Gifts ideas for the Holidays

The streets around E 63 street are humming. We are enjoying helping our gift giving customers and friends with last moment ideas.  Lots of family photos and memorabilia are coming our way.  We’re framing maps of favorite places and prints of favorite dogs.
Yesterday, the warm spot in our day was helping a lady just searching for inspiration, maybe a photo frame?   I convinced her to go back to her apartment and find family photos that other relatives might not have, we helped her get copies ready and chose the most appropriate photo frames.  A calmer week coming because she is feeling so satisfied.  Just for inspiration, here is a photo of my dad in fancy dress, oh, and I came upon a photo of my pen pal in from England from 1960.  Search those family files, you will find treasures

Continuing on the theme of shopping with small business owners, we just received a wonderful photo from a very happy customer in our NYC shop. This very savvy shopper wanted to fill the space over her sofa, and have the art be something unique to her.  Nothing she was going to see everywhere in a catalogue.  We worked together culling through so many topics that reflected her interests and subjects that made her joyful.   The result is a mixture of traditional and modern and very much her own. That is exactly why we are talking about shopping local, shop where the owner cares if your shopping experience is everything you want it to be.

“Here is the wall! Looks fabulous, thank you for everything! Thank you again for everything! I am over the moon” ~JoJo Cohen

To give you a taste of how on the mark Mitch Owens is with his take on Trend, yesterday, he filled the room at 200 Lexington Ave.  All of those participants knew his talk would be something to learn from and work with for current projects.   “On display, the secret to artful rooms”  That’s a topic very close to my heart, of course. The Salon Style of hanging is the current vogue. If you need a visual, look back to our blog about Hyde Hall and see how the paintings were hung at the Louvre. That is the ultimate in the Salon Style.   Now move that trend to think, Modernism 1920′s – 1970′s.

If you are hanging modern art in a traditional setting, use the form of the architecture in the room to help make that transition.   Large vertical windows, mirror that format in the selection of art.    If there are no windows in the space, like a long corridor, use overscale art to take the place of a window.

More designers are exhibiting personal collections in what might be though of as private spaces like powder rooms and libraries.   Mitch’s comments about hanging were also interesting.  Small “gems’ of your collection to be leaned against dark wall, framed in a light colored mat make you want to walk right over to examine the artwork.  That creates a more personal experience for the viewer.  Think again about hanging slightly ” out of context”.

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The coming change of season is bring lots of changes to our shop as well. We are launching new website, several new lines of frames and the construction of the E 63 St Subway.

In the past we have lived through the previous construction in the 1980′s and here it comes again.  Rather than just grouse about the inconvenience I decided to work with the hand we were given.  If its going to be bedlam outside, we are going to be an oasis of calm inside the shop.  To that goal, we have hired Catherine Brophy, know as the Feng Shui Dective to show us how the practice of Feng Shui can be used to in our shop to the advantage of our sales staff and our sales team.

Catherine began last week with taking her calculations.  Asking lots of questions about the shop and about me.  Lots of this depends on the birth date and time of the proprietor.
Very interesting indeed.   I’m going to keep you all in the loop about how this process works. Since you know what the shop looks like now, follow along on the process with me for the next month or so.