west palm beach magazine
Interview
Glass as Fine Art
in the Heart of
Downtown
“Habatat Galleries is in the forefront of contemporary glass and fine art,
exhibiting global artists working creatively with glass”
By Sandra Schulman
A
lmost four decades ago, Lindsey
Scott’s parents started Habatat
Galleries, a family business she grew up
in and around. It was her family legacy
though she at first resisted it a while until
she found her own identity.
“I went to school for business,
psychology and web design,” she says,
sitting in her sunny prime location
Clematis Street gallery with her sleek
blonde hair and polished manner. “But
eventually after we had the gallery in
Virginia and then moved it to West Palm
Beach in 2009 and my mother Linda
Boone retired in 2011, I decided to take
it over.”
Habatat specializes in glass art and
has worked stylishly hard to exhibit new
generations of the art form and change
people’s perceptions of what glass art is
and can be.
But times have changed a lot in the art
business since her parents’ days. What
she did learn was how to develop her eye
for art and how to cater to the clientele.
“Things are certainly different now than
they had been before,” she acknow-
ledges. “Social media has enormously
changed how we do business. We have
over 28,000 followers on Instagram and
have upgraded our website. You have to
have a major online presence. We sell
and market a lot of work online now and
need to keep in constant contact with
our collectors and our artists, many of
whom we’ve found online as well. This
past summer has been the best we have
ever had for sales and the new market
we are seeing is younger collectors,
people in the 20s.”
Lindsey Scott has been adding
contemporary artists to the gallery
stable, works like a clear glass pipe
shaped like a full-size machine gun grabs
attention and sales.
“This is art you won’t find in a head
shop! We have some work that is edgier
than others. Buyers still love bowls and
decorative items but the unexpected
art and works that are edgier and have
a narrative, are more popular with the
younger collectors. We’ve always been
about taking chances and been cutting
edge with what we aim to exhibit.”
The gallery has many artists they
represent and have exhibited for decades
and others in the last few years such as
Miami’s Mark Diamond.
“A lot of artists come to us, others are
through client referral and sometimes
through artist referral. Often we see new
work we like on Instagram. We are always
expanding, we don’t want to ever be
too narrow in what we show. It’s still a
con tinual process to educate people that
glass is an art and not just a craft. Fifteen
years ago this was an argument but it
has largely caught up. Other art forms
like wood carvings and ceramics are
still about 10 years behind this kind of
perception. Awareness has changed the
conversation. We like artists that are a bit
underground and true to their roots.”
Scott also experimented with having a
booth in the big art fairs but quickly
realized that they were not working for
her.
“It’s quite an expense to do a big fair
and most times we just broke even. Because we show such specialty work and
have lots of private and corporate collectors and clients all over the country, we
just felt it was an unnecessary event.
Continues on page 87
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wpb magazine
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