Meet Liz Lidgett | Founder and curator at Liz Lidgett Gallery + Design

We had the good fortune of connecting with Liz Lidgett and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Liz, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
As an art advisor, I worked with galleries daily and noticed several themes that I wanted to change. I knew I couldn’t change the art world completely but I wanted to show that treating artists and client well, was good business. Additionally, we made a commitment to represent at least 50% women artists because the international average is below 20%. Inclusion is an important tenant of the gallery. We want clients to feel welcomed into the art world, as well as working with artists from a variety of backgrounds. We believe the art world is for everybody.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Accessibility and inclusion are so important to our business. We think about how to share the art world with clients every day. One of those ways in by doing a sale twice a year of artwork under $500. We hope that this helps create opportunities for people to plan and budget for purchases of original artwork. We also focus a lot on education and sharing the stories of our artists. This helps our clients connect with the artwork on a variety of levels.

Our next under $500 sale is July 12th at 10 am central on LizLidgett.com. Everything on our website is shoppable and we ship artwork around the country on a daily basis.

We also create a lot of educational and fun content on our instagram @LizLidgettGallery. We love interacting with artists and clients through social media.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We just had the best weekend in Des Moines for our 5 year anniversary. We had almost 25 of our artists in town and this is what we told them:

-We love the Surety Hotel in downtown Des Moines or the AC Marriott in the East Village.
-Restaurants to check out Oak Park, Harbinger, Bubba, and Luca.
-There’s great shopping in the East Village at Marne, Fontanelle, Janes, Aimee, Eden and Ephemera. Then walk down to the gallery to check out our current show.
-After seeing the gallery definitely head down to the Pappajohn Sculpture Park and the Des Moines Art Center.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I fell in love with art at the age of 5 at my local art museum, The Des Moines Art Center. It is a free museum that has an incredible collection and partners with organizations from around the city to help people from every walk of life enjoy art. I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without a museum that believed in accessibility.

Website: www.LizLidgett.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/LizLidgettGallery

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lizlidgettgallery

Image Credits
Photographer: Adam Albright