With a long career in marketing at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (now the Guggenheim New York) and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, both in Manhattan; as well as The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Ashley Prymas knew that museum visitors were interested in owning art themselves but didn’t know where to begin.
“People frequently asked me for help in looking for art, because they were often intimidated visiting galleries,” she said.
Recognizing there was an opportunity to bring accessible art and décor right into people’s homes, she brought the concept to life in 2019 under the name Plucky Art, as in “spirited, brave, courageous, bold and fearless.” But it wasn’t until she teamed with neighbor, friend and client Janet Little – a former teacher by way of her native Kansas (bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from the University of Kansas), California and Switzerland and a student of ceramics at the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan – that Plucky Art became The Little Plucky.
The business is a 50/50 LLC partnership, operating mostly on a consignment model with some wholesaling, with the pair representing around 30 women artists. (When Little moved to Connecticut in 2014 and began studying at Silvermine, she said she was “blown away” by the talented women who surrounded her, many of whom were professional artists.)
Still, the two said they have chosen to focus on women artists, because they are often underrepresented and undervalued:
“As a women-owned business, we want to support women and invest in their careers.”
Artists and their art are carefully curated. The pair visit art shows and fairs and, conversely, artists increasingly reach out to them.
As well as selling art and ceramics, Prymas and Little offer complimentary in-home art consultations to their clients. After an initial visit to the store to get an idea of the type of art that resonates, the pair visit the clients’ home and take photographs of their spaces, measuring their walls and sometimes bringing pieces that they have seen and liked in the shop “to try it out.”
The two also source other paintings for size, color, style and even content to suit the clients’ tastes. Once they have found the right pieces, they install the art and allow the clients to live with it for a period of time. And if they love it, all well and good. “They are simply invoiced for the purchase.”
The pair added that often people come to them with a preconceived notion about what they want on their walls but after consultation might choose something they had never previously considered.
Little said the duo’s mission was not only to support women artists, but to bring “original, one-of-a-kind art into the spaces where people live and work and at an accessible price point.
“We want art, above all, to be accessible, fun and personal but not intimidating.”
The Little Plucky is at 111 Elm St., Suite 1. For more, call 917-657-5122.
