THE PROVINCETOWN LICENSING BOARD held a hearing this week on who should be able to sell art in town, and the panel got an earful from artists and gallery owners.

About 75 people crammed into the town hall’s meeting room on Tuesday night to hear testimony on whether it’s fair that coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and other establishments can exhibit and sell art without complying with any of the rules and regulations that apply to galleries.

Carol Santos, a member of the licensing board, explained what prompted the hearing. “This meeting originated in June when a gallery owner came before the board to explain how he, and several other gallery owners, consider the sale of art lacks equity,” Santos said. “We also read about this contention on Facebook and heard lots of vitriolic gossip among the art scene players. So, here we are.”

Many members of the crowd complained loudly when board chair Frank Thompson set a three-minute speaking limit for all witnesses but gave gallery owner Ray Wiggs, who came before the board in June, 15 minutes.  Thompson called Wiggs the hearing’s originator.

“Galleries do want art hung everywhere as long as it is legal and not threatening the health of the galleries that once exclusively brought hordes of tourists in pursuit of art,” Wiggs said. “That whining over my getting more speaking time after I made this hearing happen? It shows no respect for long-established, income-generating galleries. It shows the board is dictated by a mob-rule mentality.”

Wiggs and other gallery owners have suggested that retail establishments selling art should be licensed and take no more than a 10 percent cut of any sale. Wiggs also insisted that galleries should sell only “fine art,” while retail and restaurants should be allowed to sell everything else.

Wiggs received no support during the public testimony, which lasted 90 minutes.

Christine McCarthy, the CEO of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, delivered a spirited defense of allowing artists to sell their art wherever they want.

Christine McCarthy of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.

“The gallery proposal demands that only ‘fine art’ can be shown in galleries and not allowed in unregulated establishments,” she said. “I’m constantly being hammered with the question from artists of ‘How do I get into a gallery?’ ‘What is fine art?’ My answer? I have no idea and I bet the board and the galleries don’t have a clue. This is the hometown of art in America, forget the rules and regulations. Let’s just show and sell it for the artist’s sake!”

Photographer Marion Roth said she needed places to show her work to reach an audience. “Exposure! We must show our work everywhere we can,” she said. “To put it in a place other than a gallery isn’t exploitation, it’s life sustenance to an artist. It’s also keeping our community economically vibrant.”

Artist Peter Hawkins said the town’s policy for a century has been “out of your home or anywhere else in town you’re freely allowed to sell fish and art. That idea should stick!”

Santos said at the end of the hearing that the licensing board will probably decide by the end of the year whether any rules and regulations will change.

Second in a series. To read the first installment, click here.

PROVINCETOWN ART GALLERY owners are rising up to protest what they consider unfair competition from bars, restaurants, inns, coffee shops, and even lawyer’s offices and yoga studios that are selling paintings and other pieces of art as a sideline to their main business.

The gallery owners are sympathetic to the desire of artists who want additional venues where they can sell their work, but they say it’s not fair that the galleries are subject to licensing rules that don’t apply to these other businesses. For example, gallery owners need to acquire an art sales license that restricts what they can charge, where they can be located, and any side businesses they operate.

“If my gallery’s art doesn’t sell, I can’t make extra income from selling food or teaching yoga in my gallery,” said Ray Wiggs, a gallery owner and artist. “Gallery license regulations don’t allow that.”

In exhaustion and frustration over what he and many gallery owners consider an unfair playing field, Wiggs, who has become the unofficial spokesman for the gallery community, went before the town’s licensing board in June to demand the board take a long overdue look at what many gallery owners consider an economic and cultural threat.

The Provincetown Licensing Board is holding a “workshop” Tuesday evening to hear opinions from all sides on whether these other establishments selling art need regulation.

Art is a big deal in Provincetown. About 60 percent of Provincetown’s 3,000 year-round residents are artists, writers, sculptors, playwrights, poets, and musicians. There are currently 20 upscale galleries on Commercial Street, Provincetown’s 3-mile-long main street. Approximately 50 lower-end galleries are in parts of town off the main thoroughfare.

