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.