Picture perfect
Beth Jones uses her passion for art to help brighten area businesses
By David Barton -- Bee Staff Writer

People go to the bank for money, not art. But in some Sacramento banks, and in a growing number of area businesses, you can get an art education while you fill your wallet.

Which will fill Beth Jones' wallet, and, perhaps more importantly, it will fulfill what seems to be her primary aim in life: to put as much art in front of as many people as possible.

Jones, art lover since childhood, friend to artists, gallery owner and wife of artist S.R. Jones, has developed that love for art into a thriving business.

As an art consultant, she has placed original artwork in a variety of venues all over Sacramento and beyond, giving each place the special flavor that, she says, only a well-chosen piece of art can bring.

"Art can do a lot of things," she says. "It can totally individualize a space, so it looks like no one else's.

"In our homes, we are marketed this look -- now it's Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn. But if you put the print they're selling at Target or Z Gallery on your wall, many other people have it on their walls, too.

"But you can collect original works -- the normal person can do that -- and you can individualize your space."

Of course, some of us have more space and money than others. And while she deals with individuals, Jones is more likely to consult for businesses, from Sprint, Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente and McDonald's to smaller businesses that want to individualize their offices and public areas. They do so for a variety of reasons.

"As with your home, the same thing can happen with any company that makes that commitment to original art," she says. "What they're doing is taking how they see themselves and projecting it to whoever walks into their space."

Jones is showing off one of her favorite pieces, by David Wetzl, an art teacher at California State University, Sacramento. It's a long, elegant abstract piece, and it hangs on the wall behind the teller line at the Bank of Sacramento at Howe Avenue and Arden Way.

It is not a piece of art to be ignored.

Bill Martin, for one, loves it. He ought to: as president and CEO of Bank of Sacramento, he chose it, along with the rest of the art that adorns the walls of the bank's offices.

"It's unusual these days, when banks are such spartan places, to see art in the bank," he says. "But it matches the whole philosophy of our bank, which is to give quality to our customers. We want a nice environment, we're proud of our community, we want to make it a pleasant place.

"And we get lots of nice comments from customers."

Martin chose the work himself, says Jones, surprising her by going for far more abstract and edgy pieces than she had expected.

"It was inspiring for us, because we don't get that many banks that make such sophisticated choices."

Jones, 46, has made sophisticated choices herself. As elegant and distinctive in her bearing and dress as the art she represents, Jones grew up in Colusa, where, she says, the art on the walls was mostly her grandmother's needlepoint and a few carved ducks.

But she says her mother was always careful to instill in her daughter a love of art and a knowledge of the world beyond Colusa, and when she came of age, Jones moved to the big city: Sacramento.

She became involved in the local art scene in the early 1970s, when the art faculty at Sacramento State, where she studied, featured a host of excellent artists, and the downtown scene blended art openings with punk and new-wave shows at local clubs. There was a sense of community.

She worked at Jennifer Pauls Gallery, which she ended up co-owning, and worked to get art into public places. She served as the president of the board of directors of the Center for Contemporary Art.
Recently, she and business partner Lynda Jolley, former owner of Big Art on L Street downtown, joined forces to open JayJay Gallery at 2906 Franklin Blvd. on the east side of Curtis Park, a space briefly called Gallery 8.

JayJay Gallery, open just a year this month, has featured works by Peter Stegall, Dean DeCocker, Mark Emerson, Jane Mikacich, Joan Moment, Jack Nielsen, Mary Cole, Wetzl and others.

Jones' passion for art is an important component in her consulting, since she often finds herself in the position of educating clients as well as selling to them.

"Many times people don't know what good art is," she says. "So you try to educate them, and at the same time be aware of what their needs are, given their space and budget and the nature of their business."
Susan Willoughby is another art consultant in a town that has few. She works primarily with UC Davis Medical Center.

"I think Beth is very committed to making people aware of local artists," Willoughby says. "And I think she treats her artists well, and they think well of her, which isn't easy to get all the time."

Emerson is one of the artists Jones represents. An art teacher at Sacramento State, Emerson says that Jones' unique relationship with artists makes her successful.

"I think that Beth works well with artists because she respects what they do," he says. "She studied art in college, her husband is a practicing artist, most of her friends are artists, so she knows what it takes to make art. She's selling works that she would like to own, she's not treating them as merchandise."

But as important as this is for the artists, the customers hold the purse strings, and it is they who need to be sold on the idea of art. One way Jones encourages companies to make the investment is by stressing its importance to their employees.

For example, Jones has placed art in Sprint calling centers in Oregon, Tennessee, New Mexico and Nevada, as well as in California. The management at Sprint wanted the employees who spend their days on the phone to have something stimulating to look at.

"Those calling center jobs are pressure jobs," she says. "People are in little cubicles selling, they're under pressure to perform, and with the art there, that worker feels like they're taken care of. They know that someone has taken the time to think about the space they're working in."

Jones may be overselling the point a bit -- a piece of art isn't going to change a difficult job into an easy one -- but according to some of her clients, she is not wrong that the presence of art is "icing on the cake" for a number of employees.

Joe Hensler, owner of Team Power Forklifts on Fruitridge Road near Power Inn Road, has spent thousands of dollars on art for his company's offices. The employees of a company that sells, rents and services forklifts do not seem like the type to care about whether there's original art on the walls. But Hensler says it does matter, and he has put his money where his mouth is.

"We're always fighting a perception that we're a working-class, less-sophisticated environment to work in," he says. "And we were hoping to raise the bar, so that prospective and existing employees will think, 'This is a quality environment, they invest in their surroundings and their people.' And to do that really costs very little more."

In his $1.6 million renovation of the old Duncan Hines cake mix factory on Fruitridge Road, Hensler spent $8,000 on art, and he says it was one of his best investments.

"We just hired a new CPA controller," he says. "He's 31 years old, with Hewlett-Packard experience, and if he walked into a dirtball place, he may not want to work here. I think the art helps that."

Larger companies spend even more money: Martin at Bank of Sacramento spent about $19,000 on art; a Kaiser Permanente medical office building bought $60,000 worth; the downtown Hyatt Regency spent about $31,000. And Sprint spent $30,000 on a single call center in Sacramento.

But when times get tough for companies, art is among the first budget item to be cut. Which cuts into Jones' bottom line, as she says her commission is 20 percent to 30 percent of the cost of the art.

"Sprint laid off 6,000 recently, and they're not doing art in some of their construction projects, so there goes one of my big clients," she says. "Hewlett-Packard was one of my clients, but they've been going through a downsizing, and they're not buying art right now."

Her solution, she says, is to work harder.

"You have to market more in tight times," she says. "During building boom times, everyone gets so busy in the design community, it just comes to us. But starting in January, we've been more in a marketing mind-set. We have to reach out to new clients.