Step into virtually any art gallery and one of the first things that might catch the eye are the four- and five-digit prices of quality pieces of work.
Artist Jeff Ferst is well aware of that. He’s been selling his art for decades as he’s been represented throughout the United States and in Canada where he lived for more than 30 years after finishing his education at New York University.
But Ferst has developed a way for everyone from the high-end collector to the budget-wary shopper to bring a piece from the art gallery home by putting his work on products ranging from throw pillows to cutting boards, coffee cups and even dog beds.
The concept recently earned his business, Artful Living Gallery & Studio, recognition from Houzz, Inc., which describes itself as “the leading platform for home remodeling and design, providing people with everything they need to improve their homes from start to finish.” The company conducts an annual survey of the users of its website and services, and named Artful Living to its 2016 Best of Houzz in the customer service category.
The idea is relatively simple although putting it into play was a little more complicated.
“I think artwork is appropriate for every room in the house,” Ferst said, as he stood in his living room showing the range of housewares that can come together with the artwork on the wall. “A problem with art is a lot of people have this perception that it’s out of their price range. That it’s only for the rich.
“It’s not something that people will use every day. I just thought, how do you make art accessible to people?”
In his own living room, Ferst has one of his paintings on the wall, throw pillows with different but complementary designs on the chairs and the couch. A ceramic plate with another Ferst design sits on his coffee table.
His table in the adjacent dining room has placemats with other artwork from his gallery. Go into his kitchen you might find a colorful apron hanging on the refrigerator. A cutting board with another design sits on the counter, practical like other cutting boards, there to prevent damage to the countertop.
Step into the bedroom and the colorful dog beds catch the eye, again, printed with his artwork. His bathroom sports a throw rug that one could envision in a gallery.
The patterns on those products all come from paintings that are hanging on someone’s wall somewhere.
“They’re all handmade artwork,” Ferst said. “There are actual paintings somewhere out there in the world. They can be anywhere.”
That this concept is sitting at his gallery/studio/store on the ground floor of the One East Tucson building at the northeast corner of Stone Avenue and Broadway is another one of those stories of how did someone from New York and who lived in Canada for 35 years find his way to Tucson without really having any connections here?
Ferst grew up in the Bronx and stayed in New York to attend NYU where he graduated with a degree in fine arts. His interest as a child was in art and it led to a profession. He was still in college when he got his first artwork placed in a gallery.
“I started fairly young in terms of doing art and it’s always been a passion of mine and it’s something I always knew I wanted to do,” he said. “Over the years, I’ve continued to do my art. But life takes you in different directions so I’ve done other things as well. And in the course of getting from A to B, I seem to have developed this entrepreneurial kind of spirit as well.”
The combination of being a working artist being shown in galleries throughout Canada and the U.S., and some experience running other types of businesses, made the light bulb switch on for Ferst.
“I started my own food business and did that for a couple of years,” he said. “I had a retail shop. I was an event planner. Through the course of doing these other businesses, I learned marketing and how to run a business.”
And then came the decision to make the move to Arizona.
“About five years ago, I just thought you know what, I’m done with this weather. I’m done with winter,” he said. “It’s the same old story, right? I just said I need to move somewhere warm.
“I love the desert so I ended up coming here. Through some of my business contacts I was directed toward the Scottsdale-Phoenix area. I was there for three months maybe and realized it was a big mistake. My friends said, ‘What the hell are you doing in Phoenix, you should be in Tucson.’”
And if you’re an artist whose inspiration comes from sunsets and other beautiful scenery, it might be that the move to Tucson was ordained somewhere.
Ferst’s abstract paintings are, for the most part, his interpretations of sunsets and other scenery, whether they’re something he experienced, or coming from a photo a client might want developed into artwork for their wall.
Johanna Lundy and her fiancée, Guy Natale, picked out a painting she said is reminiscent of a Tucson trademark – the monsoon.
“This one in particular is very stormy,” Lundy said. “There are really rich, intense reds and then there are pale blue skies showing through. It’s funny because we were both drawn to it for different reasons. He really likes how it reminds him of monsoon season in Tucson, and having the painting allows him to remember the emotion of that season any time of year.”
But like other original artwork, the painting in Lundy’s home might be out of reach for, or at the least beyond the pricepoint a not-so-serious collector might want to spend to have the image in their home. The rugs, pillows, aprons and dishes provide an alternative.
“I think it’s great that he’s offering other ways for people to get art into their life,” Lundy said. “It’s fun. It’s whimsical. It’s just fun to have an option.”
Not every painting Ferst produces makes its way onto a coffee cup, a cutting board or other item. He said he selects the artwork that will make good accents to what’s on the wall. Or if the customer doesn’t have a painting, will stand alone in a room.
Ferst takes his art to several different manufacturers for the various products. Technology pretty much lets him print whatever design he wants on whatever he thinks will look good in a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom or bedroom. Then it’s up to a client or customer to mix and match to their taste.
“Most times people come in and fall in love with a painting and take it home,” he said. “I don’t even see where it goes. The other situations are where they ask me to come out and help them and in those cases I will.”
And then there are times when a purchase of a pillow or rug might ultimately lead to a room looking like a Ferst gallery showing.
“I try to choose patterns that I think will work for those products,” Ferst said. “For somebody that wants to dress up a spot in their house, it’s really easy to take something that’s colorful and has an artful flair to it.
“They’re more affordable for some people so a lot of times people come in and buy a throw pillow for their sofa or pick up place mats or something to dress up a particular area of their home,” he said. “And then they’ll come back and buy a piece of art because they love the work so much.”
