The Beau Geste (Part 4 of 12)

Kidnapped

There was a couple living in North Carolina who began to earnestly collect my work. They were such a delight to be around. Having been the C.E.O. of a fortune 500 company and having traveled the world, hadn’t diminish the husbands joy in simple things, nor his penchant for easy laughter. His wife was the real rascal! She could so easily loose herself in laughter that tears would flow, and she found boundless joy in the absurdity of the human condition. No subject was out of bounds. This, coupled with their appreciation of my work, made it endlessly enjoyable for me to spend time with them.

I wanted to do something very special for them. I had a new car being delivered soon, and waited until it was delivered before driving to their home to take them out for dinner. During the weeks that I was awaiting the delivery, I called his office and spoke with his secretary. I told her what I was up to. I asked her if she had ever been a Girl Scout, and when she said that she had, I asked her to hold up her three fingers and swear the Girl Scout pledge to secrecy. I asked her to find out her boss’s favorite restaurant…without tipping her hand. It took her a few weeks to get back to me, but she finally delivered. It was a French restaurant nestled in the countryside, off the beaten path. I called the restaurant, which was in another town, about thirty minutes from their home, and engaged the manager in my devious plot.

I explained what I wanted to do and appealed to him to use his skill and experience to help me impress my very important clients. He got on board. It probably didn’t hurt that I mentioned that I was affiliated with The Greenbrier…which was world famous for its cuisine and chef school. I wanted him to select the table for us; away from traffic patterns and swinging doors. A table suitable for intimate conversations. I asked him to arrange his best wait-staff; he knows who they are. I asked him what an appropriate tip would be, and when he answered 18 -20%, I instructed him to add 25% to the bill, and to have his staff earn it. Finally, I didn’t want a bill to come to the table. I gave him my credit card number and told him to simply run the charge through when we were finished so that we could simply get up and walk out when we chose.

With all of this arranged, I picked up my clients and headed to the expressway without telling them where we were going. All they knew was that we were off to dinner somewhere. As I drove them out of town, barreling down an interstate highway, a weird thought came to mind: I could literally be kidnapping this wealthy couple for all they knew! I had them in my clutches and no one knew the itinerary but me. I asked, “How do you know I’m not kidnapping you?” They said, “We don’t!”

Tempting as it was, I didn’t hold them for ransom. The evening played out flawlessly. Over dinner we had an interesting conversation; they told me that they would love to own an original Andrew Wyeth. Wow!! They asked me if I had any idea where to begin, and I told them about a gallery on New York’s upper east side that carried a good selection. I also told them that if I, as a participating art gallery, could intercede on their behalf as a brokering agent, that I would pass that commission along to them as a favor to a friend. In the price range that Wyeth’s were traded, that could be significant.

One evening, after hours, they visited the gallery that I had recommended and fell madly in love with an Andrew Wyeth painting showcased in the window. They came back the next day to inquire about it and found that it fit comfortably in their budget at $1,200,000. If I were able to co-broker the sale at, say, 20%, that would save my clients a cool $240,000. Why not just keep the commission for myself? Because it’s not always just about the money. For me it would be what I do to cultivate my clients over time and to show them that there are clear advantages in being my patrons. Truth be told, I get a bigger kick out of selling my own work. It is personally rewarding, and it builds on the inertia of a life-long goal.

They told me they were going to seriously consider this purchase but wanted to see other available Wyeth’s before making a final decision. Then, perhaps a year later I visited their home and the Mrs. greeted me with great excitement. “Come see our Andrew Wyeth!” She took me by the hand and escorted me upstairs to a balcony. I was even more excited than she was. Still keeping hold of my hand, she stopped in front of a framed photograph and exclaimed, “Here it is! What do you think?”

It was a photograph of a newly constructed communications building that they had erected on the campus of a local college. Rather than spending a cool million plus on feathering their own nest, they elected to contribute the funds…and then some…to supporting a local college. Perhaps you can see why I fell so head over heels for this couple.

She told me that they loved Andrew Wyeth’s work, but they loved mine just as much (on this point I question their sanity) and they could buy a lot more of my paintings for a million dollars than his…allowing them to erect buildings on campuses. Maybe, had I realized the extent of their wealth; I should have considered the kidnapping idea in greater depth.

Emergency Surgery

Clients of mine were friends with another couple who were guests at The Greenbrier and had been told to visit my gallery. Before they had the opportunity to do so, the husband suffered a hernia surgery failure and had to undergo emergency surgery at our local hospital. My clients called to inform me of the events that had unfolded, and told me that their friends had checked out of the hotel and the wife had been, for the past few days, sleeping in a chair in her husband’s hospital room while he recovered.

I went to the hospital, found them in his recovery room and introduced myself. The connection we shared were their friends back in Ohio, but I was a total stranger to them.  They were both understandably un-nerved by the unexpected events, and by being in a town where they didn’t have a friend or know their way around. The wife looked haggard after days of no sleep, terrible food and worry.  I offered to be the surrogate friend they needed and asked them to trust in the judgement of our mutual friends back in Ohio. With that I brought the wife back to my mountain top home. I was a bachelor at this time and could well imagine how this may have caused some hesitation, especially when I handed her fresh towels, shampoo, hair dryer and a robe, and sent her to the guest room while I washed the clothes she’d been sleeping in for the past few days. An hour earlier she was wearing those clothes, and now they were in a strange man’s washing machine; in a home whose closest neighbor was half a mile away! The plot thickens.

Can you imagine how good a long hot shower felt after three days of high anxiety in a hospital room? Next, I had to feed her for the transformation to be complete.  I made a healthy salad while I grilled some fresh Norwegian salmon. One of the benefits I enjoyed being the Artist-in-Residence at The Greenbrier was that I had full access to their food storeroom which had the most exquisitely delicious Norwegian salmon flown in fresh daily. We sat outside on the deck, overlooking the forested mountain tops, and had a sip of white wine with lunch while I watched as all the muscles in her face began to relax. That night she slept in a real bed and the next morning over coffee, I hardly recognized the woman across the table. The transformation was astonishing.

