-Sponsored Post-

With over 30 galleries and 6,000 works of art managed each week, Park West Gallery, founded in 1969, has quietly grown to become one of America’s most successful art institutions.  And it’s based just next door in the city of Southfield, MI.

Check out the video for a unique perspective from several of the artists they offer or represent.  You can also inquire about submission guidelines at info@parkwestgallery.com.

A Collecting Experience:

Park West Gallery has brought fine artworks to more than 1.3 million clients around the world through its gallery locations in Michigan and Florida as well as art auctions on cruise ships and in major metropolitan areas. Park West Gallery’s mission is to create an educational, entertaining, and welcoming environment that ignites a passion for the arts and creates a collecting experience like no other company in the world.  The Park West Galleries all support a myriad of artistic talent, engage the widest array of audiences, and advocate genuine artistry and craftsmanship through the collections of artwork offered to their clients.

The Galleries:

Park West Gallery’s main headquarters is located on a beautiful 3½ acre site, including a natural pond with a surrounding walkway and sculpture garden. The 63,000 square foot building of classical Greco-Roman design is in the style of many museums built in North America in the 20th century. An exterior gallery of twenty-three works of art are featured in display windows.  In front of the windows is a granite walkway protected by a covered portico supported by stone columns.

Inside are 23 spacious exhibition galleries accented with antique furniture and fine oriental carpets on limestone floors. Each of the galleries is devoted to a particular artist or type of art. New collections are mounted continuously and more than 500 works fill the galleries.

Also housed within are the company’s executive offices, staff offices, fine art storage facilities, restoration studios, research department, digital catalog printing facilities, and a customer service department.

A 181,000 square foot facility located in Miami Lakes, FL acts as their distribution center, servicing the cruise ships and land based auctions. Custom framing, world-wide shipping, art transport and distribution of materials are just some of the activities at this Florida location. The facility also includes some executive offices and a new two-story gallery.

Park West Galleries also maintains retail galleries on over 30 cruise ships all over the world.  Park West hosts art enrichment programs, seminars, gallery exhibitions and live auctions onboard luxury cruise liners.  Often times, Park West Gallery brings artists onboard to talk about their work and to meet their collectors.

Passionate People:

Park West Gallery works with more than 400 people internationally, bringing collections of fine art of the highest quality to the world market.

Each week, up to 6,000 works of art are cataloged, photographed, custom framed, and carefully checked and registered before leaving its facilities in Michigan and Florida to be distributed to locations and cruise ships worldwide for inclusion in auctions and exhibitions.

To remain abreast of important developments in the art world, the gallery director and senior staff members have logged millions of miles in international and domestic travel. Park West Gallery reviews the most important international art expositions and also have representation at museum exhibitions.

Through an extensive network of artists, dealers and agents, Park West Gallery has developed the capacity to offer for sale and authenticate works through the artists themselves, or the definitive experts for the various masters whose works they offer. In addition to a full-time staff, they utilize well recognized experts and scholars to document and review their collections. Among these are; Joseph Jacobs, noted freelance art writer and critic; Tony Janson, co-author of the History Of Art, the most widely used textbook on fine art ever written; Dr. Eleanor Hight, University of New Hampshire art professor and expert on Russian art; and many others.

Park West Gallery’s research library includes many rare and out of print references. Their research department catalogs each work offered at the gallery and auctions. When their seal is affixed to a Park West Gallery certificate of authenticity, collectors have the assurance that the research was done according to the highest of museum or internationally-important auction standards.

Philanthropy:

Philanthropic initiatives are paramount at Park West Gallery and an important part of Park West’s  corporate culture.  The Park West Foundation was established to help foster kids who are “aging out” out of foster care and transitioning from children to adulthood.  The foundation currently supports nearly 300 young people, having helped them transition to the challenges of adulthood by funding post-secondary education, housing, and other essentials needs for a successful transition to adulthood.

