Adding art to your walls

Deepa Bharath

In less than a year, Leslie McCarthy expanded her business twice.

McCarthy Fine Arts and Consulting was born in March with one

client -- Laguna artist Allayn Stevens, who now lives in Newport

Coast.

Within months, the Costa Mesa resident roped in 31 others from

all over the world and got them to display their work in her Quail

Street gallery in Newport Beach.

She has, on display, an array of art from designer jewelry and

Peruvian tapestries to metal and fiber sculptures and paintings. And

the works come from all around the globe -- China, Korea, Germany,

Peru, France, Switzerland and Canada.

“People don’t have time to look for art,” McCarthy said. “I help

them to find something for their homes -- it could be a mansion or a

one-bedroom condominium.”

What McCarthy offers is her time to visit her customers in their

homes and look at their art needs.

“I look at what kind of art they want -- a painting or a

sculpture,” she said. “Then I go back, look in my collection and get

back to them with options.”

McCarthy does not charge her customers for this service. The sale

of the art, which she has on consignment from the artists, is what

pays her. She takes the money from the customer and pays the artist a

percentage of the sale price.

McCarthy also hosts wine tastings every month at her gallery. The

1,400-square-foot space is open to private parties as well, she says.

This entrepreneur is also a successful calligrapher with a large

corporate clientele, including Sony, South Coast Plaza, Sprint PCS

and Mikimoto pearls.

The artworks range in price from $60 to $20,000 a piece. Most of

the artists “came to me,” she says. It was a lot of word-of-mouth

that did the trick for her business, McCarthy said.

She definitely plans to expand even further because there is

obviously a demand for art in this area.

“I’m very excited about this business,” she said. “It was an idea

that came to me overnight. I just did not expect it to take off so

soon.”