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Upgrade Your Properties with Local Art

Posted on 07. Jun, 2010 by Heather Blume in Marketing

I’ve been out shopping your properties. Guess what? That picture in your leasing office / cabana / model unit needs help!

You know the one I’m talking about. It’s that sun-faded print in the beat up frame that you found in one of the storage rooms and decided to put up on the wall because the wall looked bare. Now your wall doesn’t look bare, but it does look ugly, and I have to wonder if you’re using that big frame to cover up some massive hole in the wall that you didn’t want me to see or didn’t want to take the time to fix. Is this the first impression that you want to make on a prospective resident? We can do a little better than this, and guess what? It’s not going to cost us the usual price of redecorating!

What’s an aesthetically challenged office to do? Let’s start by tapping our local art!

I was an art student once, and I will tell you straight up that if you want something that will generate traffic, give you something to start conversations with, and will just plain out do those pictures your walls are currently sporting, college aged art students are about to become your best friends. Why? Because they need a venue to show their work.

Here’s how the program works:
Contact your local colleges or, if you don’t have any, local artists groups and let them know that you are looking for someone to show their work on a “rotating basis” at your property. 30 days, 60 days, 90 days – whatever works for you, it will work for them. Offer to show their pieces at an “80/20” rate, meaning that they keep 80% of the sale (a massively high amount in the art world!) and you keep 20% of the profits from any piece sold as a result of it being shown there. Depending on your community, this can become a great source of ancillary income. If you’re not in an arts heavy community, you’re still reaping the benefits of having contemporary art up in your offices, something your competitors are probably not doing. On top of that perk, you are integrating yourself with the community around you, bringing you more visibility and good will. (You can never stock pile enough good will these days.)

Doing a monthly artists’ reception can be a great way to bring traffic into your community on a weekend day, and since most college BFA candidates have to have a “show,” depending on who you pick, this will probably also cost you very little. Otherwise, work with a local restaurant, coffee shop, etc. to see if they would be interested in offering their services to your captive audience for an afternoon. In this challenging economy, you’ve got a good chance of getting a yes from people who are trying to build a client base.

Some points to remember:

• Have an artist’s contract. Make sure it outlines set up/take down times, the length of the show times, types of art that can be displayed, appropriate hanging methods, and the sale profit breakdown, should any of their pieces sell.
• Make sure that your artists either sign a liability waiver to display at your place OR carry their own insurance on their pieces. Don’t let yourself be liable for someone’s “masterpiece”
• Reserve the right to Yea or Nay what gets displayed in your space and make sure that verbiage is in your artist’s contract. Paintings of dogs playing poker are okay…maybe?
• When you talk to your local college, make sure that you are talking to the professor who chairs the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. They’re the one who can get you the choice pick art students.

And remember please: When you’re picking art, just because a piece is brilliant, does NOT mean that it’s appropriate. Art on the walls is the same as any other sales enhancer. If it doesn’t fit the demographic, if it doesn’t fit the style, if it doesn’t fit your brand – don’t use it.

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