0:00:00 - (Linda Habak): Linda. I'm Linda Habakk, and this is Build Beautiful. This isn't just a podcast about design. It's about the people behind the work and the truth behind the journey. The quiet pivots, the bold decisions, the failures no one sees, and the moments that change everything. Each episode, I sit down with architects, designers, developers, artists and creative entrepreneurs not to talk about success, but about what it takes to get there.

0:00:29 - (Linda Habak): The process, the doubt, the grit, the heart. If you believe in creating with meaning and living a life with intention, then you'll feel right at home here. Welcome to Build Beautiful, where design meets depth. Today on Build Beautiful, I'm joined by Sally Dan Cuthbert, art dealer, gallerist, and cultural patron whose work quietly shapes how we see, feel, and collect. As the founder of Galerie Sally Dan Cuthbert, established in 2019, she has created a singular space where contemporary art and collectible design are given equal weight, dissolving the boundary between function and feeling, object and atmosphere.

0:01:18 - (Linda Habak): But Sally's role extends beyond the white walls. She's part patron, part nurturer, and always a steward of beauty. In this conversation, we explore the quiet power of curation, the courage it takes to champion artists in a rapidly shifting world, and the responsibility and privilege of cultivating legacy. We talk about taste, trust, and the invisible threads that connect artist to collector and art to life.

0:01:47 - (Linda Habak): This is a conversation about more than what we see. It's about what we sense and the compass that art can offer when we choose to let it guide us. Here's my conversation with Sally. Sally, welcome.

0:02:00 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Good morning. That was really beautiful. Oh, I'm glad.

0:02:03 - (Linda Habak): Thank you for joining me. I met you many, many, many years ago, completely outside of the interior design and art world. I'll never forget that night. I think it was Aria Restaurant, and you and Chris walked into the room, and I was just in awe. And I just thought, here is this woman, I will never fear you, wearing a black suit with a beautiful white Chanel camellia. And I just thought, wow, you just held with such grace. And little did I know then, because I don't even think I had started studying design then. I was just in love with design and art, but hadn't even pursued a career or studies.

0:02:41 - (Linda Habak): Little did I know I would cross paths with you all these years later, and you still inspire me. Your knowledge of art and your generosity is incredible. So I'm really grateful to have you here today and to have this conversation. Thank you. But let's start at the beginning. Cause I know you have a really interesting pathway into art, and I'd Love to just unpack. Tell me what it is. How did you get here?

0:03:05 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Well, it has been a bit of a winding journey. I feel very privileged to have been on that journey and hopefully will continue for many years to go. So. I was brought up in a family where culture was really important. We had mixed backgrounds from my parents and so I was always exposed to different cultures. Both my parents were in the medical field and my father in particular worked. He was a surgeon and worked long hours and the only time that he really spent with us was in January when there was non elective surgery in the hospitals.

0:03:41 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And he would make it his mission to take us to places around the world that he thought when we were old enough to take ourselves, we may not have the opportunities to go. And I think given the times that we're living in at the moment, he was probably wise beyond his young years back then. So I feel apart from their interest and how we were brought up and being exposed to art and culture, music, architecture, literature, it was also the travels.

0:04:13 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I think when you're exposed to things from a very young age, you learn by osmosis. I realize now I'm a very visual person, so I was obviously just pulling all of that in on all that time. I never obviously as a child thought I'm gonna be involved in the art world or anything like that. I can't even remember as a child, you know, whether I wanted to be a fireman or whatever it might have been like. I know my children, my boys have been.

0:04:41 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So I had these wonderful experiences and parents that really encouraged you to explore and even though they were medical, it was not about actually they wanted us to do well at school, but it wasn't that we had to follow in their footsteps. They just believed in a good schooling and they also believed in tertiary education. And they said, but what we studied was totally up to us. So I actually did go on and I studied commerce, so nothing to do with art, but I majored actually in economic history because I think I was craving that some sort of culture within that degree.

0:05:20 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I had a lecturer who really believed in me and offered me a scholarship to look at the economic contribution of Scotland into Australia after colonisation.

0:05:35 - (Linda Habak): Very specific, very specific.

0:05:37 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And it was actually the most incredible opportunity. And I think that is the one thing that my father, I would never say my father was disappointed in any of us because he. He revels in, in our everyday. But I know to this day he thinks it was a mistake me not taking that. But what it made me think about And I didn't do it. Cause it was very specific, you know, that's a really good thing to. And I was young and I just wanted to have fun. And so then I started thinking, well, what do I really want to do?

0:06:04 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I realised it was something to do within the arts. And so I applied to do my Masters of Fine Art at the Courtauld Institute in London, Courtauld University, which is sort of one of the most prestigious art learning in the world. And I was accepted, which was very exciting. But because of these, the sort of the Australia, European change in university dates, I would be finishing up my university here in November. And I wouldn't start, you know, until.