Reinvigorated, she asked to see the gallery, so we took the drive through the beautiful West Virginia countryside to The Greenbrier.  Strolling through the gallery, she came upon on a painting she loved, but this presented a problem; her husband would have to be in on the decision, and how would we be able to get him, stitches and all, up to the gallery?  When I say, “up to the gallery,” I mean just that; there were a series of steps to navigate to attain the lofty overlook upon which my gallery was perched. We couldn’t get Mohammed to the mountain, so we decided to pack up the painting and an easel and bring the mountain to Mohammed.

We placed the painting on the easel at the foot of his hospital bed. A big smile broke out on his face as he agreed with his wife that it was a welcome addition to their collection. This was a first; exhibiting my work in a hospital room for a recovering surgical patient. The “twists and turns of outrageous fortune” had me just shaking my head. My only intent was to offer some comfort to a couple who were friends of my clients, and who found themselves in frightening and unfamiliar circumstances. All of this, of course, was also a courtesy to my collectors back in Ohio. It illustrated to their friends how far their sphere of influence extended. For my part, I was happy to help.

When the husband was finally released from the hospital, they drove their van out to my house so that the wife could show him the beautiful setting where she had spent her rejuvenating overnight.

The Beau Geste (Part 3 of 12)

The Art World

I think of the phrase “The Art World” as I do worlds in distant galaxies. If I’m related to them at all, it’s only in some existential way. Generally, that term relates to the million and multi-million-dollar work sold at Christies or Sotheby’s, or some of the big art fairs like Art Basel in Switzerland, Miami and Hong Kong. It’s exciting to read about celebrities flying into these events and setting new purchase records for an artist’s work, but that happens in the world of the 1% or the ½%. Diemen Hirst bisected a mother cow and her calf, encased them in a giant aquarium filled with formaldehyde, and sold that work of art for twenty million dollars. Nice work if you can get it.  Now he’s painting polka dots. Genius! My mother may have been right when she said, “Money doesn’t care who has it.” People of extensive means must have their own reasons for lining up to buy his work. Most of us, however, live in a world of somewhat more modest means and within that world there are galleries that are local Mom and Pop shops all the way up to the gallery on 57^th street in New York who look you up and down before allowing you the privilege to come in and purchase. Somewhere within those extremes are the clear majority of artists and art galleries. That’s the world I live in and from which these experiences I’m sharing with you are drawn. So, let us deal with that reality.

Christie’s Auction House in New York just broke all records for the sale of a painting: $450.3 million dollars for a Da Vinci depiction of Christ. It is all relative. Diemen Hirst’s twenty million for his bisected cows looks meager by comparison. When I had to borrow fifty dollars for gas money to hang my show at Heinz Hall, the ten thousand dollars I made seemed like all of the money in the world.

Hurricane Survival

Even within my range of collectors, there are extremes. I have had a librarian make a small purchase on time payments spread out for a full year.  I have another collector with a 200 plus-foot yacht, a private trans-Atlantic jet and, as you might imagine, several magnificent homes. One of their homes was in Palm Beach, Florida. Built in the 1920’s, they had recently purchased it and had just finished the landscaping when, in 2004, Hurricane Francis hit and turned their lights off and rather rudely removed their new landscaping. We watched the devastation of this storm on the news channels from the safety of our home high atop a mountain ridge in West Virginia.

The Mrs. had a personal assistant, and no one got to the Mrs. except through her. Fortunately, we liked her, and she liked us. Hearing about the devastation, we went to work assembling two Hurricane Survival Kits; one for the Mr. and Mrs., and one for the personal assistant. In each “kit” we included two flashlights, one large and one small with batteries sized for both, candles and matches, a wine opener, two bottles of wine, one white, one red and our signature monogramed wine glasses. We included crackers and an imported cheese to enjoy with the wine. We also included gourmet jellybeans, chocolates, and other assorted treats from The Greenbrier’s gourmet shop. Everything necessary to weather a storm. I thought of including a Trojan condom just for laughs, but then thought better of it. Not everyone shares my sense of humor. We sent the packages off in beautiful shrink-wrapped baskets. The next hurricane would not catch them unprepared.

My wife is the middle child of nine siblings. When there is severe weather that affects our area of Florida, and it makes the evening news, our phone begins to ring. One by one, her family checks in to see that we weathered the storm alright and that we are okay. That’s what family does. When it is appropriate, we like to treat our clients like family and let them know that they are in our thoughts, because they always are.

A few months later, after all returned to normal, and the landscaping had been replaced, they asked us to come down with a trailer of artwork. Would they have called us anyway? Maybe. I’d certainly like to think so. Still, I maintain that everyone likes to know that they are held in high regard and it behooves us to find ways to tip our hats to them. This visit to their home ended in just one of many six figure sales to these clients.

This same couple owned several paintings by Russian artists and the paintings coming out of Russia were often compromised in the materials available to the artist.  Some were on unprimed canvas because primer was unavailable to them. Some lacked a final varnish, leaving the finish dull, uneven and unprotected. I looked up to notice one such canvas badly buckled. After deciding on their selections and making their purchases, the clients had run off to keep an appointment and we were left with their assistant to pack up. I mentioned to her that, if she approved, I could re-stretch that badly buckled canvas while I was there.  When I traveled to client’s homes, I brought with me an array of tools to address any possible eventuality. The hard part was getting it off the wall.  It hung in place high above a glass china cabinet containing expensive collector crystal pieces, in a room with fourteen-foot ceilings. I positioned my eight-foot ladder off to the side and reached over to my full extent to maneuver the painting from its hook, as my wife looked on and prayed. I was on tip toe – really reaching. It had me on edge because if I fell or if I dropped the painting on that cabinet, well, all the oxygen on earth would dissolve and all life would end right there and then…and I would have caused it.

