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42 - Sunday. September 9, 1990 -

NAME: Diane Farris

AGE: 48

BORN: Vancouver
GCCUPATION: Owner, Diane
Farris Gallery

RESIDENCE: Vancouver
FAMILY: Divorced, three
children

HOBBIES: Walking, spending

time with family

By Evelyn Jacob
News Reporter

WHEN PEOPLE call her
brave for opening her own
gallery without a shred of
business experience or visual
arts training, former West
Vancouverite Diane Farris
merely shrugs her shoulders
and smiles.

“T wasn’t brave at all,’’ she
says in the cluttered back room
office cf her spacious South
Granville gallery. *‘l was naive.’

Naive is hardly the word to
describe Farris today. Not only
has she collected an impressive
stable of young artists, she’s earn-
ed an international reputaticn for
introducing unheard-of, leading-
edge artists to the world stage.
What's more, she’s created a
permanent home for them in
Vancouver to return to.

The Diane Farris Gallery has
been mentioned in dozens of
leading art publications including
The Village Voice and the
prestigious Art in America Maga-
zine. Farris has devoted an entire
filing cabinet to magazine and
newspaper clippings extolling her
gallery and her tsibe of artists —
Vicky Marshall, Atilla Richard
Lukacs and Graham Gilmore, to
name a few.

And it’s not just her art empire
that has received copious amounts
of laudatory ink. During an inter-
view, Farris excuses herself to do
a West Magazine photo shoot;
waiting, | pick up a copy of B.C.
Woman Magazine only to discover
that her favorite color is black
(which explains why she’s clad
from head to toe in the color) and
that she detests shopping.

Despite her growing celebrity,
all the praise hasn't turned her in-
to a cultural snob. Farris’ ability
to freely reel off personal infor-
mation about herself to a com-
plete stranger is evidence of her
candid, guileless manner.

She was born in Vancouver 48
years ago and grew up in West

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Naivete pays off

Neil Lucente

DIANE FARRIS has managed to collect an impressive stable of young leading-edge artists, as well as establish an international repu-

tation for herself.

Vancouver. She acquired a pas-
sion for the arts at a young age,
but it was dance, not the visual
arts, that proved to be her first
love.

Farris had wanted to become a
professional dancer, but when the
beckoning bright lights oi ballet
called — which would have meant
moving to Montreal or London,
England — she got coid feet. She
decided to remain in Vancouver
and start a family instead.

“A lot of my friends did
leave,’’ she says, ‘But I didn’t
regret what I did. | decided I
didn’t have that kind of ambition,
and | always really liked the idea
of becoming a mother.”’

Being a homemaker was fine,
but Farris wanted it all. She vol-
unteered for a focal art exhibit
called the Ranch Project, and in
December 1984 she leaped into the
deep end of the pool and opened
her first gallery in a second-floor
Water Street walk-up.

“Yes, | was unsure of myself,"
she says. ‘It ‘vas an interesting
thought to feel that here you were
in your 40s and just getting going
in life.”

Within five months, her gallery
was chosen to represent Canada at
the Cologne, Germany Art Fair.
And Farris laughs as she recalls
the surprise she felt upon learning
that Vancouver Art Gallery cu-

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rator Scott Watson had selected
all of her artists for a show called
The Young Romantics.

“That was a real confidence
booster for me.”

The sad thing was that while
her gallery was finally gaining
recognition, it was also proving to
be a huge financial burden. Good
taste and critical acclaim weren‘t
enough to keep the banks happy,
and by 1987, she was bankrupt.

‘“T was naive. | assumed

everyone would come running in
with their chequebooks, but | had
opened a gallery with 12 artists
nobody had ever heard of.

‘*} had nothing. | was down to
absolutely nothing — emotionally

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at times, spiritually. Many times ]
felt very angry. EU tell you, an
experience like that makes you
fearn a lot about pride. It was a
humiliating experience. It was hell
going through it, but in a lot of
ways [was grateful for it.””

One of the stipulations of the
bankruptcy was that she could no
longer advertise her gallery. So
Farris turned around and pur-
chased a licence plate for her car
that said *‘Buy Art."

“People used to honk at me,
roll down their windows and ask,
“Where do | buy it?" "

Today her West Seventh Gallery
complements her wardrobe — it’s
well into the black.

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