I’ve long wanted to see an artist from Etsy to get a solo show in a major art museum. Someone who really started grassroots and built up their work among the common platforms like Etsy and eBay.
Today I found that the Art Institute of Chicago has a show for a fiber artist, Jeremy Frey.
He has a pretty basic background, that is, no big art degrees. He’s just a basketweaver in Maine. Although he does come from a long line of native weavers. Digging around a bit on his background, Jeremy won Best of Show at Sante Fe Indian Market and at the Heard Indian Market in Fair in 2011. Maybe these are big shows in the basket world? I’m not sure. But it’s not the sort of pedigree we normally see for artists in museums.
I was hoping maybe many ago he sold some of his work on Etsy. I searched for his name, “Jeremy Frey”, on Etsy, just curious to see if he ever sold his work there.
Nothing came up. But oddly, Etsy did know to show me baskets for the search results. Either Jeremy Frey is that big of a name in he basketweaving world that Etsy knows to show baskets for searches on his name, or Etsy knows my browsing history.