Picture a blue chip gallery in New York’s Chelsea district, a rainy day, off hours, and Elena has the place to herself… Walking toward the gallery’s private library, she passed one of the glassed-in offices, and an artwork caught her eye. Turns out the man sitting in front of it was art dealer Sean Kelly himself, and her inquiry prompted a conversation. A lovely stroll through the current exhibition with gallery director, Lauren Kelly – and then more – the underbelly. The back offices. The shipping and receiving. The storage. Elena’s immense interest in the details prompted a tour through it all. Next steps were the formal inquiries: pricing on this, exact dimensions on that, and notes upon notes.
It’s like a Rorschach Test: what sticks, what does the client respond strongly to? Elena’s vision is clear from the start, and embraces the initial roundtable of gut reactions. It’s what makes our studio practice so distinct from our contemporaries: Elena is not an Interior Designer first, Art Advisor second. Rather, the art is integral to Frampton Co Interior Design projects from the very first vision.
The process is illuminated by the education… Elena shares her enthusiasm and it is *contagious*. The backstory, the opportunity for acquisition, the artist biography– whether emerging and at the precipice of market blast-off, or a stand-out veteran. She is consciously disarming the idea of art collecting. Art acquisition is not limited to million-dollar auctions or the vast marketplace for the masses. It’s the in-between, it’s the captivating, it’s the personal and the approachable, it’s the intellectual and the creative. Art drives Elena’s design process and she invites her clients to join in the experience.