Since we are all still alive and breathing, we know that that didn’t come to pass, and the difference in the appearance of the painting was like night and day. The secretary said, “Of course you will present us with a bill.” I responded with, “Of course I wouldn’t dream of it.” I did this same thing for them again at another of their residences.  This time I took the painting with me and, owing to its size, re-stretched it onto heavy duty stretcher bars, put a conservator’s varnish on it and re-hung it.  They never realized how beautiful their Russian painting was until they saw it the way the artist had intended it. I even mounted a picture light on the frame for them. Oh, what a difference. I did this because I was capable and because it showed that my concern for their wellbeing didn’t stop when the check was signed. People tend to remember these things.

I realize that many, if not most galleries, don’t extend themselves this far. If, however, we’re not cultivating our client relationships, we are most likely limiting our income in ways in which we are not aware.

The Beau Geste is so much more than a simple tip of the hat, although a tip of the hat can be enough sometimes and is certainly better than not tipping your hat at all. It shows that we listened to the other; sometimes hearing their words and sometimes hearing the meaning between the lines. It incorporates timing, sensitivity and knowledge of the one to whom we are extending the gesture.

A $245 bottle of Dom Perignon, beautifully boxed and accompanied by a set of Baccarat crystal champagne flutes can be a beautiful gift, except when given to someone who, the night before at dinner, spent fifteen minutes describing his decision to enter Alcoholics Anonymous two weeks earlier. Ya gotta pay attention!

It was great fun calling the personal assistant of our Palm Beach clients and subverting her in my plan to send flowers to her boss. I had another occasion in which I wanted to pay my compliments in a way that would get her attention and be meaningful to her. The personal assistant embraced the spirit of the game and told me her boss’s favorite flowers; a combination of white lilies and Oceana roses.  She even referred me to the florist she liked to use. It was a very excited Mrs. who called me wanting to know how I knew this was her favorite floral arrangement. I had simply taken the time to find out because she was obviously important enough to warrant the effort. Obviously.

The Beau Geste (Part 2 of 12)

This gentleman wasn’t kind to strangers because he wanted something from them. The Beaux Geste attitude simply flowed out of him from his kindly nature. Remember that my Guru, Harvey, told me that, “It’s not what you do, it’s where your head is at when you do it.” If we connive to extend kindnesses and favors only to influence a gain for ourselves, we will likely fool no one and will be disappointed with the outcomes. However, if we feel a genuine sense of gratitude and express it in a way that takes into consideration the interests of the other, then our work is done, and we have no further expectations. No expectations – no disappointments.

Consider the mass pre-printed Christmas cards we all receive every year from our insurance agents. It’s a gesture, but not a very significant one.  It’s not a real Beaux Geste because it’s by rote and lacks any genuine concern for us. Sometimes we receive a calendar with the insurance company’s name printed on every page; advertising we get to look at 365 days a year. My guess is that very few of us feel any genuine sense of endearment in response to these feeble and insincere attempts at a Beau Geste.

The Beau Geste is so much more than a simple “tip of the hat” or “Thank You.” It is an acknowledgement that truly reflects the esteem with which we hold someone. It says, “You are important,” so important, in fact, that you and your concerns, preferences and designs matter to me. The Italian restaurant owner wasn’t thanking us for anything we had done for him when he helped us locate the laundromat. We did nothing to earn his generosity. The Beau Geste is interwoven with kindheartedness, thoughtfulness, generosity…as well as gratitude.

Joseph Duveen, the greatest art dealer in history, was a genius at the art of the Beau Geste. His clients were tremendously wealthy men, literally the wealthiest in the world. But sometimes even they could not secure a ticket on the Queen Mary if it was sold out. If Duveen were to catch wind of their disappointment, somehow, magically, the tickets would appear. When you are selling tens of millions of dollars of art to a collector during the Great Depression, which by today’s standards is almost incalculable, do you care if you spend $100,000 to secure a $636.00 ticket…or half a million for five tickets for the family?  It may seem obscene, but to Duveen it was mere chump change in the larger scheme of his business empire. His aim was to always keep his collectors coming only to him for art… or anything else.  Need to up level your silver service?  See Duveen.  Need an architect to design your new home?  Duveen will bring one over from England and will design a home with plenty of wall space for more paintings…and a place for the silver.

One shouldn’t be intimidated by the scale of these massive gestures.  The principles are as sound for a simple tipping of the hat…or the making of change for a laundromat. If we pay attention to our clients and treat them like Duveen treated his clients, we’ll know that we are playing the hand we were dealt to its maximum advantage. It was Duveen’s world view, and his belief of his place in it, that made him a force of nature. He would have been the best in the world at selling boats, or diamonds or used hammers.

Bounty

A couple vacationing at The Greenbrier bought one of my paintings, and they invited me to join them for dinner in The Tavern Room, the hotel’s most stellar and most expensive five-star restaurant. The wife introduced me that evening to her favorite wine – Puligny-Montrachet. Over the course of dinner, I noticed an unusual characteristic about my host: he would frequently finish my sentences a millisecond before I did, and in very specific ways.  For example, if I were telling a story in which I came to a T in the road and turned left, he would say “…and turned left,” just a split second before I did. I might have said, “And came to a complete stop.” Or, “Backed up,” or “turned right,” or “My car died. “It was that kind of thing going on all night.  Or I might be talking about my mother, and “Edith,” came out of his mouth before it came out of mine. When I asked him how long he’d been aware that he was psychic, he just threw his head back and laughed a hardy belly laugh at the suggestion…not answering my question.

