Art of the deal
Few people in life have been lucky enough to work at not one, but two of their loves. Steve Desloge is among the blessed.
“Internally, I”™m an art guy,” the Wilton resident said. “I”™ve always had a camera in my hand. I”™m a photographer by passion. ”¦But I”™m also a car guy.”
For 10 years, Desloge was part of the management team that opened more than 40 Enterprise Rent-a-Car offices in Fairfield and New Haven counties as well as the Hudson Valley.
“Enterprise was my Ph.D.,” said Desloge, who was with the company for 22 years, a dozen in his native St. Louis. “I had a great opportunity to deal with sales.”
Still, his heart was also in art. Beefing up his photography portfolio, Desloge spent a lot of time at Wilton Art and Framing ”“ so much so that he bought the business in 2003. Today he owns six Rockwell Art and Framing shops, as they”™re known, in Connecticut and is looking to make inroads into Westchester County, N.Y.
Among these is one in Westport where a new exhibit of works in various media has just opened. On June 24, the Ridgefield locale launches a show by Westport artist Claudia Mengel, whose acrylics and monotypes are at once representational and abstract. The other Rockwell stores ”“ it”™s the “R.” in his formal name, Stephen R. Desloge ”“ are in New Canaan, Norwalk, and Stamford.
“It wasn”™t by design,” Desloge says of his string of shops, “but because of opportunity.”
Art and framing businesses are basically mom-and-pop operations, he said. In each case, the owner was looking to move on. The timing and the price were right.
At Rockwell”™s, the art and the framing go hand-and-hand. Part of each shop is (or will be) a gallery featuring original contemporary works ranging from $150 pottery to $10,000 canvases. The rest is a custom-framing store, with prices ranging from under $100 to more than $1,000. Guess which is the bread and butter.
“This is a discretionary business and it was hurt by the recession,” he said. “Custom framing didn”™t fall off much. But it did decline.”
The art market took a bigger hit though. Last August, however, a woman came into Desloge”™s Westport shop and scooped up two works. He sees that as a sign that the retail picture is improving.
With six stores in Connecticut, Desloge is looking to add six more in a year and find opportunities in Westchester County. But the shops are only part of his business. He also advises companies such as the Fairfield County Bank and the People”™s Bank in Fairfield on how to adorn their offices with art. To that end, Rockwell maintains a corporate gallery at The Atlantic Group in Stamford ”“ which supplies office-furniture systems ”“ as a kind of calling card.
Whatever he does at Rockwell, Desloge applies the principles learned at Enterprise.
“When I was with Enterprise, it was very decentralized,” he said. “So I”™m comfortable running a multilayered business ”¦ I have six managers. I discuss solutions. I don”™t tell them what to do.”
Indeed, when a customer stops by to pick up a framed birthday gift at Stamford, the newest store, and Desloge can”™t find the credit-card transaction, he sends her on her way with her purchase and leaves the invoice for manager Joe Davis to deal with.
Rockwell is a business. But you get the sense that Desloge would almost do it for free ”“ almost. Recently, his galleries sold artwork to benefit the victims of the Haitian earthquake. HeART for Haiti raised $26,000 for Save the Children. He keeps an eye out for other ways in which to help the local and global communities.
But mostly these days, he keeps an eye on color, shape, proportion and a beautifully crafted frame ”“ along with the ledger book.
“To be able to take the experience I”™ve had over the years and wed it to my passion,” he says, marveling, “this isn”™t work. This is joy.”