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Amy Aussieker says she has taken four risks in 39 years.
She left little Carmel, Ind., for Purdue University, where she knew nobody. Result: a communications degree.
She moved to Atlanta, where she didn't know a soul - except two friends going with her - or have a job. Result: employment at APCO graphics, which designed signage for hospitals and gave her the Carolinas as sales territory in the 1990s.
She donated a kidney to her brother five years ago. Result: healthy brother, and a grateful Web site designer for life.
And she walked away from a high-paying job 18 months ago, with the scent of a recession in her nostrils. Result: FABO.
That stands for Fabulous Art Buying Opportunity. If you haven't heard of it, you haven't hosted or been invited to the events she half-jokingly dubs "Tupperware parties for art." Most of those are private, though there will be a public one Oct. 10 at Morrison Family YMCA.
Like so many start-up entrepreneurs, she aims to meet a need nobody ever met for her.
"I didn't go into galleries," says the lanky, ebullient mother of two. "I was intimidated, because I didn't know what I was looking at. I usually couldn't afford what I saw.
"So I thought, 'I'll line up 20 or 25 artists and take a couple of pieces from each of them to these shows. Buyers will be able to see what the art looks like in real folks' houses, rather than the ideal conditions of the galleries.' And I started FABO."
Result: A stable with four dozen artists and a house full of clutter. She took 130 pieces to one show last month, cramming them into her Volkswagen Tiguan: bigger paintings in the back seat, little paintings in the hatch, pieces of jewelry and ceramics tucked on the floors.
Once at a party, she hangs paintings and displays smaller pieces on kitchen and dining room tables. The host earns credit toward a purchase and a discount based on sales. If $1,000 worth of art goes out the door, for instance, the host gets $100 in FABO credit and a 35 percent discount on one piece.
So far, the process is as purely democratic as art-selling can be. Aussieker says she hasn't yet had to discriminate among clients according to her tastes: She takes on all comers, whether they're affiliated with galleries or not. She lets them choose pieces and set prices, then supplies party feedback if desired.
"I had one artist whose work I hated, but I liked the guy, and people responded to his stuff," she says. "I like 95 percent of the things I show, though."
Aussieker has spent much of her life selling things: at APCO, as group vice president of sales and marketing for the Charlotte Chamber, then for the construction company Balfour Beatty. But FABO isn't selling, exactly - it's proselytizing.
"I'm letting people know that original art is affordable, and you can get addicted to it. You can buy a print at Pier 1 for a lot less, but you can get a beautiful original piece - one that can change a room - for a few hundred dollars instead.
"I'm going after people who are decorating offices, people who are buying gifts. Why get your child's teacher a gift card for some restaurant if you can get a unique pair of earrings?"
A tiny bowl with FABO inscribed at the bottom costs $8. Her most expensive is a $1,600 painting, though she sells only a couple of items more than $1,000.
"Above $500, people hesitate," she says. "Between $100 and $500, they don't seem to." (Full disclosure: I bought a $12 Art in Hand deck, 56 playing cards reproducing paintings by 56 artists. Lovely, if difficult to use in a quick game of rummy.)
She'll even let prospective buyers take a piece home with them, if they'll give her a credit card number. Don't ask her for advice, though: "People often want to know, 'Who's going to be worth something someday?' I always tell them, 'I'm no expert. Just buy what you love.'"
Aussieker has no idea of selling her own pieces, though she was motivated to start FABO after a creativity workshop at McColl Center for Visual Art.
"I dabble at the piano, and I paint a bit and do some sketches," she says. "My mother can wallow in paint happily for a week, but I don't have the patience to sit in a studio all day."