This odd little quirk isn’t directly relevant to this story except that it got me to zero in on him with increased interest as he spoke.  He voiced a small complaint; he wished that The Greenbrier provided Bounty paper towels in the bathrooms. He also wished they provided Irish Spring bath soap. I understood his preference for Bounty because that’s the brand I use in my studio, but I had no idea why he wanted any brand of paper towel in his bathroom.  I would later find out, but for just now it didn’t matter.  What mattered…the only thing that mattered… was that he desired these items. And just like the wealthy clients of Joseph Duveen, he certainly could have easily afforded them. Just a call to the concierge would have produced these items, but for now, over dinner, he’d rather just mention it and wish it were different. It was, after all, a small unrequited preference.

To me, no concern of my clients is small. First thing the next morning, I waited for the local grocery store to open and bought a twin pack of Bounty paper towels and a three pack of Irish Spring. I added some items from The Greenbrier’s gourmet shop to the mix along with a box of note cards with my paintings featured on them. I wrapped everything in fancy tissue paper and added a personal note of thanks for dinner and had the bellman deliver it to their room. I wanted these items to arrive as early as possible so that he’d have the use of them throughout the whole day. Okay, it wasn’t trans-Atlantic tickets on the Queen Mary, but it didn’t have to be because that’s not what he wanted. He wanted Bounty and Irish Spring, and being local, I was in a position to accommodate.

This small gesture brought them back into my gallery the following day where they made an additional purchase; a double paneled, six-and-a-half-foot screen that I had painted of The Greenbrier swans. The canvases had been set in a custom carved black walnut floor stand, and it was altogether large, heavy and expensive. I delivered it, along with the other painting they had purchased, to their home in Virginia. The gentleman psychic brought me into his office to write the check.  His home office was massive, befitting his country estate.  He sat behind an immense, beautifully carved desk with a hand-tooled leather top. On a wall, nearby was a framed photograph of his father; a U.S. Marine General. Six pencils lay out, all perfectly sharpened to fine points and all lined up with the erasers in a perfectly even line. Nothing out of place or askew. Everything set at right angles. Neat as a pin. Military precision. I stood next to him and watched as he wrote out the check. When he had written in the amount, and was just about to draw a line over to the /00 on the right-hand side of the check, he hesitated, considered for a moment and then opened his desk drawer, removed a ruler, spent a few seconds aligning it to be perfectly parallel to the printed line on the check, and then carefully drew the line…evidence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Complex. Now the Bounty paper towels made sense. Everything had to remain just as it appeared when he entered the room for the first time. No water drops. Everything sparkling. The Irish Spring?  Well, I guess he just favored it.

When I arrived at their house to make the delivery, I brought one of my legendary gift baskets. Among other goodies, it contained a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet. I know I’m not the only guy to do these types of things. I certainly didn’t invent the Beau Geste, but I must wonder, for all the other art this couple have purchased over their lifetime, how many other artists…or galleries thanked them in so personal a way? My guess is not too many. My wife was the director of a gallery in Aspen, Colorado that carried sixty-five artists. In telling the story of how we met, she often mentions that I was the only one that ever sent a physical “thank you” acknowledgement for her efforts.  She adds that there was one artist that said he was going to send her a bottle of wine in appreciation for her services, but never did. At least the other sixty-three artists didn’t raise her expectations and then disappoint. In writing this, it just now occurred to me that my propensity for acknowledging appreciation for what others do for me has led to my marriage. I guess those other sixty-four artists never knew the potentialities of what might have been. Lucky for me.

As I up-leveled my game, I bought a shrink wrap device, a box of straw fill and some beautiful hand-woven baskets to make ever more outstanding and attention getting “thank-you’ s.”  I ordered several sizes of plain cardboard boxes and wine mailers.  I also ordered large wine glasses on which I had my signature etched and when I sent wine, I included the glasses…and a monogramed corkscrew in a velvet draw string pouch.  Once shrunk-wrapped, I would box the basket and then pack and double box it to assure that the glasses would arrive intact.

My collectors were thrilled when they unboxed a fine wine to find that I had removed the label and replaced it with a custom one which featured the painting they had just purchased, and their name on the label. Sometimes we would visit their homes, even years later, to find the bottles prominently displayed. And just because I’m asked this question so frequently…about half of the bottles were left untouched and half were empty… still on display. Just knowing how surprised they’d be when they opened their gift made it a pleasure for us to go through the various steps in producing it for them.

You will recall from the story told in the Preface that this gesture led our Birmingham collector to invite us to his home where he purchased an additional six paintings. My friend Harvey, who consistently placed in the top ten of ten-thousand agents for State Farm, offered this explanation of the difference between successful people and ordinary people. It is this:

Successful people do the things that ordinary people aren’t willing to do.

The Beau Geste (Part 1 of 12) Excerpted from an original manuscript by William Wolk

The term “entitlement” gets bandied about a lot these days in reference to the Millennials and the Gen Xers. It has become so much a part of the mindset of these generations that businesses have had to alter their hiring protocols. There are training courses offered to industries in how to talk to prospective hires because the mindset of these generations differs so much from the previous generation. They teach a “kid glove” approach to communicating with the younger job applicants. Once hired, keeping them is a whole other challenge.

The very humble early environment from which I emerged, made me truly grateful for any favors and kindnesses that came my way, and it was impossible for me to take any of them for granted. I had no expectation that I was due anything, so when a bit of good fortune came my way, I felt a genuine gratitude. Finding creative ways to express my gratitude became a fun activity for me. Beyond that, I began to notice that people were genuinely touched by these gestures, and, in many cases, these practices have led to lifelong personal and professional relationships.

