Claire Carlevaro | 82

This profile is a written profile only.

Interview date: 10/2/20

Referred, interviewed, and written profile by: Judy Goddess

Eighty-two-year-old Claire Carlevaro is undauntable. After being hired as a “temp” by the Golden Gate Regional Center, she went on to become the director of the Center’s East Bay Regional office. (GGRC provides services to people with developmental disabilities in the Bay Area.) “There were three of us when we opened, 110 when I left.”

But it’s not the growth of the agency Carlevaro wants to talk about but her life in and with art.

One evening, at an art auction for Creative Growth of the East Bay, the fellow sitting next to her asked her for advice on an artwork by Roy De Forest that he considered buying. “Was this a good deal,” he asked, “should I bid?” That’s when it hit her: prospective buyers don’t question their aesthetic judgement, they just don’t want to feel they’ve paid too much for a work of art, or that their price is too low. It was at that moment, she recalls, that she decided she “wanted to work with people who inherited art, heirs who didn’t know what to do with that odd painting they found in their deceased aunt’s attic, museums decommissioning work.”

Three months later, she resigned her job, applied for a business license, signed a six-month renewable lease for space on the second floor of a building in “Berkeley’s gourmet ghetto where I knew I’d get a lot of traffic,” put a sign in the window and began accepting contemporary art for resale. The year was 1984, before computers were common and before the advent of online auction houses and easily accessible information on the resale value of art. It was a time when “it was difficult to find information on lesser-known artists and what their works sold for.” Carlevaro read biographies, visited local galleries, befriended art dealers, and took classes in printmaking. It was a lot of work, and she loved every minute of it. As well as having excellent research and people skills, she enjoyed another major advantage, “I felt very, very comfortable talking with people about art and money.”

Her gallery, the Art Exchange, was a success. I “made it a point to create a friendly, unpretentious space with comfortable seating. Each piece of art was labeled with information on the artist and the sale price. After five years in Berkeley, she “felt confident enough to tackle San Francisco,” renting space at Geary and Grant in the City. Her life was full. While she spent most days at the gallery, she also found time to visit neighboring galleries and stay current with the local art scene.

Every day was an adventure. “I never knew what I’d get to sell in a day.” The first day she opened shop, someone walked in with a Picasso sketch, “I never expected that;” mainly, though, the artists were less well-known.

As the consignment art field became more crowded and information on artists and their resale prices more readily available, Carlevaro closed the gallery. “It was my baby, and I didn’t want anyone else to take it over.” Walking away didn’t mean she left the art world. Before the pandemic she continued to make monthly visits to galleries, maintain contact with museum curators, and visit art fairs. “I have no regrets about closing,” she said, “other than I miss it greatly.”

Along with helping others buy art, Carlevaro and her husband Dan had developed their own personal collection. “Very few of their home collection came from my gallery,” she explained. It’s this art, pieces they bought from local artists and at art fairs around the country, that garners attention today.

The Carlevaro’s home in Russian Hill has become a popular stop for art tours from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum, the New York Museum of Modern Art, and various art guilds. Carlevaro enjoys hosting these events and introducing the works of largely unknown artists to new audiences.

She’s found time to write books on some of her favorite artists. The first, Love of the Stone about Ruth A. Wall, an abstract artist and printmaker, bequeathed her archives with Carlevaro, “69 books of her art plus lots of folders which I need to put somewhere.” Fortunately, the Smithsonian has expressed interest. 2016 saw the publication of The Art of Atelio Batle, a younger, local artist, written to accompany an exhibit at another gallery. She wanted to write a third book on Alice Rhoades who creates art on used coffee filters, but “Alice didn’t want a book, and now she’s deceased,” Carlevaro explained, pulling out a scrapbook of Rhoades filters.

Scrapbooks, what she calls “treasures books,” has filled much of her time during the pandemic. “Everybody has treasures, things they have some emotional connection with. Documentation is very important. As we get older, we need to figure out what to do with what we have. A treasures book is a lovely, lovely legacy to give someone.”

But I’d be remiss if I only discussed her life in art. She’s active with the Final Exit Network, an advocate for conversations about death and was active in the passage of the 2017 Right to Die Act. “I’m fascinated by the fact that Western society doesn’t ask, what can we learn from dying? Dying is inevitable. Why don’t we ask?” She and her husband are on the President’s Council for Public Radio and were active in bringing the program Dying to Talk to KALW.

Carlevaro does not like using Zoom, it just “doesn’t work” for her. “A virtual experience is not an experience for me. It cuts too many corners.” The couple have been major contributors to the Fromm Institute for LifeLong Learning and enjoyed attending classes before the pandemic. “I’m busy, busy enough not to be bored. The gallery gave my life an architecture, my life was like a whole quilt. Now it’s like a patchwork quilt.”

Then she smiled, “Do you want to see my jewelry collection?” Carlevaro has collected unique statement jewelry for decades. “There used to be galleries that showed artist-made jewelry, now there are fewer. Now I buy jewelry from individual artists. I love expressing myself through these pieces of adornment and supporting the creativity of many wonderful and imaginative artists.” Her closet walls are packed with her jewelry collection, many fashioned from plastic and other recycled materials.

Aging has brought health issues for Carlevaro and her husband. Though she expects to be “vitally involved as a citizen in the world even as I age,” walking has become more difficult, and she rarely gets out of the house. Dan’s son and daughter-in-law live around the corner and “keep an eye on us.” But when the pandemic is over, she has a list of galleries and coffee shops she wants to visit. Until then, there are her treasurers books, her jewelry, conversations with neighbors and the pleasure of “curling up with a good book.”

Dan Carlevaro died in July 2021.