We recently connected with Randall Jordan and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Randall thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I traveled for the first time internationally to Accra Ghana in 1999 on a cultural/educational tour. I was immediately drawn to the people and the culture, I felt a sense of belonging as if I’ve been there many times before. During my time spent there, I experienced my first conscious introduction into the visual arts space. Visiting monuments, touring through the cities, supermarkets, cultural art centers, and carving villages, I was immediately intrigued by the uniqueness and creativity of various artworks displayed through paintings and wood sculptures/carvings. As the tour was coming to a close, I had acquired various wooden sculptures, masks, and paintings. There was a natural progression, a spiritual connection to the works of art which took me beyond being a tourist acquiring art commodities; I became a art collector.
I also realized that I enjoyed traveling and wanted to do more, experience other cultures connected to the African diaspora. Traveling became my outlet from the grind and hustle/bustle of my reality here in the US. Since 1999, I have traveled to Havana Cuba, Salvador Bahia Brazil, Dakar Senegal, and Accra Ghana multiple times, gaining knowledge of self, collecting art, making friends, and building coalitions.
After 20 years or so, there was no more room, on my walls for art, no more floor space for carvings/sculptures. A long time friend mentioned at this point, I should consider starting a on-line gallery and also host gatherings at my residence where people can get together to congregate and enjoy a visual arts experience; sales not being the main objective, but a potential opportunity. Also, this would be a great opportunity to share my cultural experiences based on my travels and introduce people to the international visual arts space. At the time, keeping this endeavor small and informal seemed very manageable and would ensure this would remain a hobby; an outlet from my daily work life. How could something fun, that I loved to do and keep manageable not work?
Not having any inventory accept outside of my personal art collection, I began traveling more extensively and purchasing artworks for the purpose of display and sells. As I increased my interaction with artists, I became connected to the life and how important art from a cultural perspective and financial means for supporting their families. Thus, my internet, mission, and objectives began to evolve to include providing exposure and potential income stream for artists. The unique but challenging approach involves consistent travel to various countries within the African diaspora in order to bring original and unique works of art to casual observers art lovers, and collectors alike within the US.
Randall, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Transcendent Artworks (TAW) is a international art gallery primarily focused on artworks originated from countries within the African diaspora. Through our passion for the visual arts, we have been collecting artworks for over 20 years; traveling abroad acquiring paintings, carvings, and handmade textiles. During this time period, we’ve had the opportunity to engage with various artists, learning their culture, witnessing their skills, understanding their passion, and appreciating their dedication for the arts. Becoming a gallerist was the next step towards sharing our experiences and exposing the talents of each artist with the multi-cultural visual arts community in the US.
In this capacity, we facilitate transactions between artists, collectors, and art lovers/enthusiasts. TAW continues to evolve as we expand our engagement with artists across the diaspora to reach their full artistic and economic potential.
Visual art commodities offered:
– Paintings, Wood and Stone Carvings, Textiles, Ceramics
What are we most proud of:
– Providing international artists exposure to the visual arts market within the US.
– Providing international artists an opportunity to increase financial means to support their families. Because TAW owns at lease 90% of our inventory, artists can receive compensation for their artworks without waiting for their artworks to sell through the consignment process.
– Facilitating an enhanced appreciation and knowledge of cultures abroad to the multi-cultural community within the US.
Brining people together here and abroad to congregate, network, make new friends and opening the door for new experiences.
This is what potential clients/followers/fans should know about TAW:
The most important feature of our brand is:
– Unique and original artworks
– All international artworks, personally selected by TAW
– From our experience, most galleries in the US are not 100% international; TAW offers artworks originated from artists abroad who are from and/or aligned with the African diaspora people/culture.
What we bring our clients:
We allow our customers the convenience of acquiring original and quality artworks from abroad without having to deal with all the nuances of traveling abroad to include the physical toll of long flights. Just as important, we allow our customers to focus their travel budget on flights, food, hotel, tourism without having to build a significant cushion for the purchase and shipment of ,id to higher end works of art. Our customers can do all the enjoyable activities associated with travel, knowing that TAW has original artworks from abroad that they can plan for at a later date in regards to their budget.