The thoughtful gesture, the creative acknowledgement and the sincere “Thank You” have played an important role in my life and career.  If this approach is not part of your D.N.A., I hope this book will provide some gene therapy. If you are not predisposed to this way of looking at conducting business, think about transcending, or at least suspending, your current beliefs which may be limiting you.

Regarding the views that I’ll be sharing with you, if you discover a benefit for yourself, I’ll be pleased. As far as merging with the cosmos, I promise that just as soon as I achieve it, I will write another book. Just remember, there is no how. Maybe that is why J. Krishnamurti, the great eastern philosophical and spiritual teacher said, as he relinquished his position as head of the Theosophical Society, to the chagrin of the religionists, that “Truth is a pathless land.” Discouraging news for those of us wanting a well-lit route.

As mentioned earlier, my wife and I recently enjoyed a trip to Italy. Toward the end of our visit, we found ourselves in the ancient city of Siena. We managed our entire transatlantic trip with only carry-on luggage. Our friends find this disclosure inconceivable, however Marie and I both discovered that we had brought along items we never needed and next time we will lighten our load even more. We liked the mobility this mode of travel offered. Nevertheless, after two weeks, the time had come to find a laundromat. I hoisted a pillowcase, filled with clothes that needed washing, over my shoulder and we headed off in search of a laundry.

We followed the directions given us by our hotel, but as we neared the location, we didn’t see the sign we were looking for. Nearby, the owner of a restaurant was attending to tables on the cobble stone street as he prepared for the dinner crowd. He didn’t speak a single word of English. I asked him, in rudimentary Italian, if he knew where the laundry was. In a friendly and happy manner, with all of the warmth that the Italians are known for, and eager to help us, he fired off his response in his native tongue while pointing down the block. Just another “cinquanta metri” (fifty meters.) “Grazie.”

The change machine on the premises only accepted smaller bills and we needed to break a large bill, so I headed down the hill to a Tabacchi shop for change. When the proprietor handed me the smaller bills, I asked him for some coins also. He said that the laundromat had a change machine for that, and so I returned to the laundromat. It turns out that the change machine was out of order. I was reluctant to return to the Tabacchi shop, so I returned to the restaurant that had provided us with directions. Once again, the owner, exhibiting endless patience with me, cheerfully provided the change. Good will emanated from him like light from a full moon on a crystal clear night.

Can you guess where we had our next two dinners? Though it wasn’t mentioned on the menu, they even prepared gluten free pasta for me. We felt compelled to return his friendship. He had endeared us to him. Our waiter served as translator between us and the restaurant’s owner. Our ensuing “conversation” was punctuated with no lack of belly laughs and mirth. Such a rich and enjoyable camaraderie. This illustrates the mechanics of the Beaux Geste. It knows no bounds. It is not restricted by either language, culture, place or time. It constitutes the high road in human relationships. As it turns out, we will be heading there again this summer and joining some family members who we will take to this restaurant. The owner may never know that this increase to his business links back to the cheerful kindness he extended to strangers who were looking for a laundromat.

School and the lack of it. (Part 4 of 4)

After I had established myself at The Greenbrier, where I operated my namesake gallery for twenty-five years, it was common for parents of budding artists to ask for my advice as to which college to send their kids. It was important to them because they wanted the best education for their kids, and all the advantages that that would bring. Ringling was among the very best, but what if their kid got the first color & design teacher that I did, and what if they were that years pick for his menacing psychodrama? Then, my recommendation would have led to disaster for that unfortunate student. My response to these parents was that it made no difference at all. They could send their kid to Fred’s college…and if their kid connected with Fred in a meaningful way, that might be the best education in the world. This was not what they wanted to hear.

What they were really asking was which college carried the best pedigree. What their kid learned was not as important as the degree they would attain. It’s understandable. We all want to stack the deck in our favor. No one really wants to attend the School of Hard Knocks. However, for me, The School of Hard Knocks was the university in which I learned my craft and attained my PhD.

Years later, I made a pilgrimage back to Sarasota and paid a visit to my old Color & Design instructor, Fiore Custode, and showed him some of my paintings. After all, he was the one to suggest to my parents that I leave The Ringling School of Art to look for a more elevated painting program. I was a little nervous because here was a man who taught advanced painting technique to third- and fourth-year Ringling students. The longer he peered at my work, the more unnerved I became. Finally, after what seemed to me to be an eternity, Mr. Custode looked up and said that the best thing to happen to me was that I hadn’t take any painting classes because, if I had, I’d most likely be painting like someone else. Here he saw an original style in its early stages of development. He encouraged me to keep on, in my own fashion, to develop my unique style. I shared with him how unbelievably frustrating it was having to learn everything through trial and error…and mostly error. He understood, but encouraged me to persist, insisting that the rewards in the end would be well worth it.

After learning of my experience in Florence… a result of following his advice, he had retold this story to every class he taught for the remainder of his many years as a Ringling instructor.

Fiore Custode went on to become the longest serving art instructor and senior faculty member in the history of the Ringling School of Art; later to become The Ringling College of Art and Design. He taught there for Fifty years.

School and the lack of it. (Part 3 of 4)

We all sat down together in an empty classroom and he explained to them that he wholeheartedly believed I shouldn’t come back for the second-year painting classes. He thought it would be a waste of my time because I was already painting at a much higher level than first year painting students and he was concerned that the instructors who would be teaching painting the following year might not be able to help me as much as I had hoped. This instructor’s name was Fiore Custode. “Where should our Billy boy go?” they inquired. “Italy!” Well, Fiore Custode was Italian, so, no surprise there. And with that, I enrolled in the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, Italy.

