Last month, Nick Garlid ’25 was in the process of applying to summer jobs, but nothing had caught his eye. He was in the midst of a Winter Study internship at The Clark, working in the director’s office and getting his first taste of the professional art world — a career path he is considering as an art and English major.
“I was very much in that headspace,” he told the Record. “I was thinking about how museums and galleries are managed.”
Garlid credited his internship for helping him realize that, despite The Clark’s world-class collection, the art at the museum was not very accessible unless you visited it in person.
“In order to appreciate and buy art, you have to be seeing the art, and that’s kind of a drawback of a gallery or museum,” he said.
Garlid decided to take matters into his own hands: Over Winter Study, he launched a digital gallery of his own — The Art Seen.
“Something I’m trying to do is [provide] more avenues than physical space, with a website and an Instagram,” Garlid said. “The art comes to you instead of you coming to the art.”
On the gallery’s website, interested buyers can peruse the art for sale, all of which was made by students at the College. When a piece sells, Garlid and the artist split the commission 50-50 — a deal that considers the back-end work that Garlid puts into the operation. As of now, no listed work exceeds $20, which Garlid said accounts for both the time dedicated by the artist and what is likely to sell to a consumer base made up entirely of other students.
Once his website and Instagram page were up and running, Garlid started to contact potential clients, including peers in the studio art department and friends in the ceramics club.
Gus Demerath ’25 was one of Garlid’s early clients. Demerath — who described his work as “more passion than professional” — was taking a Winter Study class on photography when Garlid reached out about sharing his work through The Art Seen. Demerath had been interested in photography for a few years, but over the last month, he had started to take the hobby more seriously.
After Demerath was on board, Garlid did the rest: He helped price his pieces, uploaded them all to the gallery’s website, and promoted the artwork on the Instagram page. If pieces sell, Garlid will make the prints and deliver them to the buyer.
For Demerath, working with the gallery was an opportunity to share his art with a more “unstructured audience,” he said in an interview with the Record. “It’s kind of fun that it’s outside of the formal structure of an art class.”
“The idea that people want to buy student work is really meaningful,” added Emma Finley-Gillis ’27, who is currently selling their graphic art and paintings through The Art Seen. “Sometimes when you’re messing around in Spencer [Art Building], it can feel like it’s never going to get anywhere. It’s cool that something that you’ve made is already an asset.”
Josie Overbeck ’26, whose paintings will soon be sold through The Art Seen, initially found Garlid’s gallery through a post in Daily Messages. Unlike some of the gallery’s other clients, Overbeck is a non-traditional student who has professional experience in graphic design and commission work that she gained prior to her enrollment at the College. Regardless, Overbeck similarly appreciated the “low-stress” environment to share her art, she told the Record.
Garlid said he also sees his operation as a chance for aspiring professional artists to get early experience working with a gallery.
“It can be difficult to identify opportunities for undergraduate studio art majors,” Overbeck said. “Especially for young artists who haven’t had a lot of experience working with galleries, I think it’s a great way to get your feet wet and see what that experience might feel like.”
“It’s also my first time interacting with a gallery,” Garlid added. “I think it’s fun because we’re learning how to do it while we’re doing it.”
Less than a month old, The Art Seen is still an “ongoing process,” Garlid said.
In the future, he envisions hosting in-person pop-up events on campus to drive excitement, and he hopes to expand his potential buyers to faculty, alums, and other members of the College community. “It will allow us a little more flexibility in the pricing and allow students to get their art even farther out and make some connections in the art world,” he said.
“I’m glad to be involved, and I’m excited to see what becomes of The Art Seen,” Finley-Gillis said.
