KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Paul Dorrell wasn't really looking for a life in the art world, or a position as any cause's spokesman, when he opened his gallery in 1991.
He just wanted to pay the bills while he shopped his novels to agents. And since he liked art, he figured a gallery would give him something interesting to look at while he wrote.
Fifteen years later, the 48-year-old Dorrell still runs a gallery and is still looking for a publisher for his fiction work. But he's hardly struggling, having put together a thriving business as an art consultant, an advocate for regional artists - and a published author, albeit in the self-help category.
Dorrell's 2004 book, Living the Artist's Life, chronicles his own struggles to get published and to make a living as an art dealer and consultant - experiences Dorrell uses to encourage other creative types, especially those who don't live in regions known for their arts scenes, not to give up.
It's also heavy on pragmatic advice - everything from pricing and promoting one's work to avoiding drugs and too much television.
I'm not just interested in the profit part, Dorrell said over lunch near his Leopold Gallery in Kansas City's Brookside district. I'm interested in the creative quality of (an artist's) life beyond the sale of the painting or the sculpture.
The success of the book, now in its second printing, hasn't dimmed Dorrell's drive to get his novels (and another how-to book, this one on youth baseball coaching) published. His booksigning tours also have given him a platform for another passion: getting regional artists, wherever they might live, the recognition he feels they deserve.
And by "recognition," Dorrell means "commissions and sales."
You have to have the famous artists, the (Auguste) Rodins and the (Henry) Moores, to have a viable collection. I understand that, he said. But there are people in every city with tremendous talent, who aren't getting the recognition.
Dorrell has had his successes, both in the Kansas City area and around the nation.
He helped Lawrence, Kan., sculptor Jim Brothers gain commissions for the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., and the statue of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower which stands in the U.S. Capitol.
He's definitely not afraid to go after things, and that's what people want in an agent, Brothers said. He's very driven.
Dorrell also recorded another coup late last year, when he was selected as the art consultant for H&R Block's new corporate headquarters, now under construction in downtown Kansas City.
But municipal arts commissions around the country aren't warming to regional artists as quickly as Dorrell would like. In a recent blog post, he chastised The Kansas City Arts Commission for choosing a New York artist for a downtown project.
This isn't a problem just in Kansas City. It's a problem all around the country, although I want to stress that my first attitude for all municipal arts commissions is one of respect, Dorrell said in a subsequent interview at his gallery. And I'm not trying to knock down the standards. I'm trying to raise the opportunities.
That theme runs through Dorrell's latest project as well. It's a manual - working title, Everybody's Game - for youth baseball coaches.
It's drawn from his own childhood experience of being run off his team for not being good enough, and from coaching his own sons' teams - often filled with kids who were told they weren't good enough, either.
For eight seasons it was my job to take the mildly coordinated, the flat-out uncoordinated and the rejected and make athletes of them, Dorrell writes in the preface. In other words, my assistants and I worked with kids who represent the majority of all children. In fact, we went out of our way to find kids who didn't qualify for the competitive leagues, and made a point of bringing them onto our team.
The manuscript has earned the endorsement of former NBA referee Bob Bigelow, author of the 2001 book Just Let the Kids Play, who called Dorrell's work a wonderful and welcome addition to our crusade.
And while Dorrell doesn't mind being labeled a crusader now, he acknowledges that wasn't the case earlier in his writing career.
I just wanted to be left alone to write novels. I didn't want to do all this stuff, said Dorrell, whose online biography still lists him as a novelist who also happens to be a gallery owner and art consultant.
But as the bills and the rejection slips piled up, Dorrell grew more and more frustrated - and worried about his family's future. Everything came to a head seven years ago, when he punched a hole in the bedroom wall of his home in suburban Prairie Village, Kan.
The incident proved a turning point.
After I passed that threshold, I don't think rejection has angered me, he said. It just makes me more determined. Once you reach that point, your focus becomes more on your work and less on yourself.
Dorrell doesn't see himself ever running out of causes, either.
Not as long as this earth is turning, man, he said. It's endless.