In addition, Park West Gallery supports a variety of charities world-wide.  Last year alone, Park West helped over 200 non-profit organizations.  Park West Gallery is also an avid proponent, during a critical time, of the importance of arts education and has facilitated art enrichment programs with accomplished artists, helping provide artists talks to organizations like the International School in Bellevue, Washington, the Goethe School in Chicago, Illinois and the Youth Arts Corps in Tampa Bay, Florida among many others.  Park West Gallery has also provided donations and resources to fundraising events at various institutions around the country, including the Children’s Home Society and the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL.

From Darrell Roberts' Collection

When one looks at a painting by Chicago artist, Darrell Roberts, one will see his process. His hands are in the work, easily detectable in the motion of the thick paint that abounds on his small canvases. Roberts’ infatuation with collecting art is also a tangible process, the collection illustrating his continuous adoration of art.

On his website, Roberts states: “For me everything is about art all the time.” This dramatic sentiment certainly stands up when observing his prolific collection. Roberts walked with me to a local restaurant on Halsted called DeColores. There, he showed me the collection he lent to the restaurant. Some were portraits Roberts had painted, a series called Art Therapy, but most of the others were artworks from his collection including a Karl Wirsum print and a work by Fraser Taylor, both faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where Roberts received his MFA in painting in 2003.

In addition to creating art and collecting it, Roberts teaches painting at the Hyde Park Art Center and also runs a unique gallery, the 2nd Floor Gallery, that is located within his apartment, the walls painted with “Art Institute white” as Roberts proudly stated. With all of this, his contention that everything is about art certainly rings true.

Robert MacNeill "Invisible City"

From DeColores, we walked to Roberts’ Pilsen apartment that doubles as 2nd Floor Gallery. The gallery’s Facebook page expresses its mission, one that speaks to Roberts’ own individual feelings about art being in an individual’s surroundings. “2ND FLR Gallery is a space where art is exhibited in a home-type setting and not the standard white cube. You’ll be able to interact with the work as if you already owned it and see how it would look in your home.” The exhibition space does not put on any airs that it is a traditional white cube, instead the space possesses a personal ease that allows the artwork to breathe and live among those who love it.

Sarah Kaiser "Anonymous Boy #2"

In our discussion about collecting, he admitted to a veritable obsession with collecting art. “I just like having art around me. There’s an energy in mark-making and color. I just like anything a person physically made by hand.” His apartment is a testament to this for sure, a space where there seems to be nothing mass-marketed, down to the furniture that is unique, pieces that have been coddled and created by human hands.

Allen Roberta "Male Nude"

But there is a kind of art he does not want to live with: his own. “I don’t want to see my own work while I am working.” He said he would rather be inspired by the work of others as well as the world around him. On walks around the constantly-moving city, he collects found objects and notices the smells of colors and the colors of smells. Like the artwork Roberts creates and collects, his process is all about stimulation: the act of being stimulated and stimulating. It is a process that is contagious, I myself becoming riveted by the thought of beginning my own collection, especially as I narrowed in on a few of my favorite pieces dappling his living room and gallery hallways.

Sarah Ferguson

Allen Roberta’s Male Nude from 1997 gives off a unique beauty in its humorous satirization of kitsch: a pink fabric figure study that results in a sexy, embroidered artwork. Robert MacNeill’s Invisible City at first appears to be an abstract shelf, but upon a closer look it is an amalgam of our contemporary apparatus. It is made of discarded objects that we have cast off paying no mind until MacNeill rebuilds them, puts them in a new context. Then there is Sarah Kaiser’s Anonymous Boy #2, a somber meditation on a hypnotizing boy, the artist’s use of soft color causing a lone boy with a play drum to take on a somberness instead of playfulness.
As far as Darrell Roberts’ favorites, he simply has this to say: “I think my favorite piece is the Judith Geichman’s little pink painting; I could sleep with it and be happy. I also love my Karl Wirsum print. I would grab those two if that was all I could in a fire.”

See some of Darrell Roberts’ collection that is on view now through March at DeColores at 1626 South Halsted in Pilsen.

Originally posted at:
http://www.artmarketblog.com/2011/03/09/top-5-art-market-internet-startups-artmarketblog-com/
Reprinted with the permission of the author.