I attended classes there every day for a full two weeks before ever catching a glimpse of the “professor.” For two weeks, we were left completely on our own. We were drawing from a live model and, because of the training I had received at Ringling the year before, I soon attracted a crowd around my easel. Then, suddenly, and with a flourish, Professor Conte′ entered the room. He wore a cape. A velvet cape!!! It flowed behind him as he twirled his way through the classroom. He carried a heavy book under his arm with the front cover facing out. It read: CONTE′. He chatted with the Italian students in a corner of the room, while clinging to his book, as though for dear life, while ignoring the English-speaking students entirely. He looked at no one’s work. He seemed completely uninterested in anything other than himself, and after a few minutes, and with a final twirl of his cape, he left us to our own devices once again.

I located a bookstore later that afternoon and found a copy of the book he was so unabashedly displaying in class. I was filled with anticipation because, here in this historic city that gave us Michelangelo, here in the city of the most exquisite realist painters of the High Renaissance, such as da Vinci and Raphael, I was going to study with this modern-day Italian master. I opened the book. My heart sank as I beheld the flat Picasso-like cubist paintings on its pages. Judging by his work, I seriously doubted that he had much to teach me. Nevertheless, being a good boy, raised right, I kept attending the class every day. By the third week, the Italian students were bringing their drawings to me for pointers.

After the fourth week, Professor Conte′ graced us with his second appearance. It was a repeat performance. It lasted less than five minutes. As he left, I packed up my art supplies and left by the same door that he did, never to return until forty-seven years later when, as a tourist, I took my wife to see the crime scene.

Thirty years after my experience with the Academy in Florence, a woman who visited my gallery told me that she attended the Academy twenty years after I did and had the exact same experience. We marveled together at how it was possible that this travesty was somehow kept secret. Unsuspecting students from all over the world flock to Florence to attend this school, never thinking for a moment that it was an Academy in name only. There were students that toughed it out for the entire length of the program. Why? Perhaps because they simply accepted that this must be the way it’s supposed to work. Wasn’t this the Academy?  Wasn’t this Italy? No instruction? Well, gee, I don’t know…

Fortunately, I have since heard that this abomination has changed and that the Academy of Fine Art in Florence has finally become a serious Atelier. Let’s hope so.

I went to the best art school in America and was told not to come back. I enrolled in the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, only to be disillusioned and left to my own devices. Oh, I studied like crazy for the year that I remained living there. I haunted the galleries in the Uffizi Museum. I drew statues in the beautiful churches, I got together with other artists, but for all of it I never received the painting instruction I had so craved. Despite my best efforts, I am a self-taught oil painter.

Upon my return to the states, I had my first one-man show at age nineteen at the Vasili Gallery in Coral Gables…ten years after picking up my first paint brush. The show featured the work I had brought back from Florence, plus a few drawings I had done in West Africa, where I spent a month before returning to the states. The art critic for the Miami News, Nellie Bower, asked me for one of my African drawings to reproduce in the review she was doing for my show. The headline of her article read, “Shades of Wyeth in young Miamian’s work.” She never returned the drawing, and because I was too intimidated to ask for it, I never saw it again.

School and the lack of it. (Part 2 of 4)

I should clear up a common misconception: the Ringling School of Art is not in any way associated with the Ringling Brothers Circus. Seems like everything in Sarasota is named after John Ringling, the multi-millionaire founding father of Sarasota. He kept his famous circus here because the elephants could enjoy the warm weather year-round. He founded the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art which hosts some of the most remarkable Peter Paul Rubens paintings in the world. In this town there are bridges, roads and dry cleaners named after him. The old black and white Tarzan movies, starring Johnny Weissmuller, were filmed in nearby Silver Springs precisely because they had access to Ringling’s elephants. And for many years there was, and still is a circus school here in Sarasota, but the Ringling School of Art has always been an independent institution. It was originally founded in 1931 as a branch of Florida Southern collage before becoming autonomous. John Ringling allowed the use of his name to add greater recognition to the school.

On my first day at Ringling, I was blindsided by my color and design teacher, who every year unmercifully picked on an unsuspecting new student. Thirty years later, through a random conversation with a Ringling alum, I learned that this was the modus operandi for this instructor. Today, he’d be fired and brought up on discrimination charges, but back then we kept our mouths shut out of respect for our elders and the institution. I guess that he understood the principles of Winning Through Intimidation, because I was too intimidated to protest. On the very first day of my color & design class this teacher read our names out and we were to raise our hands and say “here.” When my turn came, the teacher looked up at me sardonically and accusingly barked, “You, you’re a smart ass!” That was that, and he held that point of view toward me for the entirety of the course. That was my first day at the world-famous Ringling School of Art. Accused, judged and convicted all within one minute on the first day.

After class, I walked up to the teacher and I said, “It’s obvious that you have pegged me, but you have pegged me wrong.” He said, “We’ll see about that!” There was never a more sincere student to attend that school than yours truly, but the highest grade I earned in that class was a “D.” Most of my submissions earned me an “F.” I suffered his brutal sarcasm, belligerence and disdain for the remainder of the course.

Fortunately for me, the administration of the school decided, for some reason that will remain a perpetual mystery, that all of the students whose surname fell in the last half of the alphabet, would have all of their classes switched over to different teachers at the mid-term. For the last half of my first (and only) year at Ringling, I earned nothing but “A’s” in color and design. Was I an “F” student or an “A” student in color & design? Depends on the teacher. The grades meant nothing to me. Couldn’t care less about them. I wasn’t after a degree; I was after knowledge. Also, because my teachers were all replaced in the last half of the year, I discovered that the very same class could be approached differently. There was no one way to accomplish the goal. My first figure drawing teacher insisted that we begin every drawing with a quick gesture sketch. My second teacher insisted that we always begin our figure drawings at the pelvis and work out from there. Whose technique was right? Did these differing teachers have teachers of their own who taught them in the manner they were passing down to us? I suspect so.

