Page 85 - AmericasMart: Market Magazine July 2017

Photo: Wink Gaines
If you’re a home store, wall art is like the icing on the cake, says Elizabeth Lucas of The Elizabeth Lucas Company.
Adding wall decor is an easy way to make a space your own, which means plenty of opportunities for home retailers to play with the category. Equally, as tastes change, your customers can change the art to make a room feel more or less traditional. “It’s like adding a great piece of jewelry to a good outfit,” Lucas says.
And just like jewelry, the possibilities for wall decor are endless. So how can a retailer know what pieces to stock and equally important, how to display them for maximum impact?
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT
Pick the wall art that you fall in love with, advises Austin Allen of Lawrence & Crane Fine Art and Furniture. Composition is key when displaying wall decor, he says. “It’s how the elements of a painting or a room layer in together that create the feeling of a complete piece.
“It should add balance so when your customer comes into your store they want to buy the whole setting, the couch, the lamp, the end table and the art,” he says.
WALL TOGETHER NOW
Vicki Rulli of Itinerant Studio prints very large pieces
on various materials displayed as one piece or as a triptych. “In this way they can be used to separate and define space within an interior or as a way to visually bring the customer’s gaze toward a particular area.”
Work with your customers and clients to ensure the pieces they’re considering are right for them and for their space. Rulli believes scale is perhaps the first things to look at: “Does the artwork fit the space?
A piece that is too small gets lost and a piece too large can overpower the other things in the room,” she says.
When a retailer has a large store, they have the ability to create multiple vignettes with wall art. “It’s important to group things together so that they don’t get lost and not look important,” Lucas says. The same concept applies to a consumer. When there’s a large space, offer the option of helping to create a gallery grouping with several pieces.
TEMPORARIES
Photo: Lawrence and Crane
Photo: Itinerant Studio
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