Collectors[
Brooks Bell
Raleigh, North Carolina
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
Brooks Bell is a self-described colonoscopy enthusiast, board member and serial entrepreneur. She founded, Brooks Bell, Inc. nearly 20 years ago to help bring a data-driven mindset to digital marketing departments, and it quickly became the leading organization in the industry. She co-founded Raleigh Founded to inspire young entrepreneurs...
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Sam Adams
Raleigh, North Carolina
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
I am a North Carolina native. Raleigh is home. I am drawn to the sea and mountains, the shifting landscape, back roads, galleries, antique shops, diverse accents, and bizarres between. I like a slow, pretty road with lots of stops. When I see a picturesque eastern North Carolina landscape,...
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Jens-Peter Brask
Copenhagen, Denmark
COPENHAGEN,
DENMARK
You don’t have to be an art expert to know what you like — what pulls you in or lights you up. Even with his depth and breadth of knowledge and experience in the art world, Danish curator, collector and publisher Jens-Peter Brask says what he ultimately looks for is art...
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Chandra Johnson
Charlotte, NC
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
There are the people who keep their fine china locked away in a cupboard… And then there’s Chandra Johnson, who uses hers on the daily, and runs it (and her silver flatware!) right through the dishwasher. Her rationale? What’s the point of having these treasures if not to enjoy them?...
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Branford and Nicole Marsalis
Durham, NC
DURHAM,
NORTH CAROLINA
Art can be many things to many people. For Nicole and Branford Marsalis, it’s personal. The Durham, North Carolina home the couple shares with their two daughters is filled with works that have a story to tell, shining a light on parts of their lives. One piece in particular provides...
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Charlotte Lucas
Charlotte, NC
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
Never underestimate the potential of a vision to become reality. As an interior designer, Charlotte Harris Lucas says one of the most rewarding things about her job is seeing something that started as a mood board or sketch morph into a full-blown home or design that gives a family a...
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Barrie Benson
Charlotte, NC
CHARLOTTE,
NORTH CAROLINA
For many collectors, discovering and selecting art is a process that starts slowly. Maybe they buy work from artists they know or pick up a few pieces on their travels. Charlotte-based interior designer Barrie Benson’s first experience building a collection, on the other hand, was something altogether more intensive. Right...
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Scott Avett
Concord, NC
CONCORD,
NORTH CAROLINA
Hanging alongside a 17th-century painting in the Old Masters section at The North Carolina Museum of Art is “Julianne in Vain,” a striking chiaroscuro portrait North Carolina artist Scott Avett painted in 2009. The anachronistic placement is a recognition of the deep influence artists like Caravaggio have had on his...
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Jordan & Paul Ferney
New York, NY
NEW YORK,
NEW YORK
What do you get when two people who each grew up with artist parents meet, fall in love and build a life together? The crazy-colorful, art-filled NYC home of Jordan and Paul Ferney. From her mother, Jordan learned clever ways to create cheery spaces without spending a...
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Marie Cox
Raleigh, NC
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
When Raleigh resident Marie Cox began collecting art in 2013, she was an only child, or so she thought. Last year, more than any new art acquisitions, the discovery of hidden branches of her family tree — four siblings she didn’t know she had! — rocked her...
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Dustin Patrick Smith & Burton Buffaloe
Raleigh, NC
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
A recent YouTube video for Raising Buffaloes, the family vlog Dustin Patrick Smith and his husband Burton Buffaloe launched this summer, finds the handsome Raleigh couple en route to “test drive an Alpaca.” What the less imaginative among us might call a tour of a local...
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David Agger + Kalah Espinoza
San Francisco, CA
SAN FRANCISCO,
CALIFORNIA
In the early stages of California couple Kalah Espinoza and David Agger's art collecting journey, proximity was paramount. For David, it began with on-the-job exposure to multiple genres of art while working at art auction house Butterfield & Butterfield. Even closer to home, he started collecting work...
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Tift Merritt
Raleigh, NC
RALEIGH,
NORTH CAROLINA
Nothin fancy, Nothin fake / Nothin wasted and no deal to make / What you need is what you want to take / And what you take, you use. Though Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Tift Merritt was probably not writing about collecting art in her song Sweet Spot, those lyrics do...
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Anna & Amir Barzin
Chapel Hill, NC
CHAPEL HILL,
NORTH CAROLINA
Collector and commercial photographer Anna Barzin has almost convinced herself that she’s not a real artist, but we have discriminating evidence to the contrary. To start, the way she captures light in her portrait work is beyond masterful. And from the ‘takes one to appreciate one’ category, in...
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Nick Olsen
New York, NY
NEW YORK,
NEW YORK
Nick Olsen's final project in architecture school was a media center shaped like a life-size wedding cake, complete with real icing and plastic columns. The in-person critique included words like ‘failure’ and ‘waste of a college education,’ but the silver lining was the push it gave him...
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