Consultant Shops With an Eye to Inoffensive Design, Investment Value

Daryl Wizelman used to go to his neighborhood Aaron Bros. Art Mart whenever he needed to hang a painting on his office wall.

But unhappy with his finds, he decided to hire an art consultant to do the shopping for him.

“We decided to step up the presentation of our offices,” said Wizelman, owner of United Pacific Mortgage in Encino. “I’m not sure, in our business, if the art matters that much. But it has helped us in recruiting better people.”

The consultant Wizelman used was Patricia Everett, who has been running her Chatsworth company, Corporate Fine Art Planning & Acquisition, for 10 years.

According to Everett, the trick in selecting corporate art is to use paintings, sculpture and other pieces that appeal to a wide range of tastes, provide interest and color--but don’t offend people.

Right now, California landscapes are in. Abstract works are on the wane. Nudes? Don’t even think about it.

“In the ‘70s, the idea was ‘we are going to elevate employees’ taste,’ ” Everett said. Now she tries to get everyone involved, from the “president to the guys in the mail room . . . so they don’t feel the art is being shoved down their throats.”

Everett, who earned a master’s degree in fine arts from Cal State Northridge in 1981 and operates out of her Chatsworth home, says she gets clients by word of mouth. She works almost exclusively for business clients.

“I like corporations,” she said. “They understand me, I understand them.”

Clients shopping for their homes are often indecisive--and husbands and wives often disagree about choices. Companies, on the other hand, are usually run by one boss, and “I don’t have to worry about the checks bouncing,” Everett said.

Everett gave up her Woodland Hills office when she realized that clients didn’t come to her, she went to them. A phone, a fax, a large slide library and “the world’s fattest Rolodex” are about all the equipment she needs.

On large projects, she buys the art and framing services wholesale and charges an hourly fee of $75 for consulting services. On larger projects, she caps her fee at 10% of the art budget.

Her biggest check to date--$10,000--was for a project at the 6300 Wilshire Building in Los Angeles that included a mural by well-known local artist Terry Schoonhoven. Everett would not disclose annual revenues, but said she earns a comfortable living.

Unlike some consultants, Everett said she doesn’t push any particular artistic style or artist.

“I show things that are appropriate to my client, but I also show them work that I like. If they pick it, I’m really happy,” she said.

For most clients, she said, art is more decoration than it is investment. Generally, she said, today’s corporate art buyer is more concerned with creating a working environment that is pleasant for employees and impressive to clients than with creating an investment portfolio.

First American Title Co. in Los Angeles chose Everett in part because it wanted a neutral third party responsible for making the selections, said Dennis Lew, the company’s senior vice president.

“If we rely on our own judgment we generally offend everyone else,” Lew said, “Someone would say ‘Who picked that?’ We tell them we have an art consultant--there’s no criticism. It’s just one less thing for management to worry about.”

First American Title’s collection at its Woodland Hills offices consists mostly of prints and works on paper of landscapes with titles like Canyon Magic and Blue Delta, and one portrait of an American eagle.

“Some are valuable and some are eye-appealing but not expensive,” Lew said.

Interior decorators, of course, provide similar services. But Connie Butler, assistant curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, said there is a fine but distinct line between the two disciplines.

“Some [art consultants] come out of interior design. It’s fine but it’s completely different from what I’m interested in,” she said. “What looks good over the couch is totally different than a genuine interest in the art.”

But she adds: “A consultant with a background in art, particularly contemporary art, can be invaluable to both knowledgeable collectors and those just starting out. The key is finding a good one.”

Everett’s clients say they are glad they did not choose a decorator.

“They are not well trained to pick the art,” said Ramon Garcia, assistant vice president of facilities and administrative services for Zenith Insurance, which used Everett to pick prints at its Woodland Hills office.

Like Lewis, Garcia said a foremost consideration was choosing art that would not offend workers. For Zenith, he said, Everett chose a variety of posters and prints, including Pebble Beach golfing scenes for the company’s Houston offices. “We need to be sensitive to the employees,” he said. He said Everett talked to many of the employees and got a sense of their likes and dislikes before settling on the selection of works.

Butler said the field of art consulting appears to be booming.

“There is a lot of money out there,” particularly “young collectors coming out of Hollywood, finding their way to contemporary art through photography.”

Everett said she is aware of the growing competition.

“It used to be that women got a divorce and became interior decorators. Now I fear they become art consultants,” she said.