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Adventures of an Art Consultant: Chapter 2

July 8, 2008

Where: Boutique hotel near the San Francisco airport
When: Installation complete last week
Why: Huge walls deserve huge paintings
Who: Jenninfer Strongin, Studio EL art consultant extraodinaire
How: Great artist, great client, great team

It all started with a call from my client, a designer at a large hospitality management company. She was looking for unique contemporary art to fill a few very large spaces (2 spaces at 10'x7' and 2 spaces at 4'x7') in a high traffic lobby area of a newly renovated hotel. She was looking for bold images on canvas but on a rather limited budget.

I contracted artist Ursula Brenner regarding a possible commission. I thought she might be a good fit, in addition to being wonderful to work with, she is open to painting very large scale works in specific color palettes. In this case we needed to match the paintings to the already furnished spaces. Ursula was also open to working within my budget, unfortunately always a major concern with any project!

However, my client was a bit reluctant to purchase new artwork upfront. The artist came to the rescue again by producing the first four canvases for initial approval. She even included San Francisco elements into each painting per my client's suggestions. The client loved these new paintings and was very excited by the possibility of unique original works of art that were site specific and within her budget.

I have to admit I was a bit nervous going into the installation however. These pieces are enormous and I definitely couldn't have done it without an experienced installation team in this case, Dale Mungaray and his crew at Accurate Art. Luckily the operations team at the hotel was also very accommodating of our installation and the guests were curious to watch these massive pieces hang. The best part was the instantaneous positive feedback. Even within the first week, management has been inundated with questions about the artist and comments from the guests about the art.

This project started out tough with many specific needs to fulfill. But in the end, I had such a positive experience on all aspects, I am now quite eager to take on more commission projects in the near future.

Jennifer Strongin
Editions Limited / Studio EL / Drybrush Graphics
jstrongin@editionslimited.com