0:06:35 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Till August the following year in London. I was thinking, what would I do? And I happened to be at a gallery opening for a gallery that doesn't exist anymore. The director of the gallery was explaining that they were going to be the first gallery in Australia to have a gallery in Sydney and also in Melbourne. And this was quite huge. She was a woman, really strong, powerful woman in the arts. And I went home and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And so I rang her the next morning. I said, you don't know me, but I happened to be at your gallery opening last night and I'd really like to move to Melbourne and help you set up the gallery. And I said, you don't have to pay me, you know, I can go, but I've got this time and I'd really like some experience.

0:07:16 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And she said, well, you need to come in and I need to sort of meet you. And so I went in and got all dressed up and went for my first big job interview at. Had jobs, obviously at uni in school, but this was my first serious job. Yeah, we're talking away and I was getting very excited and animated. And then she was really calm and I'm thinking, okay, I don't know how to read this. And then at the end of it, she said, great, I'd like to offer you a job, but I'm not sending you to Melbourne.

0:07:43 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I sort of went, oh. And she said, yes, I'd like you to curate our 60th anniversary exhibition of the gallery. We're one of the oldest galleries in Australia as well. And then my face just dropped. I could feel my whole body language. And I'm thinking, okay, that excitement. And she thinks, I've already done this Masters. And so then I had to sort of backpedal and say, oh, I might have oversold myself. Like, no, I haven't done it yet.

0:08:05 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And she said, no, no, I realize that, but I think you can do it. I think the way you have conducted yourself, you know, on the telephone this morning and then coming in straight away this afternoon and putting yourself out there, she said, just do it.

0:08:19 - (Linda Habak): And can I stop you there for a second? Do you think your cultural upbringing was the foundation of that ability to go, I want to do this, so I'm going to put myself out there? Like, do you link the two or do you think that's just innate in you?

0:08:34 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): That's a really good question and not something I've thought about before. I think thinking on my toes, perhaps having those travel experiences and being in situations where it's not just been in Sydney, which is quite a environment, probably, and watching my parents navigate situations, because there were times in the Middle east and in Africa, we were in compromised situations and. And I guess we were always taught to, even as children, to have a certain calmness and respect for adults. But listen. And we were always brought into conversations and asked our opinions. So I think maybe that's became innate.

0:09:16 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, in.

0:09:17 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Into me.

0:09:17 - (Linda Habak): Because you had enough value in yourself to know, I can do this. I think there's just such fortitude in that. And I love that.

0:09:26 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): I don't know that I thought I could curate this exhibition that scared me so much.

0:09:31 - (Linda Habak): That's good. That's where the growth is. Right. When you're terrified, that's when you grow. Sure.

0:09:36 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I think, you know, I was Young, in my 30s, I may not have been that. Yeah, you know, gung ho, but I guess I had nothing to lose. And I'm a person that says, don't ask, don't get. And I believe that, you know, often even when you just want to change a meeting time and you think, oh, it's a really important meeting, I can't change it. But then you put it out there and the person says, oh, that's great. Cause actually different teams. So I've always had that sort of feeling and thought process.

0:10:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And, you know, I went home and I said to my parents, this has happened. And there was actually one catch. So sorry, I should just go back a minute. She said, but if you take this job, you can't go to university. So what do you think about that? And so then I got had another sort of letdown in that. That meeting because I really, as much as I'd gone to her to ask for this, an internship, I guess is what you'd call it now, my head was. It was just a little chunk of Time before I went and actually studied. So I knew what I was doing.

0:10:37 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So I went home and talked to my parents and they said whatever my heart wanted to do. You know, there was no right or wrong and we didn't have a crystal ball, so we couldn't know. And I did go and try and talk to a couple of other people in the industry. I've also been someone that's not scared to ask questions. I want to be the best I can, but I know I'm not an expert in anything really. You know, I try and know a lot. And even though I'm visual, I read nonstop. Like I get up in the morning and I read for about two hours before I even open my emails for everything that's come in all the newspapers, art newspapers, blogs, things like that, before I even start my day. So I've always sort of had a thirst for that.

0:11:17 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So I asked a couple of other people and actually it was Robert Bleakley, who was the ex chairman of Sotheby's, who doesn't have it anymore. And he told me to take the job because he said you can go on and study and studying overseas. If I wanted to come back to Australia, it would have some relevance, but I wouldn't be studying Australian artists. And actually this is an incredible opportunity. So I took the job.

0:11:41 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): What I didn't realize was that the exhibition to mount it would take so long. All the research that I did, because a little bit was fumbling. Cause I didn't know what I was doing. Luckily the gallery had great archives. So I basically spent a year going through all the archives. And then I spent the next few months approaching people to work out whether we could lend work back. Cause that's what I ended up deciding to do.

