“Art is more than something that is hung on the wall; it sustains you during bad times and enriches during good” to quote Giovanna Stark, founder of American Visions Art Gallery. Stress reduction and spiritual renewal are compelling health benefits from surrounding yourself with art that speaks to your individual aesthetics. Meanwhile your art investment appreciates. Beyond health and leisure, pleasure is also derived from realizing your art purchases’ profit potential. Buying art with an eye toward future resale on the secondary art market is an especially sound investment strategy considering current fiscal trends.
Carefully chosen art purchases can be considered a tangible asset, providing liquidity along with diversification in a balanced investment portfolio. Land purchases and real-estate development, while historically profitable, are currently experiencing a highly volatile downturn with questionable medium-term stability. Currency exchange rates and stock market trade-values fluctuate; insecurities regarding unexpected political and economic factors may drastically alter the value of even well researched investment strategies in these markets. In contrast, medium or long-term investment in artwork may yield increasingly high returns with comparatively minimal risk. Increasingly, use of internet sales and marketing makes artwork a tangible asset with easy liquidity in an accessible and enlarging global art market.
American Visions Art Gallery provides an online tool for their customers to offer their own art investments as consignment products. These consignment pages, associated with the American Visions Art Gallery web site (www.avartgallery.com), are an ancillary service. However, many clients discover this constitutes an invaluable resource. Assisting them to display and sell their artwork to a much larger demographic, it results in higher profits at resale and easy liquidity. Additional sources also exist to liquidate art investments on the secondary art market.
As an established art dealer, American Visions Art Gallery has a very stable business profile, assuring clients of continuity in meeting present and future art collection needs. Internet convenience and capabilities blend with additional services via a contemporary art gallery located in Folsom. Ginessa Stark Schaper Giovanna’s daughter and the gallery manager combines traditional and innovative business practices with a deep appreciation of art’s ability to enrich her client’s lives. Archival quality framing services, an extensive online gallery complementing ongoing gallery exhibits and art shows at the Folsom gallery, online tools to assist clients’ sales to the secondary art market, an informative staff with proficiency in assisting with details of art selections and careful packaging of art purchases for shipping worldwide provide ease for the novice as well as the experienced art collector.
Giovanna Stark’s Tuscan roots grounded in an enduring love of art, food, and life created the impetus for founding this gallery and has imparted a special aura to many of the art events held at the Folsom gallery. It also lends a welcoming charm to a visit to the gallery, which is located in an idyllic setting for a weekend get-away.
Whether you choose to visit in person or online, or do a combination, you will find a wonderfully informative and helpful staff to help you choose artwork that meets your individual needs. The choice is yours: Stroll the Folsom gallery or page through the extensive online gallery at your leisure. Attend a gallery event, schedule an individual gallery tour, or simply drop by. Choose a virtual or in-person experience tailored to your needs. Confer with expert staff via phone, FAX, or email. American Visions Art Gallery can be reached by phone at (800) 548-8446 or (916) 351-1623, Fax at (916) 351-1636, and email at info@avartgallery.com.
American Visions offers some original artwork but primarily sells limited edition art and sculpture art from artists in Greenwich Workshop (http://www.greenwichworkshop.com). Representing more than 50 leading artists, Greenwich Workshop was established in 1972 by the late David Usher who pioneered the concept of high quality, artist-signed limited edition reproductions faithful to the quality of the original art. Scott Usher, president of Greenwich Workshop continues the legacy his father established.
Attracting fine artists and gallery owners, the Greenwich Workshop is recognized as North America’s leading publisher of Fine Art Limited Edition prints, canvases, and three-dimensional art. Emotional appeal of the artist’s original work is ensured. Artists who create the original artwork also proof (personally scrutinize, making adjustments as needed) the limited edition fine art at multiple steps throughout the production process. Combining skillful talents of craftsmen with high quality materials, enhanced technology, and scrupulous attention to detail Greenwich Workshop maintains higher standards far exceeding ordinary standards found elsewhere in the fine art limited production industry and reinforces their reputation for excellence. It also explains why this workshop continues to produce some of the most sought after works of art by well renowned artists. And why their artworks appreciate, yielding high returns in the secondary art market.
Escalation in value (based on current and historical sales figures) coupled with aesthetic quality transforms these pieces of affordable art into valuable investment opportunities. June Carey is a prime example. Greenwich has been selling her art for about five or six years; limited editions by Carey that were originally purchased for $750 sold three or four years later for $2450 and up. Serene yet earthy scenes of Tuscany and the California wine country, a focal point in much of her art, exude a natural charm and beauty that is timeless and extremely compelling.
Greenwich Workshop artist, Bev Doolittle’s art also evokes deep emotional connections, but in scenes that contrast quite sharply with Carey’s. Doolittle’s Beyond Negotiations elicits a polarizing yet strongly magnetic appeal. Her portrayal of Native American Indians, horses, and surging forces burst forth in a panoramically vivid scene. The Old West lives again in her mastery of that moment. Western art appears to be a hot commodity with a growing market. News reports indicate that Coeur D’Alene Art Auction in July 2007 outsold its prior 2006 auction, with estimates of three-quarters of Western Art dealers in attendance. Another sign is seen in art collectors’ response to western artist Bev Doolittle’s return to Greenwich in July 2007: they quickly sold out the 350-unit MuseumEdition of Bev’s new Beyond Negotiations canvas in its original 72″ x 26″ size and received substantial orders for the 3,750-unit MasterworkEdition, sized at 44″ x 16.
Greenwich workshop artists portray varying styles and techniques. Yet consistently, they attract attention from serious art collectors across numerous art genres. Their artwork captures a vast array of moods and sensory perceptions. Steve Hanks, for example, is quoted as often painting from “moments of introspective solitude” centering on individuals lost in reflections of personal challenge, pain, or joy. His paintings effectively play with light and shadow juxtaposed upon solitary figures, illuminating their feelings. Simon Comes, aptly referred to as an Indiana Jones, part adventurer-explorer yet an environmentalist artist, conveyed his experiences and attitudes in stunning images of Africa’s vast landscapes and awe-inspiring wildlife. William S. Phillips, known for his aviation and nostalgia art, is also distinguished as being the US Park Service’s first Artist in Residence at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, painting landscapes from unusual vantages cloaked in changing seasons that mirror the majestic vastness and variety of its vistas. Proficiency in their craft and dedication to detail unites these artists and their peers with others responsible for the fine production quality of Greenwich Workshop limited edition artworks.
The Greenwich Workshop’s Spring 2008 SmallWorks Fine Art Limited Edition Catalogue should provide additional art investment opportunities. It has already inspired interest online and in the art world. In a strategic move, using an innovative contest, they took a regional art exhibition (the only juried original miniature show on the east coast) to a potentially wider market via the internet. Art collectors were asked to provide their top five selections of the 230 originals from the First Annual SmallWorks North America Exhibition and Competition. Artists chosen through this online voting and selection process were invited to participate in the spring catalogue.
Greenwich states “we are committed to the goal of creating market options for talented young artists, both for their original work and for their limited edition prints.” A company rightfully recognized as a 20th Century pioneer in the field of fine art reproductions, Greenwich also appears headed towards strategic leadership in 21st Century art investment marketing. Potential offshoots from this may well prove worth considering in more detail in the near future. Savvy investors and art lovers may find mutual interests coalesce in further developments, considering potentials for investment-marketing strategy and for upcoming art investments.