Whether in scholastics, tribal protocol, religion or most anything else, we are expected to conform. Conform or be shunned. The fine arts department at UCLA doesn’t teach traditional painting technique. They are all about abstract art…as though that can be taught. I wouldn’t be allowed into their program. Nevertheless, if one graduates and earns a master’s degree, one will be able to teach in an accredited school. That’s fine if one’s ambition is to be a teacher, but if one wants to make a living producing art, I question the value of an M.A. after one’s name. At least I never saw any value in it for myself, and apparently, neither did my patrons.

One day, I stayed late at school talking to my figure drawing teacher. He offered me a ride home to my bungalow. Curiosity got the better of him and he peeked into my flat. He asked who did all of the paintings that were on display. When I told him that I had done them, he was shocked. Word spread amongst the teachers that a budding oil painter was in their midst. Hearing about this, my color & design teacher…the one in whose class I always earned “A’s,” came by for a look. This visit resulted in him calling my parents (my mother and stepfather) and requesting that they come to the school to discuss the “situation with their son.” They thought that I was in some kind of serious trouble, so, with great apprehension, they drove across the state.

School and the lack of it. (Part 1 of 4)

Having skipped the first grade, my unspectacular scholastic career began in the second grade. Because of this, I was always the youngest of my contemporaries and I graduated high school at age seventeen in 1968. During my senior year in high school I maintained my first independently functioning painting studio in a building in Coral Gables, Florida, about a twenty-five-minute drive from my home. I had a part-time job after school, working for Grand Union Department Store that paid $1.25 per hour. The rent on my studio was $25.00 per month, and the electric bill rarely exceeded $2.00.

I realize this wasn’t an ordinary circumstance, given my age at the time, but I had been standing at an easel, trying to figure out how to paint, since I was nine years old. So, when the spare bedroom in my parent’s home, which I had been using as my studio, became too restrictive, I went looking for a space to rent. It just seemed like a natural progression to my parents and myself. My mother remarried when I was twelve. Until then I was raised by my single mother and had, either by necessity or natural selection, become very independent and mature for my years.

The great frustration of my burgeoning artistic life was having to reinvent the wheel where painting was concerned. I always wanted someone to show me how to paint; how to achieve the effects I wanted put on canvas. These skills were known, of course, so it became increasingly unbearable for me to have to figure it out for myself through the laborious route of trial and error. If someone would just demonstrate these techniques for me, just once, it would save all the time and materials I was wasting through the hit or miss approach I was using.

I had a brief episode with a painting class one summer during high school. It was a college level class offered through Miami Dade Junior College. Prior to this class, I had finished a painting of Bob Dylan and entered it in a high school competition. It kept winning awards and, lo, it won some award or other whereby the Governor of Florida, Claude Kirk, called me up on a stage and presented me with an award certificate, or a blue ribbon, or something like that.

I brought that award-winning painting to my painting class to have the instructor critique it and tell me how to improve upon it. The teacher took up a brush, dabbed it into some paint and began working on my award winner. By the time she was done with it, my painting was completely ruined. I tossed the former award winner into the nearest dumpster. My great error was in thinking that there was some quantifiable objective “right” way to paint. The instructor had her vision of what she thought a painting should look like, and I had mine, and, boy oh boy were they ever different.

Still, this experience taught me a significant lifetime lesson: Beware of experts! And, by “beware” I mean be very selective to whom you surrender yourself. To come out whole at the end of an education one must find the delicate balance between surrender and remaining true to oneself. It’s obvious. Look at all of the great artistic voices we admire in any of the arts; the ones who have found their own unique style are the ones we que up for. All the rest are busy copying the originators, and by copying, they lack the creative spark that the originators possess. That is what happens in art schools. There is a teacher, and there are 30-40 students all painting like their teacher.

In May of 1989, I was invited to participate in a group show in New York City at the prestigious Grand Central Galleries. The gallery director showed me three paintings hanging next to one another and asked me what I thought of this artist’s work. After I conveyed my thoughts, the director confessed that they were done by three different painters, all of whom studied with the same teacher at the Art Students League. I could not tell one apart from the other, and that was precisely the gallery director’s point.

After high school, I attended The Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida in 1968. This was the real deal. Considered to be one of the highest ranked art schools in the nation, it was, in those days, restricted to a maximum of only four hundred students and one had to submit examples of one’s artwork to be judged for entrance.  I was lucky beyond belief to be in with the crème dela crème. Forget that teacher at Miami Dade Junior College who ruined my Bob Dylan painting, these teachers were the gold standard in the nation. Here is where I would learn to paint… just not quite yet. Painting classes were taught in the second-year course. Our entire first year was spent exclusively in drawing. There was perspective to learn; figure drawing; portrait drawing; lettering and color & design. We would draw eight and a half hours every day under the expert gaze of our instructors. After school, I would return to my rented bungalow and stand at my easel and paint into the wee hours.

Part 2 of 2. The Danger Of Judging A Book By Its Cover

The street level appearance of the house concealed a secret. The back of the house cascaded down a hillside in many levels. If you have ever seen the movie From Dusk Till Dawn, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, staring George Clooney, where, at the end of the movie, it is revealed that a desert bar, run by vampires, is perched at the edge of acers and acres of a cascading ravine that reveals a collection of assorted vehicles; eighteen wheelers and the bones of years’ worth of unsuspecting victims; well, it was kind of like that. Deceptively sprawling.

There were well over one hundred fifty paintings on display, but it was his condo on the beach in northern Florida that housed the biggest part of his collection. Being a building contractor specializing in United States embassies, he had built the building and reserved the penthouse floor for himself…and his art collection.

