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Bunny Hodas put her Charlotte house on the market 11/2 years ago and has had only eight showings.
Sales at Debbie Bass' Providence Gallery fell by 75 percent in the first part of the year before rebounding recently, but there's no guarantee that pace will continue.
Now, to help each other out, they've come up with a creative strategy: They're working together to combine an art show with an open house.
In more than 30 years in the art business, Bass said, this is the roughest climate she has seen for the industry.
“We just have to think more creatively than we had before,” she said. “We're doing this because there's still a segment of the population that are holding their breath (over the economy). This gives them a second opportunity” to consider buying the art.
She got up with Hodas through an artist she represents who happens to be one of Hodas' neighbors, former TV anchor Michele Harvey Collins. Hodas proposed combining the art show and open house as a way to help herself, her neighbor and the gallery.
Hodas, who holds a real estate license, said she had seen an art show in a private home before and figured it was worth trying at an open house.
So on July 16 and 17, Collins, Rod Wimer and Diane Virkler, who are represented by Bass, will have their work on display at Hodas' home in the Royden subdivision just south of the SouthPark area. Ten percent of the proceeds from the art sale will benefit a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools program.
Holding a show in a home provides immediacy for people, Wimer and Virkler said. It also helps them visualize how the art would look in their own home, Collins added.
There will be at least 60 oil paintings, acrylics and collages for sale, ranging from $450 to $3,800. Bass expects up to 1,000 people between the two days of the event.
Hodas just wants to sell her house. She had originally listed the 4,200-square-foot house for $1.025 million. It is now going for $798,500.
“I'm very optimistic we'll get traffic through the house, which is what I need right now,” she said. “If this does not create a buyer, I'll just have to try something else.”
Adam Bell: 704-358-5696
