Earlier today I helped an art friend take her work into the city to show it to a lovely couple who live in a two story penthouse apartment. We were joined by an art consultant, who arranged the meeting. When I first agreed to do this, I thought we were taking a dozen paintings in, and we'd come home with fewer. What I found out while driving in to the city was that they were going to look at the paintings for a possible commission. Cool!
Unable to find parking in front of the building, we double parked for a few minutes while I guarded the car and my friend brought 2-3 paintings at a time into the building, where she loaded them on a brass luggage cart, similar to those that hotels have. Concierge watched the paintings while we parked the car a few blocks away. Then we went back to the building where we brought the paintings up to the penthouse via the elevator. It was fun wheeling the paintings on the cart slowly down the hall and into the apartment.
Introductions were made, paintings were unwrapped, leaned against the wall, moved around, carried up to the landing of the custom made tiger-maple stairs where various configurations were looked at, carried up the rest of the flight of stairs, moved around to match colors.
Another artist arrived early with his paintings, and he listened and watched as he waited his turn to show his work for another location in the apartment. His work was also on a brass luggage cart.
There was a fascinating discussion about the colors of the other paintings nearby that my friend's work needed to coordinate with. I took pictures of them with my phone so she could have a visual at home, and promptly emailed them to her. There was a reference to a picture on her website, but the home network wasn't working so I loaded her website on my phone so everyone could see the picture to refresh their memory.
Sizes were discussed. Textures. Pattern. Samples of colors to be looked at. The homeowners each expressed various opinions, the art consultant hers, and the artist listened and took notes. Each one's opinion important. Mutual respect for each other. It was so nice to watch and listen from the sidelines, and participate as needed. Decisions were agreed upon for the next steps.
The paintings were brought down to the first floor, wrapped, loaded on the brass luggage cart, wheeled down the hall, and brought down to street level on the elevator. Concierge watched the paintings again while we got the car, and double parked in front of the building. We then loaded them back inside and drove home.
I totally enjoyed every minute of it.