An increasing number of art market related internet startups have surfaced over the last six months as buyers appear to be becoming more confident with purchasing fine art online. Here are my top 5 art market internet startups:

PurePhoto.com:
PurePhoto.com is a new US based startup that uses a facebook-like ecosystem to bring art buyers, curators, gallery owners, collectors and photographers together in a social commerce network. In modern terms they are Facebook, Flickr, Artnet and Etsy rolled into one site specifically for purchasing high quality photography.
http://www.purephoto.com

Paddle8.com:
Paddle8 is an online platform that enables collectors to acquire artworks free of time and geographical constraints. Their platform focuses on a monthly series of guest curated online exhibitions. Through the voice of a diverse range of curators, Paddle8 will showcase a range of perspectives on how to look at art. Curators are drawn from inside as well as outside the art world, embodying the multifaceted relationship between art and its broader context. They are launching Spring 2011
http://www.paddle8.com

Artsicle.com:
With Artsicle, New York collectors can try their favorite pieces at home for only $50 – so they can be sure the work is right for them. The New York Based startup allows New Yorkers to choose any work of art from the Artsicle online catalogue to display in their home for only $50 a month until they find something that they want to purchase. Basically what Artsicle are doing is offering a “try before you buy” service for art collectors.
http://www.artsicle.com

Art.sy:
Art.sy is a new way to discover fine art. From works for sale at leading galleries to those on display in museums and private collections, Art.sy helps you discover art you’ll love. Art.sy will launch in Spring 2011. Art.sy is powered by The Art Genome Project, an ongoing study of the characteristics that distinguish and connect original works of art. Their team of art world professionals and engineers teach their algorithms to understand each work of art across hundreds of attributes. Art.sy then learns about your preferences, providing increasingly intelligent artwork recommendations over time.
http://www.art.sy

VIP Online Art Fair:
VIP Art Fair is the first art fair to mobilize the collective force of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries with the unlimited reach of the Internet. Its inaugural fair took place exclusively online, January 22-30, 2011, at www.vipartfair.com. An unprecedented event, VIP Art Fair gives contemporary art collectors access to artworks by critically acclaimed artists and the ability to connect one-on-one with internationally renowned dealers—from anywhere in the world and without leaving home.
http://www.vipartfair.com

**Nicholas Forrest is an art market analyst, art critic and journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He is the founder of http://www.artmarketblog.com, writes the art column for the magazine Antiques and Collectibles for Pleasure and Profit and contributes to many other publications

Originally posted at:
http://www.artmarketblog.com/2011/03/09/top-5-art-market-internet-startups-artmarketblog-com/
Reprinted with the permission of the author.

L. H. Selman Ltd., Chicago’s foremost gallery in the genre of contemporary and antique paperweights for over 40 years, offers great items for collectors, investors and enthusiasts alike.

L.H. Selman Ltd. is located at 410 South Michigan Ave, Suite 207, Chicago.

The City of Chicago’s Percent for Art Ordinance program is a process that has become an excellent vehicle for local artist exposure.

There are stages that artists can go through to obtain one of the highly visible locations throughout the city. At any given time projects are happening at a branch library, police district facility, city office building, outdoor space or airport.

Ann Wiens, Black Swallowtail Caterpillar with Photovoitaic Panel. Courtesy of City of Chicago Public Art Program website.

There is an international artist registry that’s open to anyone, but the majority of the selection process includes local, community involvement with artists and local decision-makers.

“At the beginning of the project we host a community meeting that coordinates with the alderman’s office,” says Elizabeth Kelley, the director of visual arts/ public art program.

“We reach out to community art organizations to come to that meeting, learn about the project, and then make recommendations for either specific artists and specific type of work.”

Prominent art members are asked what type of work would be relevant for the space that is up for the artwork placement.

Kelley says that they open up the discussion so offers and opinions of preference are heard. Of course, local artists are always recommended at the meetings.

A Beverly location included a venue that was discussed for an artists’ art placement. Tim Anderson is considered one of the best portrait artists in Chicago, and was recommended for the project.

“The idea was portraits of famous writers of Chicago (for the project). Tim Anderson was in our registry; who was yet to be in the collection. His name was put in for consideration.”

