CHAPTER 1

NO SALES. PRESENT DAY. SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

Winter smells in Santa Fe are subtle mixtures of burning piñon wood and roasting green chiles, a fragrance unique to northern New Mexico. The more-than-mile-high air is cold and crisp, with skies deceivingly crystal blue, never betraying the next hidden snowstorm crouching behind the surrounding mountainous landscape. Except this year the snow hadn’t found its way to the mountains, so Santa Fe’s ski and retail season had been a bust. Charles Bloom was struggling.

“Today’s temperature, 15 degrees, a 70% chance of a late afternoon snow squall and near-record low temperatures,” the radio announcer dutifully reported in a singsong northern New Mexican accent, a reminder of his five-hundred-year-old conquistador bloodlines.

Charles sighed. “I remember when the snow used to come early and heavy! Now we have snow squalls and ice,” he said out loud to the radio. “Don’t forget the ice, Diego,” Charles told the radio announcer, whom he often ran into at Sunflower Farmers Market in the evening. The ice was why Charles couldn’t do his morning runs any more before opening his contemporary art gallery, and this winter he couldn’t afford a gym membership either.

He knew the forecast meant he might as well have not even shown up to open this morning. The frigid weather would insure no traffic and zero money today, once again. Tourists rarely ventured off the money-making Santa Fe Plaza when the cold winds blew, and if they did they would only walk up half of Canyon Road, never finding his little gallery, Bloom’s, which was just past the critical halfway point. He was having his worst winter in the over-twenty years since he had launched Bloom’s.

Doing the math in his head, Bloom started his countdown to survival. “OK, I’ve got five months of minimal sales. I’ve still got a few good pieces and my bank note won’t come due for six. I can turn this puppy around. I just have to focus on selling, not the fact that I’m in fairly serious trouble. Sell, sell, sell.” Bloom was an optimist at heart and was giving himself a pep talk, trying to prepare for the bleak day’s prospects.

Bloom’s was located on Canyon Road, one of the great historic streets in America, designated as a must-see by all the television travel shows. The address was important (and expensive), but unfortunately Bloom’s was not exactly located on the main road. It was hidden down a small alleyway in an old re-done adobe. The original owner who had made it into a gallery started in the fifties: Agnes Sims, a hard-driven artist who also dabbled (quite successfully) in real-estate sales.

The little adobe structure had been modified numerous times by unknown Hispanic residents, each of whom had added their own little rooms before Sims took possession. A real-estate agent would now describe the gallery as Santa Fe funk—charming with an exceptionally odd layout and unbearably cold in the winter. The worn, wooden ponderosa pine floors squeaked with the slightest foot pressure so no alarms were necessary to alert when a potential client came through the doors. The ceilings were dreadfully low for contemporary art, which always shows best in large, open spaces with lots of room between paintings. The luxury of space in a Santa Fe gallery meant you had plenty of capital, not something the Bloom Corporation enjoyed, but for Charles Bloom the space worked. The thought that the wooden planks underneath his feet had been worn by generations of retailers—first apple buyers, then artists, now him, was a comforting connection from past to present. And he loved his small wood-burning fireplace; the warm fires in the small shop made it feel less like a retail operation and more like a reflective nook.

Bloom had decided early on to specialize in contemporary Native American art. Not the traditional squash blossoms, silver jewelry, and black two-toned pottery, but modern Native American art. This set Bloom apart from all his competitors, which is important when you have 200 galleries all vying for a piece of the art-sales pie.

Very few Native artists truly were modern, for most of their roots in painting and sculpture were steeped in a realistic tradition, not abstraction, and their artwork reflected this. Bloom determined that Indians, as they are called in Santa Fe (Native Americans refer to themselves in this fashion, as do others) celebrated their heritage in almost all things they produced. Most had a difficult time straying very far away from their ancestral bonds.

Bloom had discovered early in his career if he tried to handle strictly modern paintings and sculpture with no hint of realism he would starve. The limits of what Bloom considered modern were therefore slightly broadened. His favorite artwork was complete abstraction, but Bloom’s also carried a few artists that tended toward realism and social commentary.

