Episode 390: a broken plate catapults a career: Nyack, NY-based artist Rob Strati

Nyack, New York-based artist Rob Strati talks about:

Living in Nyack, as far as its local arts community and proximity to NYC; his early artist years in San Francisco, including driving a cab for several years, and eventually getting into tech (starting as a web designer at Yahoo) as a day job, always to support the art even though it became a big part of his then-identity; how his 25 years working in research, marketing and technology all started when he was exposed to web design while staying with friends in DUMBO, Brooklyn; how he shared his 2025 earnings in an end-of-year newsletter, why he did so, and what kinds of responses he received (without naming the number here, the earnings are in the top 1% of artists); how he’s applied his research experience in tech to his sales approaches, including making different entry points available to collectors, and taking what he learns from selling direct to collectors on Instagram and applying to future sales; how he’s been doing non-exclusive consignment agreements up until now, but is signing on with a London-based gallery for exclusive sales in the U.K. and Turkey, and why he’s doing so; the fact that he’s had such success selling on IG that it’s allowed him to establish consignment-based agreements with galleries as opposed to contractual ones, which has given him more autonomy and leverage than most artists (who do traditional contractual agreements); how he took Dec. of ’25 and the first two months of ’26 “off,” to recover from the grind of 2025, did a lot of skiing with his 13-year-old son, and generally recharged, while acknowledging the accomplishment of such a strong year; the nine different galleries he’s currently working with (including Duane Read Gallery in St. Louis and Fremin Gallery in New York); the origin story of his signature art object(s), which has been the work that’s transformed his career, all staring with his wife breaking a plate in the kitchen, and how he saw an expanded world in it; the conversation around his work as far as decorative art- how it fits into that lineage, and the emotional connection to that tradition, in contrast to the conceptual tendencies of contemporary art, but how he sees elements of both.

In the 2^nd half of our conversation, available to Patreon Supporters of the show, Rob talks about:

How he first improvised the drawing that accompanied that first broken plate piece, and how subsequently he evolved his style in extending the plate patterns into extended landscapes and scenes; we geek out materials, including his determining that Signo pens are the best for the fine lines that he needs (and we geek out on pens for a moment); why being transparent about income (his income) is something he stands behind, including investing in the marketing of his work (boosting posts, advertising, and so on), and how last year, for example, he spent 50k on marketing his work; the “Decision I Did Not Take Lightly,” which was his canceling his exhibition at the James Cancer Center Gallery at Ohio State University (his alma mater) because of it being under the umbrella of Leslie Wexner, the philanthropist who funded the Wexner Center for the Arts as well as many schools at OSU, and who has very much been part of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, how Rob was able to shift the show to the Columbus Museum by renting out a space there and continue the conversation about justice and making space for him to stand up for it, but also recognizing how difficult it is to stand up to a boss whom your livelihood depends on; and his job history – prior to striking out on his own making a living from his work alone – including being fired a lot, partly for standing up against abuse in the workplace.

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