The selection of the artist always starts and ends with the community input. “It’s always an organic process,” Kelley adds. After the recommendations in the meeting, the curatorial staff will take information and develop a list of artists out of the registry. There is advertising on their Web site and the monthly Chicago artists’ resource Web site, announcing projects. Artists are asked to submit their work once they answer the ad.

The staff asks art professionals to come and meet to give their assessment on the artists considered for the project. Their artist recommendations are also heard.

“We will go back to the community to ask for help to develop a short list,” Kelley says. The information gathered at the first meeting and curatorial input is implemented.

Artists are contacted and asked if they are interested. They are asked to submit a proposal for which they are paid $500 or $1,000, depending on the budget of the project.

Final proposals by the artists include a small-scale rendering, model, or digital images and concepts for the work. A final community meeting ends the process.

“We have a minimum of two community meetings, sometimes more. The proposals are discussed. That’s how the final decision gets rendered.”

Previously, there were project advisory panels with seven decision-makers, giving recommendations to a larger body compromising art professionals and commissioners of city agencies involved in public art programs. Those include: libraries, agencies that do construction, the city architect, someone from the Dept. of Transportation and commissioner of aviation. The committee was chaired by the commissioner of cultural affairs.

The ordinance was revised in 2007. Kelley says the system now is more of a community, input-friendly evaluation.

“We end up with more than two voices representing the community. We find it’s really successful. It’s much more open-flowing process. We have many more voices at the table than we did before.”

Projects have included the aforementioned Beverly branch library “Chicago author” portraits, by well-known local artist Tim Anderson.

Beverly neighborhood resident Brian Richard has made landscape paintings on shaped canvasses. Cecil McDonald is a photographer who is completing color pictorial works.

Lakeview resident Todd Palmer is currently completing an exterior sculpture on the parking garage at the 23rd District Police Station in Lakeview; and two interior wall sculptures in the lobby. The opening is scheduled for November.

“They are really compelling works of art,” says Kelley, of the year-old project.

Generally, the contracts are for a calendar year. Some are done in conjunction with a current construction project.

There are announcements of projects, guidelines including explanations how works are commissioned, downloadable applications, links to images of works, etc. at: www.cityofchicago.org/publicart

The full service site for visual arts, dance, music, theater and the disciplines, job and space postings can be found at: www.chicagoartsitsresource.org

Like many full-time artists, one of my income streams is through sales to art consultants. In fact, I no longer show in galleries but sell directly through independent art advisors. These are art professionals who work with corporate, healthcare, hospitality and other market sectors to guide them through every aspect of purchasing art, whether it’s one piece for over the reception desk or 400 reproductions to put in hotel rooms. A good art consultant is like a Velociraptor. They’re out there constantly hunting and competing for art buyers so that you don’t have to. All you need to do is find them.

Secret #1: Build Your Own List
I should let you know right now that I’m not going to give you a contact list. Not because I’m being coy or territorial, but because the first secret to being successful at this is to customize your own list based on what kind of work you do and then make targeted, individual contact with the art consultants who specialize in that kind of work. If there’s one generalization that can safely be made about art advisors, it’s that they hate to receive portfolios from artists who haven’t done their homework. It’s a waste of their time to handle them; it’s a waste of your time and money to send your work out into the void – or, more specifically, the wastebasket. First impressions matter, and the first impression that carpet-bombing your portfolio makes to art consultants is that you don’t respect their time or understand how the business works.

Art consultants are so numerous that the challenge is how to not end up working with so many that you don’t have enough supply to meet the demand. My strategy has been to build relationships with 20 – 25 who are a very good fit with my particular style of work so that I never have to compromise what I want to make. One of the most refreshing things about selling work through art consultants is that you don’t have to give them an exclusive like galleries often demand. They’ll ask you to because they don’t want their offering of artists to overlap with their competition’s, but unless they’re selling enough of your work to give you a steady, livable income, you should politely decline.

