John Evans sez:

My name is John Evans. I am a member of I Love You Baby!, and a former member artist of CSAW. I exhibit under the name Jim Fat, and I occupied Studio D at Commerce Street Artists Warehouse prior to Skeez, Xavier Herrera and Mario Jose Olvera. I left CSAW, and the United States, in deep frustration at the state of the visual arts world there and came to the United Kingdom to embark on an international career unfettered by local politics. Given my closeness to the situation, I feel compelled to comment.

When I joined as a member artist of CSAW in 2002, the organization was already deep in the midst of a constitutional crisis. The problem then was as it is now, the conflicts between two essential groups: those who are genuinely there to be a part of a vibrant artistic community and those who are tenuously hanging on to the cheap rent. The latter group is generally far less productive than the former, and usually derive the money by which they pay rent by means other than art. More crudely, you could define this as a conflict between dedicated artists in a state of financial precarity versus hobbyists with “real world” jobs or independent wealth who are more financially solvent.

Maggi Battalino, whose Studio B looks much more like a luxury condo than the working artists studios in CSAW, is one of the latter group. I do not know to what Maggi owes her success as an artist, but (I say) the work that comes out of her studio is bland and uninspired, and lacks any sense of technique or design, and is a crude shadow of the real work coming from real artists’ studios 50 and 60 years ago from which it is so clearly derived, so I dare to put forth the notion that she is simply good at “playing the game.” We all know that the art world is populated by people like this, those lacking in talent enjoying undeserved success , but the corporate ethos with which we are forced to live in mega-cities like Houston encourages this type of thing to happen. It’s also helpful if you make art that looks like art by real artists who suffered for their trade generations ago, but which has since been accepted by the mainstream. It’s no risk for an investor from the business world to buy a new painting that breaks no ground and resembles the work of the past, nor does it constitute a risk on the part of the artist to produce such a picture.

Of the financially secure group at CSAW, however, Maggi is the most productive artist. The other members of this group derive their income from full-fledged careers in other fields or other means (such as teaching, nursing and alimony) and seldom make time for art, and contribute very little to quality of life and art at CSAW. For those people it is simply a long-term cheap rent situation, and every influence they exert over the organization is to make it a more pleasant environment in which to have a city apartment, to make events at CSAW conform to a schedule that does no harm to the early bedtimes they must keep so as to accommodate their non arts-related careers. If you can’t see the conflict of interest there, then you are probably one of the ‘artists’ of whom I speak.

Another contributing factor would be the death of our previous landlord, who was 103 years old when she passed on three years ago. When our precious benefactor passed away, ownership of 2315 Commerce Street transferred to her heirs, who are several in number. It was always suspected that when this group took over ownership of CSAW, that the tender stewardship provided by the departed would give way to lecherous money-suckling, and sure enough, it has.

I offer CSAW itself as proof of that. One need only look at the website to find that CSAW now has, all embodied in Maggi Battalino, a CEO, Treasurer and Liason! It’s proof that a dying organization has reached the depths of staleness. And now CSAW must surely be irrelevant to Houston, seeing how it has devolved into the vanity project of a select few whom I doubt have ever read the bylaw or mission statement.

So I raise a glass of good stout beer here in England to the final demise of that long-suffering Good Idea Gone Wrong. I lament what could have and should have been: a vibrant epicenter of the long-suffering community of dedicated struggling artists ideally placed in Houston’s 77002 zip code to provide a much-needed antithesis to the powerful corporate culture, rather than another of its bastions.

This is what you get when financial success is the only measure of an artist’s ability, those braver types doing stuff that actually is innovative are discouraged, and those with a little money in their pockets become monsters who STILL make terrible art. If Maggi Battalino is using CSAW money to pay cops and for her own agenda, she needs to go. If she is trying to make the place into a dormitory for over 40’s, she’s got to go. If she is monopolizing communication with the landlords in what is supposed to be a democratic collective, she has got to go. If she’s screening applicants for studios according to her own criteria, she’s go to go. And honestly, for her terrible work bringing down the integrity of the place, she needs to go.

The only way to save CSAW is for all the tenants to band together and evict Maggi on breach of the bylaws. However, as the article pointed out and I have elaborated on, CSAW is not really a place for risk-takers anymore. I seriously doubt anyone has the gumption to stand up to their newly crowned CEO.

Alternatively, one could call the Fire Marshall.

John Evans -a.k.a.- Jim Fat
Bristol, England
Great Britain