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That’s how Wall Design Diva Suzanne Gallagher begins her advice
By Mikel Kelly, The Times
October 4, 2007
Tigard interior designer Suzanne Gallagher has a simple message that she has been sharing with the world — one residential or commercial client at a time, in PowerPoint presentations to commercial framers and, most eloquently, in the book she published last year called “The Fine Art of Wall Design.”
That message is: “Start with art!”
That’s the bold headline stretching across the latest issue of her newsletter, found on her Web site (www.walldesigndiva.com).
It’s the name of the first chapter in her book.
And it’s the way she starts the press release about the book.
“Decorating a room? Start with art!”
If you get the idea this is an important point with her, it very well could be that you’re catching on.
“I believe that the art is the soul of the room,” says the mother of three. “It’s one of the things that expresses your true soul.”
“The Fine Art of Wall Design” was a labor of love, and Gallagher published it herself.
“You know, an informed consumer is a great customer,” she insists. “An informed consumer is going to be more empowered.”
‘You nailed it’
She wrote the book, she says, because she had been doing presentations on wall design for Beards store managers and afterward they always seemed to ask, “When are you going to do the rest?”
She thought to herself, she says, “I can’t give all the information that you need to be educated about art, so I’ll just write a book.”
Pretty cheeky for someone who’d never written a book before. Still, she knew the subject matter, after many years of working in the field, and she was not afraid of a little hard work.
“My book is very conversational,” says Gallagher. “It can be read at one sitting — a three-hour plane trip or something.”
She started writing the book in Word, she explains.
“I took it to a certain point where I had what I thought it should be.”
She did a careful study of the books on store shelves. She wanted it to be the right size and shape. “The Fine Art of Wall Design,” for those taking notes, is 9 inches wide and 7½ inches high, great for displaying art inside.
Then she hired graphic artist Meg Larson, who works in Beaverton and lives in Newberg.
“We put together a prototype of the book, and we made five copies,” says Gallagher. And those she took to a national show of the art and framing industry.
“I owe a lot to the art and framing industry,” she says. “Now they’re partners, so to speak.”
One of those professionals told her, “‘I’ve been trying to tell my clients this for years; you nailed it.’ Start with the art.’
“I wrote this book for the consumer, but I have commercial framers in other parts of the country who are buying the book for designers because they didn’t have time to train everybody.”
‘I went for it’
“I really didn’t intend to become the ‘Wall Design Diva’ when I graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in textiles, clothing and art,” explains Gallagher in the introduction to her book. “In fact, after leaving Seattle for the real world, I began my career working for a textile print company in Honolulu, assisting the stylist with her job of selecting and adapting gorgeous designs for fabric to be used by bikini and aloha shirt manufacturers.”
She married her husband Jack (36 years ago now) and moved to San Francisco, “where I worked as a management trainee in retail, then a merchandiser for a sportswear manufacturer and eventually landed a position with I.Magnin and Co. as fashion coordinator,” producing shows with New York designers, including a young Calvin Klein at the very beginning of his career. They moved to New York, and she worked for Saks Fifth Avenue producing their shows.
The fast pace and high cost of living in the Big Apple eventually drove them to Portland, where Gallagher freelanced and became a full-time mom of two sons and a daughter. Originally, they settled at 128th and Walnut in Tigard, a home they redesigned three times. Then they moved to a new, 4,500-square-foot house on Bull Mountain.
“It was when we moved into our ‘new home,’ the second house, that my interest in framed art really began to blossom,” she writes. “This home was more than twice the size of the first one, and our old furniture looked wrong and bad. We had almost no art pieces, save for the few that I painted myself while in New York. Art and home furnishings had just not been a priority while the kids were young.”
She discovered, she recounts, “a great national art framing resource, who supplied interior designers with frame samples, mat corners and training in framing design, for a relatively small investment.” They had a program allowing professionals the opportunity to provide in-home service, offer retail pricing and make a good profit — “I went for it.”
“Today I continue to serve clients with their art and interior needs,” she tells readers of the book. “I have found that it is the art décor that makes the space personal, reflecting the passions of the home and office owners. Art is most often the focal point of every room. It is the glue that brings the interior furnishings together!”
‘It feeds the soul’
“Why do we display art at all?” she asks. “It feeds the soul. It sets a mood in the room.
“It can remind us of the places we’ve been, the great times we’ve had,” she continues. “That’s why everyone’s home is so unique and so different.”
The basic principles of design spelled out in her book are not something regular people can’t master, she says.
“You can learn them; it’s not rocket science.”
And it’s not necessary to spend a fortune on framing and displaying art in your home, she insists. It may be your own photos or artwork or posters you bought on a trip. And you may have to economize with your choice of frame.
There’s a whole chapter in the book on good framing design, which can vary widely but is available at many expense levels.
“You have to find something for your budget,” says Gallagher. “If you can find a ready-made, go that route,” she says.
If you’re filling an entire wall with pictures of your family, it’s a good idea not to try to match the frames, she advises. As you add later images, you may not be able to find frames that match.
‘It’s what they like’
Professionally, she says, “I like to balance the commercial and the residential. There’s nothing like working with the individual.”
Although there might be bigger bucks in the commercial jobs she’s done, she maintains “It’s so much fun working with the homeowner because it reflects their personality.”
The key, she says, is selecting “something that speaks to them.”
“It’s not about what I like. It’s what they like.”
Now, with 13 years experience under her belt, she’s had a long list of clients, both commercial and residential.
“I started, literally, just one customer at a time,” she says. “I started out with open edition prints, from a company in the East called Moonrise Galleries. I found a niche, and I focused on the niche.
“Every single job I have is new,” she points out. “I’m out of a job every time I finish one. And every job is different.”
An encouraging trend she sees now is that “even in the work place, we are starting to see art displayed.”
Willamette 205, a professional building in West Linn, was her first large industrial client.
“They wanted art in the hallways, which is very unusual.”
Pacific Oncology in Beaverton wanted a variety of art on its walls, she says: canvas, abstracts, mirrors, fine art — the works. They even agreed to a two-story sculpture piece that’s highly visible from the first and second floors.
The trend, even in offices, is more color and variety of pieces, says Gallagher.
“People are in a waiting room,” she poses. “What do they have to look at?”
The most important thing about selecting art for your home, says Gallagher, is its uniqueness.
“It’s custom, just for you,” she says. “Everything that you have done custom is going to be worth more because it’s done just for you.”
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