Secret #2: Be Selective
Because there are a lot of art advisors, you can (and should) be selective about the criteria you use to qualify them. What I look for is an impressive client list, and I need to like the quality of the work of the other artists they’ve dealt with. All of this can usually be found on their web sites the old-fashioned way by Googling “art consultant” and “art advisor.” Do the leg work and keep your eyes open. When you see a restaurant, corporate lobby, hospital or hotel with beautiful artwork in a design magazine or in the real world, contact the interior designer or architect and ask who was the art consultant on that project. Most of the large framing companies have art-consulting arms (and don’t assume they only show the generic work inside the rectangles in their showrooms). Ask other artists outright. When perusing the web site of artists whose work you like look at their resume or gallery page to see if they’ve listed the art consultants they work with.

After you screen consultants for quality and compatibility with your aesthetic, check their web sites for instructions on how artists should submit work. If there are none, send them a short e-mail introducing yourself as an artist who came across their web site and sees an affinity between your aesthetic and theirs. Then ask how you would go about submitting work. I always include a link to my web site inviting them to preview my portfolio to see if there’s a reason for further communication. This is actually a Trojan Horse because by then I’ve already done a ton of compatibility research and know that when they see my web site they’ll get the obvious connection between what I make and what they sell and probably want to go to the next step of having me send more information. As a teaser you can also attach one or two JPEGs (NOT your entire portfolio) being careful that they are formatted to download fast and fit on a computer screen. And while it pains me to say it, make sure the resolution is low enough so that it can’t be reproduced by anyone unscrupulous. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to put a watermark or copyright symbol on it while you’re at it, at least until you’ve established trust.

Secret #3: Follow-Up
This must be a secret because so few artists do it! Unless they’ve specifically told you they’re not interested, there’s nothing wrong with reminding them that you’re still out there by sending them images of new work at one- or two-month intervals. More than once I’ve gotten a sale because images of my work had just landed in a consultant’s inbox the same week they were looking for work for a big project. Every time I send out a mailing I make at least one sale. If it doesn’t work that way for you, it likely means you haven’t made the right fit between your work and what those particular art consultants specialize in selling. You need to take a step back and rethink your strategy.

There’s always that fine line between being persistent and being a pest. If I don’t hear back from them for two weeks after my initial contact, I follow-up with an e-mail saying something like “I hope I’m not bugging you but I wanted to make sure you got my e-mail a couple of weeks ago and had a chance to look at it. I’d love to work with you if you think my work would be a good fit with your projects.” If I don’t hear from them after the second follow-up, I put them on the back burner to contact in 6 months or when I have new work. But that’s my personal comfort level. I know more aggressive artists who seem to be doing very well.

Keep in mind that art advisors are in the same entrepreneurial boat that you are, so make follow-up a two-way street by sending them leads to possible projects. If you find out that there’s going to be a big new hotel, convention center, or hospital built, forward that to one or two of your favorites. You don’t want to be promiscuous about it, though. Art consulting is a tremendously competitive field and it would water down the specialness of this favor if they found out you had sent it to 15 other firms.

Secret #4: Make It Easy for Them to Find You. Art consultants don’t represent artists like galleries do. In order to stay competitive, they constantly need fresh blood. In her book Becoming a Corporate Art Consultant, veteran art advisor Barbara Markoff devotes a lot of ink to helping would-be art advisors figure out how to find artists because, as she says, “I describe the stable of artists an art consultant has as their ammunition to close a sale…. Finding artists that your competitors do not have is critical.” Markoff suggests these target-rich environments for finding artists:

1. Attending art festivals
2. Investigating local artist organizations
3. Networking groups
4. Exchanging information with other gallery owners
5. Looking at poster catalogs
6. Attending trade shows such as the West Coast Art and Frame Show
7. Visiting galleries while traveling
8. Posting inquiries on your website
9. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn
10. Looking at websites of artists and other galleries
11. Asking your artists for introductions to artists they know.
12. The Guild.com

Lest it doesn’t go without saying, this is a veritable playbook of where we should have our work to make it easy for them to find us. Notice how galleries do not loom large in this list. Unless they’re dealing with big-ticket artworks, independent art advisors for the most part prefer not to work with galleries because they’d have to split the commission if that’s how they’re making their fee. For those consultants who are getting paid a retainer or flat rate by their clients, they’ll negotiate a discount with the gallery to pass onto the client. The majority, however, make their fee from commissions off of the sale and framing services.

