Road Trip
by Sara Gilbert
It's a Sunday afternoon, and
Stephen Henning is heading out once again. His minivan is packed with
his prints, his traveling wardrobe (casual slacks and a few shirts),
the water bottles his wife diligently throws in, and some nuts to
snack on. If his itinerary includes Wisconsin, he'll let his hunger
build for a hunk of Cheddar or a slice of Swiss. "I love going to
Wisconsin," the Minnesota-based artist says, "because I can
get some good cheese."
But Henning travels not for dairy
products alone. He sets aside ten weeks every year to visit galleries,
sell his prints, and see the country. Before he began his sojourns two
years ago, no galleries carried his art. Now his landscape prints are
available in more than two hundred.
Although some of those galleries
are in urban areas, Henning's favorite routes wind through the
Midwestern countryside. "I like going on the roads less traveled,
visiting smaller, more rural towns," he says. "I have to
grit my teeth and force myself to hit the big metro areas."
Q: Why do you travel so much?
A: I'm a landscape painter, and
when I go on these sales trips, one of the biggest pluses is that they
are artistically stimulating. If I'm visiting galleries, I'll block
out a week of travel and try to line up appointments that are whistle
stops along the way. I get to see new country and fill my head with
ideas. It's so refreshing.
I have found that some of my most
successful trips are in the most off-the-beaten-path areas. They're
not necessarily the most successful trips as far as the galleries,
because those areas are often small or suffering economically more so
than metro areas. I just love getting off the highway and looking
around. Even central Nebraska - it isn't hard to love, if you approach
it with an artist's eye.
Q: What do you do while you're
driving on all those back roads? How do you keep your mind occupied?
A: Believe me, it's not a problem
keeping my mind occupied. Keep in mind that I'm often going into areas
I've never been before. I don't go without a set itinerary, and I
usually plan to make thirty stops in a week....Sometimes it's a little
stressful getting from appointment to appointment while I'm reading a
map and trying to anticipate the best route.
Q: What has been the longest trip
you've logged?
A: Well, take as an example the
last trip I took in late April. I drove through Chicago and ended up
near Muskegon, Michigan. All week I stayed near Muskegon and made day
trips to Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and other towns in the area. I would
leave the hotel at 7:30 in the morning and then put in almost ten -or
twelve -hour days. What makes them really long and frustrating is when
you let somebody know that you're coming, even make a firm
appointment, and they forget and aren't there.
Q: Why has travel been important to
your career?
A: First of all, I'm living in a
rural setting, working in my studio by myself, and it gives me a break
that's stimulating, that gets me out socializing, and that lets me see
what's happening in the art world. From a business perspective, it has
helped me build my business by connecting with galleries. And seeing
and hearing what's happening in the art industry is really important.
It's much better to do it in person - you can hear and see things a
lot quicker than reading about it in the media. No offense, of course