Victoria L. Meyers

 

Art consultation 

 

People buy art to build a valuable collection, but for some it is for a special place in a room in their home, so it is a form of companionship. Art is very personal and so before I search for fine art, or furniture, or jewels, I have to know the client and their taste. I have to understand the collection they have, I have to understand why they love what they have chosen already and then I will be able to choose a variety of pieces available for sale that will be surprising and pleasing. Our belongings such as timepieces, furniture, clothes, jewels are with us as our constant companions. Fine art and sculpture is even more of a companion as we see it everyday, and we know if we are going to live with something we want to love it. Art is like a companion. For fine art, the room, the lighting, and the whole space and view outside the window plays a part in decision making. We want to rotate our art from time to time, as we stumble on something that would make the room into a new place. Make changes to our furniture to bring out a new side to ourselves we have discovered and want to express. We always want to come home to comfort and beauty. 

 

Before studying modern art and the history of the art market at Christie’s Education, New York, Victoria Meyers completed up a Bachelor of Business from the Queensland University of Technology, majoring in Public Relations. 

 

 

 

In 2009, my first art consulting assignment was to find an abstract expressionist painting to complement Helen Frankenthaler’s Book of Clouds. I had a color-field painting of pure abstraction, a room in an upstate New York residence, and a budget of $500,000. My experience studying at Christie’s taught me so much about private collectors and how they started off. My friend told me the story of how she lived with her boyfriend in an apartment in SoHo back in the 1980s and had the good taste to buy an original Richard Prince photograph. When the man who owned the building across from where she lived dropped some of his groceries, she helped him to pick them up and the conversation moved to the fact that he was wanting to sell the building. My friend knew that her Richard Prince photograph had grown astronomically in value, so she sold it and used the money as the deposit for the apartment block she still owns today, and has renovated, on Wooster Street. 

 

 

 

Artists are the people who dedicate their lives to making us see life through their lens. For some, just knowing that this viewpoint exists can be life saving or enhancing, because it makes them feel as though they have found their people. When we see an exhibition we may walk away not understanding what we have seen or heard through the artists message until much later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ithaca by Constantine P Cavafy

 

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy –
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you’ll have understood what these Ithakas mean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo below (3) supplied by Lucy Howard. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below (1) Photo taken by Lucy in NY, April 2009. Lucy Butcher and I flew from Australia to LA and then to Maine. We drove from Maine down the coast to Boston, and then Falmouth. We then took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. We then dropped off the rental car and took the train into Grand Central Station. Lucy’s dad mapped out an excellent and detailed route to follow, with lots of lovely restaurants and museums to visit. When we got to New York we stayed in the Lower East Side, on famous Clinton Street. Little did I know that just over two years later I would be living on the very next street, Rivington Street.  

 

Below (2) Photo with Uncle Ari, my cream point Rag Doll cat.