Buying Fiona Millar paintings during Lockdown
During these strange times, galleries and artists have been forced to find new ways to reach their audiences, and to continue to sell art. In this blog I will focus upon one artist in particular, Fiona Millar, a popular artist who we have represented for many years, and someone our customers will be familiar with.
Fiona is a framer as well as a painter, so a presumption would be that she would have had no problem getting her work framed during this time. However, as she works from a shared studio in the Borders, she hasn’t been allowed to enter the premises to work since lockdown was announced. For this reason, Fiona wasn’t able to send paintings to us in time to hang in the gallery. Fiona had painted a lovely collection of work for this exhibition, so we decided to take the unframed approach when selling her work, but with the option of being able to have it framed if the customer was happy to wait.
For many customers, the whole idea of buying online, let alone considering buying something unframed may seem quite daunting, so we just wanted to offer some reassurances.
Obviously there is a difference in price if you buy unframed or framed, and the advantage of buying unframed is that you can have the piece posted to you right away. You also then have full control over which frame you can put the painting in, as framing can be such a personal thing.
However, Fiona is a wonderful framer, so for those happy to wait, you won’t be disappointed.
We were recently approached by a customer who had fallen for one of Fiona’s images online. Once we had gone through all of the options with her, I then asked Fiona to send more images over to accompany the one we had online. Although a single image of a painting can show you its beauty, customers very often want to see more details shots, get up close to see any texture, with frames etc. In this case, Fiona sent some details of the painting.
Fiona then also sent some images of her frames, and what her choice of frame would be for this particular piece, so that the customer could make an informed decision.
After some consideration, the customer decided to buy unframed.
And she wasn’t disappointed…
In an email from her last night, she declared ‘The painting has landed, and I love it! Thank you’. She also thoughtfully sent me an image of it in its new home. She said she was going to enjoy living with it for the rest of lockdown, which would give her time to decide where to hang it, and how to have it framed.
We have many more of Fiona’s paintings online, so if you are interested in finding out more and being sent images, please just get in touch with Lynne on 07928 013519 or on lynne@whitehousegallery.co.uk.
You can see all of Fiona’s beautiful paintings here
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