Creating a useful corporate art committee is a piece of cake if you adhere to the rules in this blog. Sharing with you my expertise and experience of over 30 years working with corporate art committees so you can create a winning art committee team.
Reading Time: 4 Minutes
7 things to do when forming your art committee.
How zoom has changed the way corporate art committees work and how you can change with it.
What to expect when working with an art advisor to support your team.
For 35 years I’ve presented corporate art collection options to a huge variety of art committees and most of those meetings were in person. Here’s some history showing my age, but back before 9/11, back in the day, my team and I would “schlep and show”. That is what I called it. We pulled up in a minivan (I have driven a minivan my entire adult life) and took over the boardroom with a boatload of artwork. The art committee arrived, and I made my presentation. Then we placed the work all around the space. The committee mulled over it and voila we’re finished. Oh, and I forgot, we also supplemented with a slide show or two. Whoa, I’m old.
Fast forward, Pandemic Shift happened to every corporation as we all now realize. Suddenly, businesses conducted meetings on Zoom 8+ hours a day for over a year and a half. Nothing stopped, just shifted. Many corporations were in the throes of building, moving, and creating art collections when Covid struct so they had to continue. Nothing much changed in terms of timing of the build, move and installation of artwork, just in how the collections were going to be created, which is huge. Out were the days when I could bring the artwork to them to view, see their faces when presenting to them when I showed my PowerPoint presentation. Instead, we moved entirely to me creating collections online and presenting it to the art committee on Zoom.
Instantly a conundrum arose for me as an Art Advisor presenting Art online. Everyone’s screen is color calibrated differently.
So that meant I had an extra hurdle of trust I needed to garner from my client. They needed to know that what I’m presenting is really great work, wonderful, lush colors, textured and executed perfectly, because their screens may look different than mine, and I needed to get their collection created on time and within budget. With years of art industry experience and being an MBA Artrepreneur, shifting gears wasn’t difficult for me. What I found that worked for me was to set the ground rules for the committee and approach their project with bountiful energy and humor in addition of course to industry knowledge.
How Zoom Meetings have Changed Corporate Art Meetings
I was presenting to a law firm art committee, end of 2020 to June 2021, in the middle of Covid and Corporate culture shift. I thought one of the committee members was not paying attention to my presentations for the first couple of meetings. Silly me, I finally realized that she was using her telephone to attend the Zoom meeting not her computer. So, she was looking at my presentation, just not me, when I thought she wasn’t paying attention. That was when I realized I needed to step up the energy and humor for members to look at the screen, at me and what I’m presenting. Let’s face it, selecting corporate art for your firm can be stressful. 1. Who has the time? 2. Do they want to be responsible for this large task? But when I make it fun, enjoyable, educational and time efficient everyone wins.
Here's another different twist to Zoom meetings that started happening. I had another project where each committee member had their camera off. I presented it to a blank screen. But by the end of the series of meetings they felt comfortable enough to turn the screens back on and interact. Holy moly that made me shift again with how I conducted my presentations.
Tips to form your Commercial Art Committee
All that said; we live in a new reality, which obviously affects everyone. If you are a project manager or the point person in your firm to create the art committee, here’s a few quick suggestions to make the art committee successful.
Invite an Odd number of employees to participate.
Have one member be the “gavel down” person.
Each member needs to be able to schedule successive meetings to join the committee with the possibility of scheduling more meetings if the project requires it. The number of meetings is tied to the budget.
Agree on a budget before the committee is created if possible. If not, we need to discuss the parameters of the budget with the correct person who needs to approve the budget. Budgets aren’t necessarily the art committee’s responsibilities.
Please tell the committee members to be patient with the process and not to be afraid to say what you like and what you don’t like. Selecting artwork is harder than selecting wall paint color, know that going in.
Inform the art committee members that all monitors are not color calibrated the same way.
Inform the art committee that they will be receiving weekly presentation decks to review prior to each meeting. So, in other words, they will have homework. Fun homework!
Hiring a Corporate Art Consultant to help your team!
Prior to the first meeting I typically send my clients an extensive deck of art styles to foster a robust conversation in our first meeting and beyond. My job then is to ascertain the corporate vision and mission for the collection within the first meeting. Weekly I then present different artwork that speaks to the committees’ goals and aspirations for the collection, each week hoping to arrive at a collective “thumbs up” on artwork presented in the deck. Once the committee starts to flow, which is my job to send it in that direction, the collection comes together very quickly.
I have written a post that breaks down the benefits of hiring a corporate art consultant. I give you the 4 major reasons why you might want to consider adding one to your team.
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Last Thoughts…
Art Advisory Ltd can zig and zag to make your corporate art committee experience enjoyable, efficient, fun, and educational.
Follow the steps I outlined above to create the committee and I’ll take it from there. I have the experience, the ability, and the wisdom to guide your art committee thru to a successful art outcome.
Learn more about our corporate projects and then schedule a discovery call to discuss your upcoming project.