Because Chicago is a world business capital, many international businesses have large offices here. Big companies work with art consultants who are often looking for local artists to give regional identity to those companies’ collections. Having a good web site is a given, but you also need to get on local artist databases as soon as possible. The Chicago Artists’ Coalition has one artists can join that’s long been a go-to for out-of-town buyers. The City of Chicago maintains the Chicago Artist Registry. ArtSlant, an international on-line network, has a section for Chicago artists. Beyond the shores of Lake Michigan, there are a bajillion on-line registries. Some of which are effective and legitimate to outright scams. Getting on as many good ones as possible would not be a waste of your time.

Because art consultants are constantly trolling for artists you will start getting cold calls from them. Yes, that’s right. You don’t always need to cold-call them. They will cold-call you. Recently, an artist told me that she periodically gets e-mails from art consultants saying they saw her work and want to talk to her further. She said she deletes all of them because she assumes they are spams. (Whereupon I asked if she could forward them to me from now on!) Yes, there is a weird phishing spam going around that’s easy to recognize because it’s some BS about someone who saw your work on-line and they’re moving to London but they’ll send you a check blah blah blah, but more than half of my golden art consultant contacts have come from them contacting me. The real ones are easy to check out because all you need to do is go to their web site and if it looks legit call them back and get a sense of what projects they’re working on and where they think your work might fit. Ask them how they found out about you so you can track where your most effective marketing is taking place. If I still have a flicker of doubt, I will call one or two of the artists that they’ve worked with.

Secret #5 Brand Yourself
I know that talking in commercial terms about art is taboo but I’m going to say it anyway: You need to brand your work. Think of it as editing your portfolio. The less of a hodge-podge it is, the easier you’ll make it for the art consultant to appreciate and sell your work. You can still have different bodies of work, but be intentional about which ones to show which art consultants based on her market niche. And don’t ask the art consultant to do a portfolio review. By the time you show her your portfolio it’s got to be all tailored, groomed and shiny. She’s your client, not your art professor.

Secret #6: Be Flexible
The demand for certain mediums and price points will fluctuate depending on the economy. The fact that any image that can be digitized can be printed on almost any substrate as a giclee*, means that you can sell inexpensive multiples of your originals. In addition to paper, images of your 2-D work can now be printed on ceramic, glass, fiber, aluminum, bamboo, acrylic, you name it. If your medium is so tied to your message that the intent of your work would suffer if reproduced on another material, that’s okay. Just make that clear to the consultant. It will limit how much of your work she can sell — partly because you should raise the prices of your originals to offset the loss in cashflow from not doing multiples — but how you feel about your work is priceless.

Another form of flexibility that not all artists can stomach is that you will be asked to do commissions on variations of your own work. Like, “Can you take this section from this other painting and put it over here on this one?” or “Could you do that same painting but make it bigger and square?” I used to feel a twinge of resistance about these requests, but after revisiting my work a few times in response I realized that I not only enjoyed it but was learning a lot from recreating something I had made spontaneously the first time.

Secret #7 Have Your Act Together
Quick! What’s your artist’s net for a 20” x 24” print? Don’t know the answer to that off the top of your head? Then you, my friend, do not have your act together, according to Markoff. Before your initial approach to a consultant, you should have the following materials ready:

• Images of work available for sale (remember, low-rez JPEGs only)
• “Artist’s net” (i.e. wholesale is 50% of retail) pricelist divided by format (i.e., originals, giclee, substrate)
• Resume
• Artist statement

Find out in what form the art consultant wants to see your portfolio. Markoff and many others prefer 3-ring binders because they can spread out the work on a table for their clients to mix and match. Some only want to use your web site while others need JPEGs in an e-mail or on a CD. Keeping track of what you’ve sent them when and in what format adds up to one heck of a bookkeeping chore. I’ve hired a studio manager to keep up with it all.

