Today we’d like to introduce you to Anne Strickland.
Anne, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Great American began in 1979 with the Tall Ships. One of the partners at that time contacted local photographers who had photographed the ships, got prints made at a local color lab and framed them in his apartment at night. The next day he loaded up his sales force, all friends, and they descended onto Boston commercial businesses, going door to door selling framed prints of the Tall Ships. After that, images by one of the partners was added and after that, other photographers were bought in. Soon thereafter, we started selling fine art prints in addition to photography.
My husband and I took over the company in the 1990’s and decided to build a national art company. We saw that contract office furniture dealers were putting beautiful furniture into commercial spaces but they were not addressing the art or branding art needs for their clients. So, we went and visited hundreds of dealerships throughout the country. We learned early on that connecting face-to-face with people and personally educating them about the value of art to their customers was key to our building a strong dealer and rep network nationwide. We also carried this approach to relationship building forward when we were invited to work directly with their clients. It quickly became clear that our focus on driving very human-centric and collaborative business relationships was essential to our success and our growth, and we’ve pursued it ever since.
In 2008, we began learning about evidence-based design for healthcare which really resonated with us. Art ‘works’ because it is able to convey meaning, emotion, and feeling on both conscious and sub-conscious levels. It’s a product of our humanity that how we think and what we feel can be influenced by art. Evidence-based design applies research-backed methodologies with the skill of an experienced designer to shape a person’s experience in a space through art. Being able to help people heal through art was an incredible and irresistible opportunity so we began our journey to become experts in healthcare art. Today over 80% of our business is in the healthcare field. We believe deeply in art healing programs and the power of art to aid in the healing process.
Our passion is to create environments that heal, inspire, provoke, challenge, offer hope and MOST of all, connect us to and remind us of our common humanity.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When my husband and I took over the company, the company was around $500,000 in debt. We had to figure out how to grow the company, at the same time making the company financially solvent. We were able to keep production going through this transition period thanks to the loyalty and dedication of our partners, and we worked hard to justify their loyalty by always keeping out word – which can be easier said than done during times of change and transformation.
We also expanded our vision for the business and set our sights on taking the company national, while at the same time wanting to slash our debt and focus on building a business primed for growth. Anyone of these goals presents a significant challenge for any company, but it was important to us to build the right foundations from the start.
Step one was to put together an executive team that could help us execute the plan. It wasn’t easy. We had to change how we operated at the company and I had to be willing to give control of major areas of the company to others so I could concentrate on expansion. I had to stop looking for others to be the CEO and realize that I was the CEO, that nobody knew the company better than I did, but that I had to let go of somethings in order to be a more effective leader. Embracing the idea that I could do it, I could be a successful CEO, was a significant and powerful journey for me personally. And with that came my growing understanding of what a CEO was, and what they couldn’t be, in order to be successful.
Implementing our plan to go national required many 14 hour days, and a lot of patience and flexibility, perseverance and never giving up to expand, enable, and activate a national dealer network. There were so many times when we would hear, ‘yes, this is a no-brainer’, from our dealers, but then it wasn’t followed up with actual sales. It took hitting walls time after time and bouncing off them, and using those experiences to figure out how to go back in a little differently until we came up with the right approaches that actually brought about sales from our dealers.
Great American Art – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Great American Art specializes in commercial art. We have a passion for art. We believe art can change conditions, can change communities. A community’s health is a function of how well they embrace art and the artists because an individual’s sense of wellness and well-being is impacted by art. When art touches the soul of a single individual, that influence is channeled to and felt within the community the individual is a part of. For every project we do, our intention is to wow the client by impacting the individual, and through them, the community our client serves.
Two questions we care about a lot are Why does Art Matter and Why does Design Matter? We care about these questions because it’s what we do all day—design art, and that does matter to us. For so long, art in most businesses or healthcare settings was thought of as an afterthought. If we have money left in the budget after everything else is done, sure, let’s get something on these blank walls. There were exceptions such as law firms or financial institutions who would invest in original art, but often, not art that spoke to the people using the space.
We believe art is not an accessory but an integral part of the design process. Why? Because everything just ‘works better’ when you connect with peoples’ humanity.
Art matters because ultimately it’s all about spaces and people, and the building of bridges between them through evidence-driven experiential art design. We spend the majority of our lives working, playing, studying, healing, exploring, resting, and moving through spaces. Spaces that we instinctively look to for information about where we are, what we’re supposed to be doing there, and what we should think and how we should feel. This is why we consciously and sub-consciously connect with the spaces that we inhabit. Some spaces make us feel excited, happy, intrigued, inspired while others make us feel sad, anxious, confused and physically uncomfortable. And yes, it’s not just the art that contributes to this. The architecture, the interior design, furniture, lighting, etc all contribute as well. But ART MATTERS! Because we’re human.
Art is created by human beings for other human beings. The artist relies on our shared humanity to grant us the ability to respond emotionally, mentally, and even physically to art. These responses make us feel and these feelings infuse our perception of the space we are in. Ultimately, we are driven to connect to our spaces, and art is a very powerful tool to make this connection. Art is how we build the bridges between ourselves and our spaces in order to create truly human-centric experiences. Art is the soul of the space because it makes those spaces more like us. Our embracing of this is definitely one thing that sets us apart. We don’t sell art for art’s sake, we sell it to make your world more human.
Why does Design Matter? Design is not decoration. Rather, design is a thoughtful, methodical approach to crafting human experiences within a space. It requires specialized skill-sets, a broad understanding of human psychology and human behavior, and most importantly – it requires a high degree of empathy. It’s not about utilizing art simply to make things look pretty, or selecting a particular piece because it matches the upholstery. Instead, a designer focuses on the emotional or experiential story that needs to be told and then uses art to evoke and tell that story. Art becomes the foundation and the raw material of the bridge between the purpose of an interior space, and the humanity that purpose serves, with the designer as architect and engineer. In a healthcare setting, that design story will likely be one of hope, renewal, healing, and reassurance. It might also need to be a story that seems immediately familiar, welcoming, and calming. Why? Because patients don’t visit typically visit health care settings when everything is fine and everything is well. The designer must work with the intent to mitigate and dispel feelings of anxiety, disorientation, and pain. Instead through their work and the design stories they craft through art, they create reflections of wellness and well-being. In an office setting, that design story might be one of motivation, energy, and progress. In education, growth and discovery. In government, duty, focus, and service.
Our approach to design is also what sets us apart from other art companies. Our deep commitment to understanding the connections between people and their spaces, the outcomes that are possible when these connections are made, and demonstrating these outcomes in our day to day relationships with each other and with our clients.
How do you, personally, define success? What’s your criteria, the markers you’re looking out for, etc?
I define success in a few ways:
Do we have a team that is passionate about what we are doing and consistently striving to expand their abilities both personally and professionally?
Are we connecting with our customers on a human to human scale and developing long-lasting relationships that are built on collaboration and fair exchange?
Are we giving our customers art solutions that speak to their souls, that excite them to help them reach their potential?
Are we giving artists a platform to be able to show their art in a way that might allow them to be full-time artists?
When I hear from our clients, partners, and artists that the answer to those questions is a definitive ‘yes’, I can’t be more proud.
Contact Info:
- Address: 5 Shawmut Road
Canton, MA 02021 - Website: www.greatamericanart.com
- Phone: 781-341-2900
- Email: anne@greatamericanart.com
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