community.

In addition, she gained confidence about publishing her papers and seeking teaching jobs at the university level. She intends to continue her education through either specialized studies or possibly earning a doctorate.

How is her art career doing? A recent e-mail shared the good news that she is busy preparing work for two important solo shows in 2008.

What career boosts are you seeking?

How are you going to improve your vision and perspective to enhance your career?

What role can distance learning through the Internet play?