Specializing in only Native artists allowed Bloom to represent the big names in the world of modern Native art, something that would never had happened if he hadn’t found such a focused niche. Being one-sixteenth Cherokee himself somehow gave Bloom a bond with his artists, even if it was more mental than physical. Bloom’s art was reasonable in price for the most part, starting around $1,000 and topping out at $75K.

Like so often during quiet times, Bloom’s thoughts circled back to the contemporary Native artist Willard Yellowhorse, whom he had represented for five years in the early nineties, and had helped turn into an art superstar. In those days, Bloom’s was a must-see destination by serious art buyers, and he and Willard had made terrific money. Charles had considered looking for that ideal spot on Canyon Road itself, one of the few with high ceilings. But he and Willard had built their careers together in this old adobe, Willard so often sitting on an old wooden chair he pulled up by the fireplace, lost in his own thoughts.

Bloom had discovered Willard Yellowhorse at Indian Market during the third week in August over twenty years ago. Willard’s work stood out from his peers’ in a way Bloom had never witnessed before. Paintings with unique abstract designs and symbolism intertwined, primary colors using odd combinations that only Willard could make work. Natural elements were often woven into his large canvases: dirt, grass, insects, and even occasional animal scat. Yellowhorse told Bloom his inspiration came from his roots as a Diné, the religious sand paintings that his medicine-man grandfather made, and the weavings of his maternal grandmother. Yellowhorse would never elaborate on the designs other than to say, “You can be sure they are important to the Diné, but you are free to interpret them as you see fit. I don’t want my Indian beliefs to influence the viewer.” Nothing more or less, let the viewer decide.

The judges at Indian Market did decide: they did not get the importance of Yellowhorse’s work and dismissed it as “not good,” “not pretty,” and “definitely not Indian,” as Bloom heard one judge tell a fellow judge during the annual opening.

Indian Market for Willard Yellowhorse was no awards and no sales, but the Indian painter found a true believer in the young Charles Bloom. Bloom got Yellowhorse. They bonded immediately.

Bloom offered a prime spot to the young Yellowhorse in his gallery. He promised the then-unknown artist the main wall in his front room. This was the area that was usually dedicated to the dead guys, who brought the real money and paid the rent. For Bloom to give up the space to a virtually unknown artist was shocking to say the least. It was a gut response, one you can’t explain, you just know. Very risky, though. If the clients never got past the front room because they didn’t like Yellowhorse’s work, they would never see Bloom’s expensive dead guys—his bread and butter—just around the corner in the Santa Fe funk part of his gallery.

It was a simple arrangement. Bloom would promote Yellowhorse, pay for his entire advertising, do an annual show around Indian Market-time in August, and they would split all the profits. Bloom would have an exclusive arrangement in the West, but Willard could have other gallery representation east of the Mississippi. Quite frankly, Bloom really didn’t worry about losing him to an Eastern gallery. Those guys never got the so-called Indian Art, even if it was contemporary.

The arrangement worked well, and Charles and Willard had both flourished and the money had rolled in after only a couple of years. No more Indian Market booth on the street for Willard Yellowhorse, who could rely on gallery sales instead.

The thought of Willard on this cold, unproductive February day made Charles incredibly sad. Charles remembered how they had developed their careers together, how Willard had introduced him to other Indian artists and how Charles had given Willard feedback on which of his painting series were most popular—had encouraged him to do series, for that matter. Bloom’s had become an impromptu gathering spot for Willard and his Indian artist friends. The notoriety and money Bloom’s had received was especially important for Bloom, who had risked his entire savings on this gallery.

Charles’ eyes teared up at the thought of the now-dead Yellowhorse. He wondered to himself as he had countless times before, “Why would he kill himself? I still don’t get it. He was full of life. And he never left a suicide note, just that short statement, `My greatest and last artwork, STRUGGLE. All arrangements of my death to be handled by my dealer.’” Willard Yellowhorse’s last horrific art project and the note’s final statement about “my dealer” hurt Bloom the most, as he was no longer Willard’s dealer. That honor went to a big-time gallery owner in New York who had the exclusive rights to all of Yellowhorse’s work.