No names please. Unlike a gallery, art consultants don’t want their clients to see the names of the artists they’re showing them until they sign on the dotted line. They remove the temptation from the client to go around the art advisor’s back directly to the artist and cut them out of their 50% (usually) commission. And when you do get a call from an unknown prospective client, casually ask them how they heard about you.

Whatever material she needs, get it to her right away. Lisa Boumstein-Smalley of Chicago Art Source says that clients are typically calling her at the last minute in a panic to get something on their walls. Even though the art is the first thing people see when they walk into a room, it’s usually the last thing that’s planned for. In such a fast-paced business, artists who can keep up will get repeat sales, those who need their hands held will soon be road-kill.

This should be enough to keep you busy for a while!

* Giclee: A recently made-up word for “ink-jet print” that sounds more arty and expensive.

###

Lynn Basa is a full-time artist living in Chicago. She teaches in the Sculpture Department at SAIC and is the author of The Artist’s Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions.

Angela Graefenhain, The Magic of Van Gogh on Roscoe

By Anthony Brass

Out in Naperville at Edward Hospital art is being collected for more than aesthetic reasons. Their carefully selected artwork has been attributed to the mind, body and soul—but especially for the mind.

Candace Olander is the coordinator of healing arts at Edward Hospital. She has used her keen eye and acute sensibilities with art to obtain the best works for the walls within a setting where medicine and confinement—and not paintings—take a higher priority.

Olander was brought in by the Hospital in 2002 to figure out how to add fine arts into Edward’s as an underlying form of care for the patients.

“We wanted to put (artwork) in a different light than every other hospital, to make us more special,” Olander says.

The project started with rotation galleries and bringing in live music. The galleries were placed in high-traffic areas with local artists’ work.

“I will not ask an artist to put his/her work over here and put it ‘behind a door,’” she says.

The hospital started doing projects in conjunction with the remodeling of the complex. Edward is one of the largest hospitals in the DuPage County area.

“We had had several artists in here who had exhibited. We knew how our community responded to those artists. We were working directly with local artists. It was a win-win-win situation,” Olander says.

The hospital pays the artist a fair price with the program operated in-house. When a new project is started all parties go in with feedback.

“We go to a department; see what their needs are.”

In addition to Olander’s fine-tuned tastes in art, she also says there’s good information on online as a resource too.

Gordan France, St. James Gig

“I’ll pull the information up and I’ll look at the type of area we’re having (done). I’ll see which of my artists we have displayed here and what, and how the feedback has been. And then I’ll take what we have and present it to the departments. Usually I work with the construction area and with someone in the department. Between the three of us, we work on what we want to achieve and how much money we have to do with it,” she says of the detailed process.

“I like to keep the art fluid—kind of the ‘same,’” she says. I want people to walk in that area and say, ‘I’m in the right place.’ I don’t want a hodge-podge. I don’t think that’s soothing.”

Olander will devote one floor to “brights,” paintings with positive hues, and another floor will be watercolors only, so a theme corresponds to a particular floor.

“I try and use them not only to help soothe the patients, but also directionally,” she says. “So I like things to be interesting enough so that they don’t become wallpaper. I like them to be specific so that you don’t get confused.”

The patients’ combination of convalescence and artwork can evoke a pleasing time or remembrance in their life—many of which, involving other people. Subjects within a painting can release a positive emotion, sometimes more than an ordinary, or arbitrary landscape. Edward Hospital’s choice for theses works are clearly represented on the walls.

“I think a human connection within a setting is better; it’s more gripping and interesting if people are there,” she says.

Some of Olander’s choices include a setting with kids picking berries, a man calmly walking a horse and musicians playing music around a fountain.

“(We want) to take them to a better place. It reminds them of their grandkids, or anyone. You need something in there that you want to go to,” Orlander says.

Edward Hospital is continuing to undo a lot of the older stereotypical artwork selections, which included static prints that consistently match from wall to wall, floor to floor.

Ann Hanley, Big Fish II

“They were just all the same,” Olander adds. “They would give a storyboard, and you could pick six of them—but they were all the same thing. This was pretty standard.”

The hospital even had work in the past that would match the upholstery and carpeting in the rooms. Olander came in and said the hospital needs work with more life. Working with different artists has broken that trend.