Artwork Pricing & Negotiations: Artists abroad are more astute in regards to their worth, thus days of obtaining medium to high-end artworks for a few hundred dollars no longer exists. We have found that even artists in difficult financial situations will not compromise the worth of their work by selling significantly cheaper. The electronic age has provided artists with valuable information to allow them to use a comparative market analysis to gage their pricing. TAW exerts an extensive amount of time and energy working with artists to achieve the best price for the artists and our clients. We also have designed and partnered with other businesses to offer flexible interest free financing programs to allow for our clients to obtain desired artworks without breaking their monthly budgets.
TAW takes on the burden of shipping: Another issue travelers/tourists take for granted is the cost of transporting artworks which must be shipped by water or air cargo because of the size and/or fragility of the art. Since the pandemic, cost to ship commodities has increased by 30 to 40%. Because TAW acquires artworks in bulk, we are able to reduce the cost of shipping per item to minimize the impact of the overall price presented to our clients.
TAW assumes the burden of damaged artworks: It’s not a rare circumstance for artworks such as sculptures to arrive slightly damaged or damaged beyond repair. We have built a relationship with artists to commit to reproducing the original artwork while TAW assumes the cost to re-ship.
So in the end, we take care of all the behind the scenes “dirty work”, allowing for our customers to enjoy the visual arts experience we bring from abroad.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Putting together initial capital:
– Full-time employment income
– Rental property income
– Credit-Lines
It was extremely important to understand the gallery market as a whole from a brick and mortar (commercial space) perspective. What are the basic operational costs and flows of income. Through my research and conversations with galleries over the years as an art collector, I had knowledge that the selling of artworks was not a consistent source of income to keep the business going. For the most part, stretching and framing of paintings, and renting out the gallery space for events, etc keeps a gallery afloat. Not having a commercial space, We could focus on acquiring and selling art only without the other fixed overhead necessary to run a full service gallery. However, there are cons to this strategy such as not having wallaby/walk-in traffic or a space readily available to showcase artworks. In order to minimize the impact of not having a commercial space, our residential space has been converted into a indoor/outdoor showroom and sculpture garden.
As a start-up 3 year ago, the strategy has consistently involved funneling all proceeds from sales back into the business in order to pay for any overhead or the acquisition of new artworks. Having other consistent sources of income outside of the art space allows for this strategy. Now, in the future, as we continue to expand, a significant amount of inventory from our initial investments (acquiring artworks), that transitioning to a commercial space will not include the build-up of inventory.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Because of the pandemic, many businesses were severely impacted, especially those business offering commodities and services not considered expenditures out of necessity. At TAW, our we took this as an opportunity to solidify, while slightly modifying our purpose, direction, and infrastructure that would provide us a platform reminiscent of a commercial gallery from a arts presentation perspective. Having an on-line business and dinner parties to put a few artworks on display would not be conducive to future growth. During this time, the decision was made to use a portion our residential property to build an onsite gallery (or art boutique) where artwork can be regularly displayed for exhibitions and private showings for new and existing clients. This effort also included building an outdoor sculpture (stone) gallery and sufficient space indoors for paintings, wood carvings, ceramics, and textiles. With the large amount of inventory on-hand, we were able to create a permanent visual arts space exhibitions and private showings.
During the pandemic, even though sales had diminished significantly, we invested more into acquiring new artworks with the firm belief that life would eventually come back to some sense of normality. What was especially gratifying for TAW is that we were able to provide significant financial support to artists abroad to support the artists and their families. We leaned on our Point’s of Contacts (POC’s) in each country to help us to forge forward to continue the business of doing business. Through our POC’s, we were able to continue to generate new business necessary to effectively communicate, negotiate and facilitate business opportunities.
Contact Info:
- Website: Transcendentartworks.com
- Instagram: Transcendnet Artworks
- Facebook: Transcendent Artworks