Art consultants help hospitals and other clients choose art work that fits their unique environment
Kay Tiedt’s background in healthcare coupled with a lifelong interest in art makes her contribution as an art consultant to hospitals and other medical facilities “just what the doctor ordered.” A member of the national non-profit Society for the Arts in Healthcare, Tiedt, who has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Michigan, has been in the business of making people feel better through art since starting Art Consulting Services during the late 1980s.
“Studies have proven how important art work is in helping with healing. For instance, color can change the way a person feels and depending on the (hospital) unit you’re working with it’s an important factor in determining whether to work with themes that are more subdued or a little more stimulating.”
Tiedt represents approximately 140 mostly Michigan artists whose work she sells on consignment in her gallery at 1709 Edith in Grand Rapids. Located in the bottom level of her home, the showroom also serves as a framing workshop.
Half of Tiedt’s clients are in the healthcare field and include Spectrum Health and the new Richard J. Lacks Sr. Cancer Center under construction at St. Mary’s Mercy Medical Center in Grand Rapids.
“I’ve also worked in hospitals in Ludington, Lansing and Greenville,” she said.
Tiedt’s non-healthcare clients, “the other half,” are mostly commercial businesses, many of them banks like the former First of America Bank in Kalamazoo, now National City Bank.
“You want a different kind of image there, a certain look, usually something that represents Michigan,” she said, adding “restaurants are a lot of fun to work with too. The main thing is, you have to be a good listener and find out a little bit about your clients’ personalities. You have to be a bit of an amateur psychologist when you’re interviewing people, and that’s where my nursing background comes in handy.
Like Tiedt, Alex Fink, co-owner, with his wife Sarah Harris, of The Nines Gallery and Framing Studio at 17 W. 10th Street in Holland, was headed in an entirely different career direction before venturing into art consulting.
“My parents were print collectors and I’ve always been an art aficionado,” said Fink, who has a business background in marketing and media relations. That makes him a natural to work with the gallery’s commercial clients, which make up 40 percent of the gallery’s regulars. The other 60 percent are residential customers. Harris opened the “The Framing Studio” in Holland in 1988, and the couple added on the gallery in 1998.
“The primary role of a good art consultant is a willingness to go into a client’s space and find out what the business wants to communicate to its customers. The budget is the largest constraint on any project, after that you have to consider the size of the walls and the number of pieces to use,” Fink said.
“Visual art is about communication. For example, if you’re working in a hospital, you’ll want to facilitate a calming or joyful effect, to balance other emotions that might be occurring.
“If you’re working in an auto dealership, you’ll want to go with a décor that’s sleek, powerful, sexy, and fast – the way people feel about cars.
“In a bank, you want to touch on traditional ideals, something that says ‘safe, stable, rock solid,’ – farmland, rivers and so forth.”
“Buy what you can afford and what you like. A reputable art consultant will steer you away from buying fads. A lot of different things in the art world that are designed to make a profit aren’t worth the price. If you don’t know what you’re doing, find someone who does,” Fink said.
