The Art of the Office – Launching our BR Places: Gallery

Rebecca Fox was walking down Prince Street in Lancaster City one day in 2008, when she spotted a man and woman standing on the sidewalk holding on to their bikes and talking to each other. She subtly snapped a photo and filed it away as inspiration for a future painting. Then in 2015, she pulled the picture out, again, and started to paint, and “Young Love” in oil on canvas emerged. She posted it to her Etsy shop, and waited for it to sell.

Fast forward to 2018.

Our Benjamin Roberts team was just beginning the process of reimagining what our impact could be on our employees, customers, and community. We were working hard to put words to the values we had already been living out as a company, and “Creating Art” was an obvious one. It’s part of what we do as a contract furniture dealer with designers on staff who work with our sales team to help create beautiful, functional, and inspiring workplace furniture solutions for our clients.

We also have been slowly and steadily building our collection of local art over the years. And since art is a natural complement to office furniture, it was also only natural to fulfill our value of Creating Art by creating the BR Places: Gallery in our showroom to help us better showcase the work of talented local artists in our community, ultimately helping to bring in new prospects and supporting the local arts movement that drives our economy and benefits us all.

So, we jumped on Etsy and started searching for artists in Lancaster. As we scrolled through the listings, we came across Rebecca’s Young Love painting and had to do a triple take. “Hey, that’s our building!”

The photo Rebecca had taken 10 years earlier was captured right in front of our offices and showroom! So, of course we had to have it. And we’re thrilled to now have “Young Love” as part of our permanent collection.

And we didn’t stop there. We launched the BR Places: Gallery to give us a platform to support the arts, encourage clients who are designing their workplaces to decorate with art by local artists, and to have a unique avenue to reach prospective clients that we didn’t have, before.

We hosted our inaugural Lancaster First Friday event on October 5 – with an “Art of the Office” theme – featuring our friends down the street at Friendship Heart Gallery. And on November 2 from 6 to 9 p.m. in our showroom at 240 N Prince Street in Lancaster, we will be hosting Rebecca Fox as our featured artist for our next First Friday BR Places: Gallery event.

Interested in decorating your workplace or home office with local art? Swing by on November 2 and see what Rebecca and other local artists have to offer. Want to create a gallery space to feature local artists at your workplace? Stop by on November 2, and check out what we’ve done. We’d love to meet you and help in any way we can.

See you in November!