His office in downtown Birmingham also housed many works of art. Because of his government security clearance, it was a highly secured office in a high security building. Just getting into his office was like a scene from a Mission Impossible movie. No simple lock and key here, but then, this was no simple office. It housed an art collection that contained master works of artists from Monet to Renoir to Dali to Picasso. There was a particularly stunning Japanese ink drawing that was housed in its own beautiful wooden cabinet. Unlock the double doors, slide out the drawer, and behind a sheet of glass one could gaze at the ancient drawing.

When he gave us the tour, we saw the first painting he had purchased from me. It was still sitting next to its shipping crate on the floor beside a small Monet that had just arrived from a Paris gallery earlier that day. Seems that I was in excellent company.

In short order, this vibrant elderly collector selected another four of my paintings to add to his already overwhelming collection. He gave no thought whatsoever to where they might hang. He just loved collecting art. Afterward, we all readied to go to dinner. While our host was in the shower, his daughter stopped by. She looked around at my paintings and, pointing, said, “Please tell my father that if he’d like to buy me a birthday present, I’d like that one!” We relayed the message to our host, and he bought that one too, making it five paintings that night…plus dinner at The Club. The success of this visit led our to designing a custom-built trailer to transport showings of my paintings to collectors. The U-Haul lacked a certain “je ne sais quoi.”

The dialogue which lead to the sale of six additional paintings was opened because I did two simple things. First, I mailed the brochure, which sparked his second purchase, and second, I sent a bottle of wine with a customized label featuring his newly acquired painting as a Beau Geste. Our “sales associate” who decided that the “old pervert” was just a one-off event because of his age, saw the world differently than I did. She wrote up an order for a customer; I cultivated a relationship through which I sold six additional paintings and I had the pleasure of enjoying the company and hospitality of one of my most interesting collectors.

When the gentleman passed away in 2010, I was contacted by his estate to clarify the titles of some of the work he had purchased. His collection contains over four hundred paintings, many of them by master artists, all being tended by a private curator. The collection is housed in a cloistered museum where they will be displayed in perpetuity. I was informed that my paintings are part of the permanent display while several other works from the collection are being warehoused in temperature and humidity-controlled storerooms.

Every profession has their Never Judge a Book by its Cover stories. I imagine that we are all guilty of this at times. My employee dismissed this dynamic gentleman because he was eighty years old when he purchased the first of my paintings, which happened to be a nude. She judged this “book” to be a pervert. When I see a well-worn book cover, I assume that it must be a great read.

Part 1 of 2. The Danger Of Judging A Book By Its Cover

The Rhododendron were in peak bloom on a July afternoon in 2000, when an elderly gentleman visited my one-man gallery at The Greenbrier, a 6,500 acre, five-star resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. He was accompanied by his adult children and his grandchildren. He and his family were flying home and only had a few minutes to spare, but the following morning he called back to purchase a painting he had seen. I received a call from the employee at my gallery who had interacted with him the day before, with the good news that she had made a sale. The painting the client purchased was entitled “Nude,” and, as the title implies, it was a nude of the beguiling 26-year-old model with whom I had recently begun working. “Who bought the painting,” I inquired.
“Some old guy. He was really old. I think he may have been a pervert.”
Well, naturally.
A few months later I produced a new brochure which featured, among other subjects, another painting of that same model wearing a black kimono that had Chinese styled cranes embroidered on it. It was entitled Draped Cranes.

PDD9

I mailed it off to my list of collectors. Two days later, quite early in the morning, because I forwarded the gallery calls to my home each evening, I received a call that woke me from a deep sleep. It was the old pervert. After I managed to croak out a groggy “Hello,” he asked:
“How much is “Draped Cranes”?”
It took me a few seconds to figure out to what he was referring. Finally, shaking the cobwebs from my head, still half asleep, and in a thick morning voice I answered, “Thirty Thousand dollars.”
“Do you take American Express?”
That was, word for word, my exchange with the old pervert. Short and to the point. That woke me up faster than a double expresso. We shipped the painting to his office address in Birmingham, Alabama. About this time, I had begun a practice of printing out beautiful, personalized, self-adhesive wine labels on which I reproduced a full color image of the painting the client had purchased. At the top of the label it read The (customer’s surname) Collection. William Wolk Fine Art was printed along the bottom. I always selected an excellent wine (in case they actually drank it), arduously scraped off the original label with a single edged razor blade, and then applied our vanity label. Altogether, it took about forty-five minutes to prepare. I shipped them out in secure custom wine mailers.
I sent a bottle of wine to our art collecting pervert in Birmingham as a little “Thank you.” It had pleased him so much that a couple of days later, he called me to ask if he could get another bottle. “Yup.” Then, just a few minutes’ later, he called back again to ask if he could get two full cases.
When the wine bottles were ready, I called the client and told him that I could either ship the order to him, which would be pricey and a bit risky, or I could deliver it personally and, if he’d like, I could also bring down some additional paintings for him to see.
“Bring down everything you have!” We were invited to spend the night at his home and join him for dinner at The Club. I had never pulled a trailer before and felt a little uneasy about it, so I rented the smallest U Haul trailer available and arrived at the client’s home with seventeen paintings and an easel in tow. That was all the trailer could accommodate.
From the street, the house appeared to be a simple single-story ranch, typical of the average neighborhood in which it resided. Because of its modest setting and proportions, it didn’t look like a home that I would normally associate with one of my collectors. We parked out on the curb and began bringing in paintings. His house contained the biggest collection of art I have ever seen. The display was so extensive that the frames were touching to the point where one could not see the wall color behind them. I actually shifted a frame just to peek behind it and discovered the wall color to be lime green! It didn’t matter; one couldn’t see it through the display of paintings anyway. Paintings everywhere; above door frames, on the backs of doors, up to the ceiling molding, down narrow hallways. Everywhere. I suspected that if I asked the old pervert what color his walls were, he wouldn’t even remember.
To be continued…