An artist’s touch

Candace Doyle

Lynn Gaffey's definition of total project delivery differs from a contractor's — totally.

The co-owner of the Almont Gallery doesn't think the job's done when a job's done.

No, her punch list includes an additional item: original, even commissioned, artwork by local artists.

"I just have a wonderful array of artists," said Gaffey, who has 16 artists sharing space in her Waukesha gallery.

That array, which covers a full range of media (oil, acrylic, photography and clay), is a budding group of about 70 artists in residence in downtown Waukesha, Gaffey said.

"Waukesha is exploding," she said.

And Gaffey wants to be their ambassador and help them snag corporate clients, like those who have recently built or expanded a building.

"I just want to help get our artists' work out there, particularly from our gallery," she said. "What's the in with these builders?"

Gaffey started down this road after Waukesha Memorial Hospital commissioned the Katie Gingrass Gallery — in Milwaukee, no less — to create artwork after its $60 million, 220,000-square-foot, five-story patient tower was completed in summer. Milwaukee's CG Schmidt Inc. and Engberg Anderson Design Partnership Inc. worked on the project.

It was through Engberg Anderson that the artwork for the hospital was commissioned, said Julie Strojny, an interior designer with the firm. That work includes a mural depicting the four seasons in the lobby adjoining the new addition. Other commissioned artwork includes a mural near the ambulance bay that's a tribute to firefighters and police, a landscape painting for the second floor, smaller paintings of well-known local areas — including Frame Park — for the fourth and fifth floors and photography of mothers and children for the new birthing center.

Strojny said Engberg Anderson has a long-standing relationship with Gingrass, whose list of local corporate clients is impressive and includes Allen Bradley, Robert W. Baird & Co., Bank One, Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, G.E. Medical Systems, the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Rockwell International.

Now, Gaffey isn't trying to start a new border war. She'll leave that to the politicians.

Yet she can't help but wonder, "Why not stay in your own area if you can?"

To be sure, her motives are mercenary. She wants to be part of the picture.

"I'd like to be one of the first they call. I'm just trying to get the word out and not really knowing where to start."

Consider this your first step in that direction.