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.
