Trained as an art historian with a curatorial background, Lisa Lodeski is a natural when it comes to educating clients about art. Her art consulting business, Lisa Lodeski Fine Arts, emerged in 1997 in San Francisco before moving to southern California’s Orange County and, more recently, expanding into Hawaii.

Lodeski’s success relies on sensitivity to the needs of her clients. “I’m primarily a matchmaker between the artist and the patron,” she notes. “I work for the client rather than the artist. My responsibility is to lead my clients through the selection process and prevent them from making choices they may regret later,” Lodeski says. “I’m their guide.”

Collectors who seek Lodeski’s expertise represent a broad range of interests and experience. “Some clients are extremely serious, building collections that eventually might be donated to a museum or published, or they may loan pieces for exhibition. Those types of collections usually have a focal point, and each artwork purchased relates in some way to the ideas expressed across the collection. Often I am searching for particular works to fill in the gaps in a collection.” Such intensity, Loceski adds, is rare.

“That’s the smallest percentage of residential placement. Most people are looking to buy simply what they like, artworks that they want to live with, where the energy from the work is adding to the living environment.”

For new collectors, Lodeski’s consulting process resembles a private tutorial during which the client is encouraged to develop a discerning eye. First, Lodeski gains an appreciation for the reason or purpose underlying the collection, then she provides background information on the mysteries of the art market and describes the distinctions between decorative and fine art. In subsequent meetings, Lodeski and her clients sift through images, or travel together to museums, exhibitions, studios, and auction houses in search of artworks that resonate on a personal level with the client.

“When you’re collecting artwork that you want to live with and that you love, you’re working on an emotional level,” Lodeski explains. If a client is seriously considering purchasing a piece of art, she asks them one simple question: “Is your heart pounding faster?”

Ever the astute matchmaker, Lisa Lodeski believes that if a client thinks the artwork is “sort of” interesting or that it might increase in value later, it’s better to pass. “That’s not reason enough to buy it.”

Artful Home is thrilled to celebrate the debut of Season Two of the Peabody-Award Winning PBS series “Craft in America”. We have teamed up with the folks from “Craft in America” to offer two exciting ways for you to take part.

Do you live in Los Angeles (or know somebody that does)?
Artful Home has two free tickets* to the preview screening and party and the winner will get to have a private tour of the new Craft in America Study Center and the Maloof Woodworking Exhibition.
> Enter to Win

Want your very own copy of “Craft in America”, Season Two?

Through our relationship with PBS, we have TEN copies of the DVD to give away to Artful Home.
> Enter to Win

Learn more about “Craft in America”
More than 10 years ago, at about the same time that we opened Artful Home to present the work of North America’s finest craft and fine artists, Carol Sauvion set out on a parallel journey into the origin and continuation of craft traditions across the United States. Her journey resulted in the Peabody Award-winning series on PBS, CRAFT IN AMERICA, as well as an accompanying book and museum show which has toured the country for the past two years. The second season airs nationwide on PBS, Wednesday October 7, 2009, 8-10PM ET.

Other Advance Screening Locations and Viewing Parties

Bunny and Frog by Josh Title

One of the down-sides of the artwork being shipped from the artist’s studio to the art buyer is that we in the office seldom get to see the artwork. Thousands of great works of art on the website and most of them we never see. Until now…

We recently discovered Josh Title and his amazing Cate & Levi collection. Hand-crafted stuffed animals made from reclaimed materials. Adorable!

Josh is from Toronto and when he couldn’t find environmentally responsible toys for his child, he decided to make them himself. The bunny and frog are made from reclaimed wool materials like old sweaters. I like how Josh defines it as leaving “the softest possible pawprint on our planet.”

Because of the reclaimed materials, each one is unique in it’s coloration, stripe, and patterns. The bunnies are pink and the frogs are green, but beyond that each one has its own special markings. And Josh even labels each one as 1 of 1 because of the unique markings.

Bunny and Frog by Josh Title

When we juried Josh’s work onto the Artful Home website, Josh decided to to send a shipment of bunnies and frogs here to Artful Home. So while we seldom actually see the works of the artists we represent, this time we are over-run with critters. Bunnies on tables, frogs on filing cabinets, high up on book shelves. It’s a lot of fun to turn around and see a cute stuffed animal staring at you.

Bunny and Frog by Josh Title

Bone Puff by Josh Urso

Yesterday, I was interviewed by a reporter on the subject of color. The article is going to be about living with different colors, and what effect color has on mood. While I am a big champion of living with color, and could not help but carry on about orange and yellow, I find I am also incredibly attracted to WHITE. Having once painted a living room seven different colors of white, I have become attuned to the way white can emphasize form, line and nuance.

The interview sparked me to consider what I might include in my life if restricted to the color white, and what I found was that TEXTURE is key. Anything but basic, the purity of white allows artists to approach the simplest of forms – or the most complex. White can act as a unifying element among highly textured pieces living together in one room.

In honor of the release this week of The Beatles video game, I decided to create a “White Album” with examples of how artists in a multiple of mediums explore this most complete of all colors.

Josh Urso’s Bone-Puff Pendant Lamp, challenges my senses. Made of fabric, yet holding its spherical form, this white lamp begs to be examined as it casts pure dotted shadows from the many mesh perforations. In this case, white makes the piece stand out in a room, yet allows the fabric, texture and interplay of hard and soft to be the interest.

Lynn Meade hand-carves porcelain. In her Round Tempest Vase, the white clay surface serves springs to life, completely enveloped in voluptuous curves of the carving. While white porcelain can sometimes be pure, even sterile looking, Meade’s attention to detail makes this white vase tactile and rich.

In John Maggioto’s Decanter, a completely different passion for texture interplay with white is exhibited. Through an innovative process, this piece marries the texture of marble and paper, using white as the accent of light within the moody darkness of photography.