Charles had been thinking of Willard’s last artwork ever since he read it was about to come up for the first time in 15 years at the spring sale at Sotheby’s, its estimate $2.5 million to $5 million dollars. As shocking as that number was, it was even more amazing that none of the proceeds would go to Yellowhorse’s family, but all to his New York City dealer who owned the copyrights for Willard’s work, including the last very disturbing piece, STRUGGLE.

Willard Yellowhorse’s prices had skyrocketed after his premature death 15 years ago. A recent auction had brought $1.5 million for a nice but not terribly large Yellowhorse. The death piece, as it was now referred to, was considered to be a masterpiece. As far as Bloom was concerned, it was hype and not true Willard. It had none of the soul of his early pieces. This piece was almost calculated, even though that was impossible due to the unusual circumstances in which it was produced.

Willard Yellowhorse had been stolen from Bloom’s gallery after being heavily recruited by a premiere Eastern gallery, leaving Bloom’s stable of artists two years before his death. Willard had moved to New York City to become an artist in one of those “serious galleries,” as Yellowhorse had called his new gallery. Finally New York City got an Indian artist and it had killed him off. At least that was how Bloom saw things.

New York had changed Willard Yellowhorse. No more Friday night art-walk openings in the summer in Santa Fe with his pals. His openings were productions in Chelsea, impressive displays by invitation with many of the rich and famous making their tributes to the Indian wunderkind.

Yellowhorse’s new gallery, The Cutting Edge, had cut its teeth by handling edgy works in the late eighties and early nineties. It had started handling Warhol’s work shortly before his death. The timing couldn’t have been better. It had acquired a sizable portion of Warhol’s work and made a killing after he died. At the time the consensus by Cutting Edge’s competitors was the gallery had overpaid on a prolific artist whose prime had passed, but in retrospect it was truly genius.

The Cutting Edge pushed Yellowhorse not only to produce more work, but also work much more extreme in its nature. No longer was it good enough to just make a piece of art, it also had to be some sort of performance piece as well. The gallery owner bought all of Yellowhorse’s paintings outright at huge money—nearly retail—a rare thing in the art world. Almost all art is given to galleries on consignment and the gallery acts as the agent for the artist and makes anywhere between 50 percent on a young artist to 30 percent on a very well established one. Rarely did a gallery buy all the artwork an artist produced, especially not at prices close to retail. This aggressive maneuver pretty much eliminated any other galleries from even thinking of trying to poach the artist.

The Cutting Edge had raised Yellowhorse’s prices aggressively and had used this as the carrot for the artist to dump Bloom’s gallery. Bloom could still hear Willard’s words: “Charles, you need to buy my artwork outright. I’ll still give you wholesale prices, much less than what I can get in New York City. I like you very much and you helped me get started. You’re like family. But it’s hard for me to pass up 100 percent sure sales to my New York gallery, especially when they want to raise my prices substantially.”

This was of course the kiss of death for Bloom’s. No way to purchase Willard’s art at high prices and then hope to resell it in Santa Fe. Charles was amazed at the prices The Cutting Edge would pay for paintings and then just sit on the inventory, letting out only a few pieces at a time or none at all. Anyone trying to buy a Yellowhorse at auction had to contend with the owner of The Cutting Edge, who fiercely protected the price structure of Willard Yellowhorse’s paintings. When they would occasionally come up at auction, The Cutting Edge would aggressively pursue each piece, including the minor ones. If you wanted a Yellowhorse painting, it was clear you would have to either go through his New York gallery or pay dearly if you didn’t. Charles had tried on several occasions to buy pieces for clients at auction, flying out to New York, looking at the painting and making recommendations regarding a fair price to pay for the Yellowhorse. Each time he was embarrassed when the pieces sold for double his recommended price.

The last time after being miserably shut out, the client blurted out, “Next time I’ll deal with The Cutting Edge, they are obviously the market maker in Yellowhorse.”

“That was then and this is now,” Charles said to himself with a sigh, his voice the only one heard in his gallery for weeks. “I have to pay my rent, and I don’t own any Willard Yellowhorses anymore, except a small piece he did for me, and it’s not for sale, at least not yet.” This was the first time he had contemplated selling his prized possession and it sent a shiver down his spine as he realized his serious predicament.