She admitted there was some difficulty at first when people weren’t used to paintings that were unorthodox and not all framed at the exact same size. But eventually the departments saw the light and continued to work together to bring a heightened and diverse view to artwork.

She guides the departments to maximize the viewing experience. Olander also personally meets with the prospective local artists and works with them when there’s great interest in purchasing.

“These are local people. They are very excited to be recognized in their communities. They’re very pleased to not only hang their art here, but to have us come back and purchase it—everybody’s happy.

“If you aren’t buying art that doesn’t jump off the walls, save your money. Move your art; let it speak to people. Let it be something someone wants to wander in,” Olander proclaims.

The escapism and the projecting of the minds of patients and non-patients alike to another place is the innate goal of art. The patient is released from their current status, thus promoting healing within the mind.

“Whether they love it or don’t love it, if they are talking about it, it’s doing its job. Let’s bring in different artists and styles. But let’s keep them organized in a way that the (works) become directive and comforting.”

Lisa Boumstein-Smalley, art consultant

Lisa Boumstein-Smalley is an artist with both her BFA and MFA from SAIC in Fiber and Material Studies. By day, she is the gallery director for Chicago Art Source where she manages 6 full-time art consultants and curates exhibits in their gallery at 1871 N. Clybourn. I asked her to tell artists specifically what they need to know to increase their chances of working with art consultants.

Artists need to reach out to me as much as I need to reach out to them. It’s a mutually-beneficial two-way street. Artists should educate themselves before making an approach. Look at the web site. Come into the gallery. Call me. My day is about interruptions. I’m always going to take the call and look at their work. Don’t pop in. I don’t want to sound like I’m cold, popping in is the worst. We’re so busy.

E-mail me a link to your web site! Don’t be weird. Just get it in front of me. The more familiar I am with the work, the more likely I am to suggest it to a client. If you don’t hear back from me, give it a couple of months. Either e-mail or call one more time. No more than that because then it’s nagging. If I don’t get back to you, that probably means I’m not interested.

Chicago Art Source Gallery

Our art consultants work hard to get appointments with decision-makers (designers, corporate clients, individual collectors). They go to the site, talk to the client, take photos. We talk about what they want to achieve with art and strategize about what artwork to put in their place, giving them good, better, best scenarios. By “good” I mean limited edition prints, prints-on-demand, more economical mediums. “Better” is a combination of prints and originals. “Best” would be all originals. Depending on the client, we will give them one or more directions. We’re not doing art to match the couch. Interior designers and architects consider every single thing. We’re helping them facilitate the completion of their space. It’s a collaborative process. It’s not slapping artwork on the wall. It’s far more considered and belabored than that.

I absolutely will not work with assholes or artists who don’t buy in to our positioning. In other words, we sell a lot of art work, but Art Forum is not going to come in here and do a review. We are not a capital “G” gallery. We are not pretentious. We’re client-driven as opposed to art-driven. That’s not to say we don’t have a cohesive aesthetic, we do. But that has been tailored to the responses we get from our clients.

Chicago Art Source Gallery

End users are intimidated by galleries. And why shouldn’t they be, the way the current system is set up? Our job is to make sure people feel comfortable and that they’re not outside of an inside joke. Sometimes that means that the artwork is ‘easy” but the better, more interesting projects are ones where they’re not. I trust that people want to use their brains, be exposed to new things, and have an experience.

We have several ways we work with artists. First, we run a gallery as a normal gallery in most senses of the word, featuring a core group of 20 or so artists that we’ve worked with for many years. We have 4-5 thematically-based exhibitions a year. There’s always one solo per year but usually we do group shows because that gets the most eyeballs on the work. To get considered for the gallery, just follow the submission instructions on the web site.

“Resource artists” are people I keep in my favorites. They show in the gallery but aren’t in core group. This is an ever-changing number. Artists will move from resource artists to being represented artists. We’re always open to fresher, newer work.

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Lynn Basa is a full-time artist living in Chicago. She teaches in the Sculpture Department at SAIC and is the author of The Artist’s Guide to Public Art: How to Find and Win Commissions.