The galleries attract loads of tourists and shoppers, and help make Provincetown the summertime mecca it is. “Art is what supports Ptown’s economy. It’s been that way since 1899 when the Cape Cod School of Art opened here,” Wiggs said.

But the gallery owners say their businesses are being hammered by a wide variety of establishments that are doing the same thing without any of the same rules applying.

Wiggs describes the art interlopers as “piggy-backing” on gallery success. “I’ve witnessed 16 galleries go down because the owners are worn-out by losing income to inns and restaurants and how jewelry stores and craft shops refer to themselves as galleries and hold ‘art openings,’” he said.

According to Wiggs, a pizza restaurant posted 200 signs marketing its art with the line: “We’re cheaper than the galleries.”

Wiggs contacted town officials to let them know about the illegal sign postings, but no action was taken. “However, the town won’t allow any food vending trucks to work the busy summer streets because they don’t want the sales to hurt the restaurant business. What we need is a level playing field,” said Wiggs.

Artists do face some restrictions on where and how they can sell their art. If selling on the street, only six art pieces can be for sale, with one work in progress. Nothing can be sold after 11 p.m.

By law, artists selling on the street or out of a home, an in-town studio, or in a retail establishment need a state seller’s permit and a federal identification number.  Retail establishments selling art must meet the same requirements.

“In the six years I’ve lived here, I haven’t found anyone who has either,” Wiggs said. “But galleries? We can’t open our door without all sorts of pre-paid permits.”

Wiggs said his gallery is not just a business that supports him. He said his gallery is also an economic lifeline for many local artists. “I have worked with and built the income and opportunities of about 1,500 artists,” he said.

Several gallery owners say they don’t want to shut down the other establishments selling art as a sideline. Instead, they want to serve as art curators, soliciting works by artists and placing them in the other establishments. Under the proposal, the establishment would receive 15 percent of any sale while the gallery and artist would split the remainder.

“That way artists can take advantage of lots of places to show their work and lessen the obvious greed that’s going on commercially. It insults and infringes what should remain a viable part of the economy — galleries!” said Wiggs.

Marla Rice, owner of the Rice Polak Gallery, sees no conflict and no need for placing regulations on non-galleries selling art.

“Artists need and deserve any chance they get to sell their work,” she said. “For an artist to make it into a gallery is often a rare eureka! moment. I think most of the non-gallery crowd selling art is doing so to advocate for the artists. Unlike galleries, which usually take about 50 percent of the sale, other businesses take a much lower cut and some, nothing at all.”

Chris Busa, founder and editor of Provincetown Arts, a magazine he launched 35 years ago, agrees with Rice. “You look for allies as an artist. You do what you gotta do. Bottom line, it’s a free capitalist country and gallery art or not, this town truly supports the arts. It’s become a national model rivaling art meccas like SoHo or Santa Fe.”

First of a series

AT CORPORATE COFFEE SHOPS such as Starbucks or Caffe Nero, you’re not going to see much decor other than a few plastic plants or books. But many independent stores are selling art with their coffee, adding some eye-catching paintings to their walls and providing artists with badly needed exhibition space.

Cambridge’s 1369 Coffee House has been exhibiting and selling art for some time, but two years ago owner Josh Gerber took it up a notch, hiring former barista and muralist Emma Leavitt as his arts curator. She looks for art that won’t dissuade customers from eating or drinking — work that is “sad or weirdly violent” — and that doesn’t contain nudity. Leavitt is paid $200 every two months for rotating art through Gerber’s two coffee shops in Cambridge. She takes a 20 percent commission for every piece of art that sells and also collects from the customer and remits to the state the 6.25 percent sales tax.

In 2018, Gerber’s two coffee shops sold $6,000 worth of art. Most pieces sold for between $30 and $150, but a single painting of a boat netted $2,200. The program is selling five times more art than before Leavitt took over. It’s so popular that artists are booked through October 2020.

“They’re coming out of the woodwork,” Leavitt said.

Gerber sees his art program as a win-win for him and the participating artists. “We’re not in the art business; we’re in the coffee business,” he said. “It’s more important to me to create a great environment for the store. We want to support artists. The work Emma does adds a lot of value to the shop.”

