Sunday, November 16, 2008

Things to Come!

I am very excited to announce some exciting and fun changes in my life. I have longed to be in the art world in some way and to have the opportunity to merge my design experience and career with opportunities in the art world that have come my way. That time has finally come and I began as a freelance assistant gallery director at a contemporary art gallery (Grand Contemporary Gallery in Lafayette, LA) this past week (www.grandcontemporary.com). The arts world in Louisiana is thriving and has been for so long (oddly enough Louisiana is a state that really fosters its' artists and their endeavors). 

Of course I've always loved "pretty things" but my passion for original art began when I was exposed to so many wonderful pieces of art and experiences surrounded by art when I worked for Eric Cohler Design (www.ericcohler.com to see the incredible use of art in his projects). I started collecting art myself about 6 years ago with no real rhyme or reason but just purchasing pieces that I fell in love with. Many of these pieces were purchased at various charity art auctions such as the annual Bailey House auction (which I am on the committee for), the annual GLAAD art auction, and through Acria--check out www.baileyhouse.org, www.glaad.org, and www.acria.org for more info on these organizations. Some of the pieces were purchased from artist friends (i.e. photographer Foster Witt (www.fosterwitt.com) and photographer Trisha Cunningham) and some were gifts. I have loved living with every piece I have and have missed them tremendously when I have used them in show houses and they were gone from my apartment.

After living in New York full time for 8 years (and missing the South tremendously) and spending the last year or so primarily in Lafayette, LA, I decided to make Southern Artists the focus of my collection as it grows. In doing this, I have done a lot of research on artists whose work I have seen in person (or in many cases want to see in person) that I would like to have in my collection and/or in clients' collections. This research has led me to start this blog with plans of doing a weekly post on a different artist.

Each of these artists will be Southern (or live in the South) and, yes, I am including Texas as Southern (reluctantly, no doubt!). I will feature an artist, post images of the work, and tell where the artist is represented. All of this in hopes that I will give these incredible artists exposure and hopefully at some point be a representative for the artist featured.

I am very excited about this and I hope I will introduce you to artists that you love as much as I do and that one day you will have these artists in your own collections.

Expect a post next Friday or Saturday introducing the first artist...I won't tell you now who it will be but I will share with you a list of the artists I will be introducing you to over the next few weeks...

Hope Hebert
Lue Svendson
Sidney Creaghan
Maureen Dugas
Janine Collins
Eric Svendson
Foster Witt
Emily Kean
Lisa diStefano
George Marks

All the best...
Jeffery McCullough
Southern Art and Design
917 282 1880



1 comment:

beebranch said...

this may be obvious, but i think sally mann is the best southern photographer. granted, she's no small potatos--Time magazine called her the best photographer in america. but that designation is well-deserved.

another one of my favorites is jiha moon. her family is korean, i believe, but she's based in atlanta. she's taking off really quickly. her stuff's obviously asian inspired, but some of her images are ironically american and capitalist.

i'll get back to you on others