Target Bag

17.5 x 23.5 in. Oil on Canvas, 2004.

Target blacklisted me over this painting.

I made a painting of a Target plastic shopping-bag, which is the best painting I have ever made and it got me into a show at The Soap Factory, an art space that gets reviewed by Art in America, is internationally known, etc. So I was excited. But if I sold the painting I wouldn’t have it to enter into other shows and I didn’t know when, if ever, I would make a painting as good, so because I didn’t really want to sell it I thought if someone was willing to pay $2,000 for it, then they could buy it. Every year at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design there is an art sale and Target is the major sponsor. I assumed they just sponsored it but wouldn’t buy student art but rather Picassos or van Goghs; but apparently they buy student work. My work was between $100-300 except for the Target Bag painting. Two Target art buyers got excited when they saw the painting but then got mad when they saw the price. They said that all my other work was priced a lot cheaper and I must have painted the Target Bag specifically for them knowing that they would come and want to buy it and was charging an outrageous price because I knew they had money, hated corporations and wanted to rip them off! What a conspiracy! None of the above was true. So, they talked to the two main people in charge of the art sale and asked, “Is this some sort of joke? She can’t charge this much!” The MCAD people said they couldn’t change the price without my permission and I wasn’t there. The art buyers got so mad that they told the MCAD people that they were taking down my name and I was “blacklisted” by Target so that in the future they wouldn’t buy any of my reasonably-priced work either. I heard about all this from other students watching the 4 people arguing. If I had been there and saw that they liked it that much I totally would have come down in price. I asked someone if I could talk to Target but they said Target was so pissed-off at me that they were just DONE with me. In the end I sold that painting to an administrator at the school for $450 and still shop at “Tar-zhay,” but think it’s a shame they blacklisted me because none of what they assumed was true and I think they were some pretty outrageous assumptions. Also, one of my friends said a few years later that he didn’t think I was asking too much and Target should know that art is expensive, pointing out that I always go Target Free nights at The Walker Art Center, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney and The Brooklyn Museum. For a year I went to the MoMA on Fridays every other week where the $20 ticket price is marked down to $0.00 by Target. Target’s probably given me $2,000 worth of museum visits over the years if I think about it.