Many other coffee shops, as well as a wide assortment of other businesses, are jumping into art exhibition. In Central Square, Cambridge, where 1369 is located, the Greater Boston area and Somerville, stores with art programs include Petsi Pies, Diesel, Darwin’s, JP Licks, and Mariposa Bakery. The growth in art exhibition is occurring as galleries, maker spaces, and art studies are disappearing. Out of the Blue Art Gallery fled Central Square and Green Street Studios is shuttering.

1369 Coffee House curator Emma Leavitt holds up a recently framed artist description while talking about the shop’s art program. (Photo by Sarah Betancourt)

Leavitt doesn’t think the expansion of coffee shop art exhibition is causing the decline in galleries and more traditional art exhibition spaces. To the contrary, she says, retailers selling art from their walls are helping struggling artists who are finding it increasingly difficult to break into the business.

A CommonWealth review of Mass Space Finder, an Airbnb of sorts for artists looking for studios to work in, or work and live in, found very few options. One of the cheapest spaces in Roxbury charges $525 a month, and the space is split between two artists. Another in Jamaica Plain is $200 a day.

An artist space database maintained by the Boston Planning and Development Agency listed 48 art spaces — 28 for living and working and 21 for working only. But many of those spaces have strict requirements – artists, for example, have to obtain a city license, a process requiring expensive gallery showings. For most artists, paying the rent at home is enough, and having a studio to work in is like having a second rent.

Most of the artists exhibited by 1369 Coffee House have a separate full-time job and create art in their spare time. The coffee shop sales are a way to get noticed, gain recognition, and help pay the bills.

“It’s validating to get them their first sale,” Leavitt said. “This is the one place around here where they’re showing their commitment to art.”

Stephanie Cohen, 25, appreciated the chance to exhibit her anatomical work at 1369 Coffee House. She has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Tufts University and a separate degree from the Museum of Fine Arts. She’s now in medical school, but she hasn’t given up on art. She often studied as an undergrad at 1369, and jumped at the chance to participate in its art program. She sold six pieces for a total of $500 and her work has attracted a bit of a following, including officials from a Cambridge biotech company that is now commissioning her to do some artwork for the firm.

“Libman Sacks Endocarditis,” an anatomical drawing shown at 1369 Coffeehouse, by artist Stephanie Cohen.

Cohen says it’s not easy for an artist to gain exposure. Galleries, she said, often assess fees on their artists and want a huge cut of any sale. They also require a large time commitment from artists. “I’m at a state in my life where it’s hard to be that available. There’s flexibility in spaces like this,” she said, referring to coffee shops.

Showing art elsewhere, like SoWa (South of Washington in Boston’s South End), can be very expensive, Cohen said. “Showing on a regular day on a weekend, just for a booth, it’s $350 a day. A studio is even more than that. It can be hard to break even,” she said. “You don’t have to pay rent to show your work at a coffee shop.”

JP Licks, which is known for the ice cream it sells, also markets locally produced art in 15 of its 17 stores. Artists are found by marketing manager Adele Nadine Traub through connections with the city of Boston, the Somerville Arts Council, JP Main Streets, and other associations.

“There’s a whole page on our site dedicated to artists in different stores. We post on social media and then, in the stores that are big enough, we host an artist reception with ice cream, coffee, and cookies,” Traub said. She said the current artist at the Coolidge Corner location sold nine paintings, while an artist at the South Bay location sold eight. Some, however, sell none. “It’s all over the place,” she said.

JP Licks takes no commission on sales. Not wanting its teenage cashier work force to deal with artwork sales, buyers are told to contact the artist directly and make the purchase.

Traub said it makes no sense for JP Licks to take a $50 commission from an emerging artist who just received $500 for a painting. “We really like being part of each community we go into and this is a great way to do it,” Traub said. “And there’s not enough spaces for artists in this city.”

Jessica TranVo hanging her art with JP Lick’s Marketing Manager, Adele Nadine Traub. (Photo courtesy of Heather Wilczynski)

Mixed media artist Jessica TranVo, a Vietnamese-American, set up her surrealist artwork at the JP Licks on Boylston Street in Boston. She produces collages, using materials from everything from magazines to vintage baking books. Her work contains queer, Asian, and feminine elements.

