{"id":8023,"date":"2017-07-17T20:17:06","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T03:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=8023"},"modified":"2017-07-17T12:18:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T19:18:59","slug":"first-person-sullivan-goss-gallerys-nathan-vonk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=8023","title":{"rendered":"First Person: Sullivan Goss Gallery’s Nathan Vonk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New Sullivan Goss Gallery owner Nathan Vonk is flanked by his colleagues and fellow curators Jeremy Tessmer and Susan Bush. Courtesy photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

Preserving the Legacy, Embracing the Future<\/h4>\n

By Leslie Dinaberg<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The link between Burning Man<\/a>\u2019s annual bacchanal festivities and Sullivan Goss Gallery<\/a>\u2019s 30-plus-year legacy of celebrating important 19<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>-, 20<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>– and 21st-c<\/span><\/span>entury American art may seem tenuous, but it was a visit to Burning Man that first sparked Nathan Vonk<\/a>\u2019s interest in art and the friends he made in the desert that first brought him to Santa Barbara.<\/span><\/p>\n

Armed with a master\u2019s degree in post-modern literature theory, Vonk taught night school at Ventura College<\/a> and walked dogs during the day. He eventually bought out the owners of the dog business, ran it for a few years and then sold it for a profit, right before the market crashed in September of 2008.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now fully enmeshed in the Santa Barbara scene, Vonk contemplated going back to school and getting a doctorate in art history or curatorial sciences and asked Sullivan Goss curator Jeremy Tessmer<\/a> if he \u201ccould volunteer some hours at the gallery, so I could see if it was something that I wanted to do in graduate school.\u201d Vonk laughs, \u201cI came in and volunteered for the week, and on Friday, Frank [Goss] offered me a job. I never went back to school, and I\u2019ve been there ever since.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He continues, \u201cI was the one guy in the whole country who got a new job in October of 2008. When everyone else was going on unemployment and Bear Stearns was crashing, I was one of the luckiest people in the country. I\u2019ve been at Sullivan Goss ever since, and I couldn\u2019t be happier.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So happy, in fact, that when Goss told the team (which includes Tessmer and fellow curator Susan Bush<\/a>) he planned to retire after 2016, Vonk bought the gallery because he wanted to make sure the legacy continued, with its staff intact.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think of arts in Santa Barbara as an ecosystem, the part that Sullivan Goss fulfills\u2014if that goes away, the whole ecosystem suffers greatly and it\u2019s not a part that someone is going to step in and fill that void. That was a large part of my motivation to take on the risk of running a commercial gallery,\u201d says Vonk.<\/span><\/p>\n

He and his wife, Erin Smith, have a son, Lowen, who, Vonk says, \u201chas been to more art shows at age 2-1\/2 than I think the average Santa Barbaran probably has.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of what Vonk loves about Santa Barbara is its casual, egalitarian nature. \u201cI think we all understand how lucky we are to work in a gallery like this, in a town like this. Shortly after working for Frank, I had the opportunity to go to New York and visit galleries\u2026the whole vibe there is so different than it is in Santa Barbara. If you don\u2019t look like you can afford it, they don\u2019t give you the time of day.\u2026It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole situation, and it made me all the more excited to come back and work for Frank, because we don\u2019t operate that way. In part we can\u2019t, because the man or woman who comes into our gallery in shorts and flip-flops could very easily be a billionaire, and I don\u2019t know that. So I have to treat everyone like they are billionaires, and I like that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Vonk views part of his art-dealer role as acting like a sort of docent, saying, \u201cWhat we sell are not just pretty pictures; they are pretty pictures that come with a history and a provenance and some other interesting part of them that, hopefully, people who are interested in buying them will understand that if they buy them, they are only going to be a small portion of that object\u2019s history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He also clearly loves the work. \u201cOne of the great things about Sullivan Goss is that I was sort of an academic, and I loved studying and writing essays and we do all that.\u2026 We\u2019ve written four or five books\u2026all the things I wanted from going back to school I got. Plus I got to stay in Santa Barbara so it was even better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of Santa Barbara Seasons Magazine<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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