I have always loved art; even admitting that I don’t always understand what I’m looking at has been a positive experience over the years as doing this forces me to use my eyes in different ways, ask different questions about the work and ultimately spark new avenues of thought and topics for conversation. I’m lucky that Yorkville is such a centre of creativity and innovation when it comes to meeting new people, making new connections and having conversations that broaden the sensibilities.
When I transitioned from design towards real estate and investing in 2000, the standard practice was to take clients to dinner for a celebratory meal once a deal closed. In the last few years I have searched for something slightly more meaningful to help clients and friends remember the happy event of finding spaces that suit their needs. It’s fun for me, and more than a little auspicious under the ancient Asian sciences…
I find a small piece of art to commemorate the event. I’ve been told that it’s very difficult to buy art for other people as collecting is such a personal and subjective ritual; as true as that is, I have realised from experience that the act of seeking out, finding and picking something that the recipient hopefully likes is a valuable exercise in empathy and a fruitful business practice. Once you have worked with a client, sometimes for years, it becomes apparent what his or her style is. I would probably buy and present a small but bold abstract work for a corporate client or law firm for whom I have found space. On the other hand, I like to pick soothing and calming landscapes, still life or antiquarian botanical or architectural prints to celebrate residential sales. Sometimes I’ve been known to “borrow” art from clients which required extreme attention and reframe it to suit the new interior (the vestiges of the designer past!). Either way, it’s proven more than fruitful.
One of the first people with whom I discussed this possibility was client turned colleague Antonio Arch; over a dinner at la Fieramosca to celebrate his move to a new showroom on Yorkville, he subtly tried to dissuade me from the practice of trying to find art to suit people’s personalities, then present it as the potential to offend outweighed the intention. He has since become my advocate in finding appropriate art for settings, people, careers, rooms and the occasion and between his work and that of print expert Elisabeth Legge and her framer/conservator husband on Hazelton Avenue, I think that my attempts have been appreciated. The images accompanying this text are the sole property of their original artists and used with the permission of Arch & Company Fine Arts (www.archart.ca).