Five years into her professional career, she’s shown in galleries but is still considered a newer artist by the definitions set by Boston’s art world. “I think I don’t have enough clout to show on Newbury Street. Coffee houses feel more like my kind of space,” she said.

TranVo works full-time at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, but hopes that someday she will be able to work as a full-time artist with her own studio. “I’m lucky I have my space at home right now. Some people are renting studios with three to four other people,” she said.

At Mocha Maya’s in Shelburne Falls, co-owner Bruce King has had a program for artists since the Franklin County coffee house and pub opened in 2005, with art rotating every six weeks.

Photographs by artist Luke Scalise hanging in Mocha Maya’s. (Photo courtesy of Bruce King)

“We’ve had afghans on the wall, this one guy made a series of masks…this other woman showed art made out of used teabags–it’s all been really cool,” said King, who does the curating himself and takes a 20 percent commission, which until recently he and his brother, working with the artists, donate to charities. Now the commission is going toward an expansion of the space.

Last year the shop sold over $3,600 worth of art during just one exhibit. The art came from a couple that buys paintings through a fair-trade exchange with artists in Guatemala, and resells them in Massachusetts. The shop also lets the Academy at Charlemont, a nearby private middle and high school, host an annual student art night where the art is actually sold.

“It changes the room every time we get art up, like a new vibe,” King said. “Some people have come in to look at art and not even look at our menu. Kinda’ made me feel good ’cause then we’re not just a coffeehouse.”

MASSDEVELOPMENT IS OFFERING a total of $500,000 in matching grant money over the next 3 ½ months to municipalities and nonprofits seeking to launch creative place-making projects across the state.

The money is part of a nearly four-year effort by the authority to revitalize downtowns and commercial districts by combining state and crowd-sourced funds. MassDevelopment is accepting applications in this latest round through January 15 and approving them on a rolling basis.

The initiative, called Commonwealth Places, has provided funding for the second Beyond Walls festival in Lynn, the POW! WOW! public arts festival in Worcester, and the PROVA! venue in Brockton. In all, 67 projects have received a total of $4.1 million in funding – $1.8 million from MassDevelopment and $2.3 million from local, crowd-funded donations via the website Patronicity.

“Projects must demonstrate that they will activate a new or underused space that is open to and accessible by the public,” the MassDevelopment website says. “It is important that these projects have established public awareness and local momentum. The project should be located in a downtown or commercial area and enhance the public realm at the pedestrian scale.”

The MassDevelopment website provides a sampling of possible projects, including streetscape improvements, pocket parks, pop-up parks and retail establishments, farmers’ markets, bike paths, and community theatre rehabs.

To be eligible for MassDevelopment funds, the project must require a minimum of $10,000, with three-quarters of the money going for capital costs. Preference is given to projects that leverage additional funding. Participants must be backed by a municipality or a nonprofit and must reach the crowdfunding goal in 60 days. No more than $10,000, or 35 percent of the funds raised, whichever is less, can come from an individual donor.

The program has no geographic restrictions, but the MassDevelopment website indicates preference is given to projects that help low-income populations. Projects in communities with a median household income equal to or less than the state median household income can qualify for matching grants up to $50,000.  The topping out point is $25,000 in communities where the median household income is between 100 percent and 120 percent of the state median. Communities with median household income anywhere above 100 percent of the state level can qualify for matching grants of up to $50,000 if the project has a “direct and significant impact on low-income populations,” according to the website.

Despite the restrictions, a number of organizations in relatively well-to-do communities have won matching funds. A group in Newton earlier this year received a $7,500 matching grant from the agency for a program to stamp the words of 10 poems on to city sidewalks. Groups in Cambridge got $25,000 for a mural project in Central Square and $30,000 for math learning installations at a city park. A Somerville group got $50,000 to refurbish the Bow Market Plaza in Union Square and a group in Dedham won a $50,000 matching grant to turn the auditorium of a former elementary school into a performance space.

Matching grants have been awarded to a number of lower-income communities, including Lynn, Salem, Lawrence, Haverhill, and Pittsfield.