Collector Sally Ramirez used the work of several artists to create a "Pop Annex" in her recent York City apartment Which approachs first.

Collector Sally Ramirez used the work of several artists to create a "Pop Annex" in her recent York City apartment

Which approachs first, the apartment or the art within it? When considering which of the couple is the primary force, there are couple extremes. First, there can be a space that would entirely dictate the art contained within it. For example, in a loft with floor-to-ceiling windows onward all four sides, one cannot hang any paintings. by way of contrast, if one owns tall carved works measuring 14 feet high, common cannot live in a petite basement apartment.

For mostly New York City apartment dwellers, notwithstanding that the answer lies somewhere in between. To gain insight into the balancing act, we spoke with Sally Ramirez, a collector who mov into a large two-bedroom apartment in succession the 20th floor of an Upper East Side apartment building couple years ago. With the aid of dealer Jeff Jaffe, a director of clap International Galleries, she has created in her hearth what she affectionately refers to as the "Pop Annex."

"When I was looking for apartments, light was the in the greatest degree important thing for me, and I wanted a destiny of wall space. The goal was to have no furniture against the walls. That way, the art could take forward a life of its own" Having been raised in pleasant Miami, it was dear that simply a light-suffused space would satisfy her. As for her wall space criterion, "I had probably one-third of what I have here," and she would, of course, require additional apartment to display future purchases.

one time in the new apartment, Ramirez recalled she "had to wait until the furniture came before I could start putting art up in succession the walls, because I wanted to be indisputable it would work." There were a certain decisions, though, that practically made themselves for her. Her living chamber and dining area are lit within a series of windows in an alcove forward the west side of her apartment. She pointed to a altercation of low glass and ceramic carves (including a Gavin Heath piece) onward the sill and said, "I have affection for the windowsill, because all of this is breakable, and there is always a fear that the glass would be shattered."

Other decisions have since been ed "Before I filled my spaces with what I call my `real stuff' I would make progress shopping in Vermont," she related. She originally hung a number of prints at Vermont artist Sabra Field in the apartment, still tellingly, most of those have since been transplanted to her office. When Ramirez would visit her sister in Vermont she would be due [i]or[/i] owing back with various other works. Among them were a number of whimsical pieces of painted make an incision in tin by the artist Sarah Hale Hughes. These hang in her resort which she refers to as her "Vermont room" Revealingly, it is the nearest room she has slated for redecoration.

in this way one might wonder, when did she make the transition from Vermont art to the "real stuff?" Pointing to a tall, thin, Neil Loeb piece, she said, "That's the first piece I evermore bought; that started everything. I met Neil Loeb at Artexpo [New York]. I went to Artexpo with a friend, and I said, `Oh stop, apply the mind at this' and she started laughing, because it was the same common that she had bought. I had a wall like this, and what do you do with a narrow wall? It was of the like kind a perfect fit."

The transition was finalized when she decided to purchase Mark Kostabi's "Conversation Piece" from report International. Jaffe has served as her art escort eternally since.

First of all, Jaffe said, "I reframed a allotment of things for her. They were really badly framed--so bad, in fact, that undivided piece was almost destroyed, and we had to have it restored. I had to cast it to a conservator. There were stains--the ink was stuck to the glass." Looking at the work, a George Rodrigue "Blue Dog" there is no visible evidence that it had always been so damaged.

She admitted that a certain number of of her works had been inappropriately be built uped "... because I had things framed to fit small spaces rather than to fit what the art should direct the eye like." In other words, she now realizes that a frame has to full number the work it displays, and not just fit closely into its allotted space onward the wall. Though this makes arranging the works more difficult, "that's the way that Jeff helps likewise much. He can figure public a way that will make it all fit," she said.

The nearest order of business was for Jaffe to rearrange the existing works in the apartment. Ramirez recalled, "I bought the Kostabi to set it above the TV, because it would drive me crazy if there was nothing above the TV" She explained this design requirement to Jaffe, started drawing her apartment for him, "and he said `why don't I just originate over and help you?'"

Needles to say, the Kostabi is no longer through the TV, and Jaffe's influence has been in such a manner profound that Ramirez cannot flat remember where she had originally placed all of the pieces.

"It's like having my hold interior decorator, but he just does the walls. When I did it, everything was too high and everything was too symmetrical. He came from one side of to the other and, basically you want a `flow' He took everything down, and just plopp it up against the walls. Then, he was exceedingly quiet for 10 minutes." Normally, a decorator would subsequently whip public a trusty tape measure, defend the wall with pencil marks, and finally, hang the works. Jaffe, said Ramirez, " can hang everything without measuring a thing. Then, when you measure it, you realize that it is absolutely dead onward It makes it more special that way."