0:12:05 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You could only defer that master's course twice. So I deferred it once, deferred it twice, and then I lost my position. So I've actually. This is the part where I say I've never actually had formal training in art. It's all been on the job experience. So I did that in the mid to late 80s and the gallery actually asked me to stay on. And they create a role for me actually in corporate art. Because part of what I was doing borrowing back these artworks is that going out to people. And some of these corporations did realise the chairman's had gone on, they didn't realise what they had. So when I turned up and said may I borrow that Nolan for an exhibition, they wouldn't even know that it was a Nolan sitting in the boardroom. Then they'd ask me to fill out the paperwork and then I'd tell them that was a conflict of interest, they had to get their own valuers. And.

0:12:54 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so from those conversations, a couple of those corporations asked if I would then go on and catalog. And I said, well, I'm just an employee, I would take it to my director. And so she then started up a role. So I did that for a while. And then the late 80s came in the recession and that work had dried up and I couldn't see that those companies, even though the intention had been after I'd catalogued and sorted everything out, that they would then start collecting again, which was really exciting.

0:13:19 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so I thought to this woman who'd been. Had seen something in me, I owed it to her to resign, that she didn't feel that she had to keep me on when the work wasn't necessarily there. So I resigned, and with nothing to go to, within two weeks, I was offered a job as painting specialist at Christie's in Sydney, who are expanding the big auction house under another powerhouse woman, Sue Hewitt, who unfortunately passed away recently.

0:13:48 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, so I fell into my next job and learned from another woman who was just. I just feel so fortunate. The women that I've had in my life, when a lot of the time we hear that there haven't been these women, it's been a men's world. I've always been surrounded by strong women and had that support. So I do feel, you know, I have been one of those maybe lucky people. And so I worked with Christie's for several years, but right at the end I was engaged.

0:14:18 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And between my husband working and me working, and with Christie's, because it was still a small office, I was travelling a lot and going overseas and doing things. And so I, I, I was away a lot more than he was and he was getting a little bit antsy that what marriage life would become, if this is what engagement life was like. And at the same time, I had family that used to buy and come and see me at Christie's, ask if I would leave Christie's to become their private family advisor.

0:14:46 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so again, I had this opportunity and I thought, gosh, timing, it was becoming a struggle. I knew I wanted to have children and I know you can't say this now, but I wouldn't have been able to have children working for Christie's because of the, that I kept, the travel that I did. I don't know how I would have done it.

0:15:02 - (Linda Habak): Times have really changed. They really have I couldn't have children and also continue a career in marketing. It just was not possible back then.

0:15:09 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): It's not, you know, there wasn't flexible hours. I mean, I think a lot of it was, there was the expectation, but it was also, I think, what we put on ourselves.

0:15:17 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely.

0:15:18 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And sometimes I find that really frustrating when, you know, I'm at work and I'm thinking, what do you mean you can't just stay back for an extra 15 minutes? Like I would have been staying back for four hours.

0:15:27 - (Linda Habak): Oh God, I used to do 16 hour days and get paid absolutely nothing.

0:15:31 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): I know. I mean, it's good that times have changed, you know, they needed to change.

0:15:35 - (Linda Habak): The pendulum has swung way too far.

0:15:38 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly the other end. Totally. And I think too, coming from a medical family, my father didn't work a 9 to 5 job. You know, he was called out in the middle of the night. We had a great balance, so we went away. But so I left, I left Christie's to become these, this family's advisor, which was really, really exciting. And that's where my advisory then really took off. And I worked for, just privately for a little while. And then once we got the collection up, I moved into being an advisor more broadly. That allowed me to have other clients and I now, I've never advertised in marketing. It's been word of mouth because as an advisor, your job is to fly under the radar.

0:16:18 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): People are coming to you, usually because they're time poor and they're people that are very invested in the arts, but they have their world and their career. And so they use an advisor really to filter down everything to them. And obviously like other careers, you're there 100%. As an advisor, you have to be 100% knowing everything, knowing everybody, whether it's locally or abroad, drawing on that knowledge for what you need for these collections. So I have done that.

0:16:50 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And then we get to 2018, when along the years I've worked with what were emerging artists that are now some of the most significant artists in the country. In Australia, I did work with international as well, but with the gallery I represented sort of artists that are connected at the moment to Australia or New Zealand. And over that time they'd asked me to open a gallery and I'd said that I wouldn't because as an advisor you're meant to be impartial.

0:17:17 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so to have a gallery there would be conflict, cause you'd be representing people. And there is a natural human nature, no matter how much you try and push it away, that as soon as you have a connection to something, you will always try and promote that first.

0:17:34 - (Linda Habak): It's what is an unconscious bias.

0:17:36 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly. And even as much as transparent that you can be by saying to people, by the way, I do this, you know, there's probably a little bit of you that hopes more they'll go that way than another way. So I really resisted that for a long time. But there was a client that I work with and work with a couple of generations of their family actually, who even though they had houses and things around the world, they were getting quite full. They didn't want things in storage necessarily. And they had great architects and designers, beautiful homes.

0:18:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And they said, why do we buy furniture that is ready made when we have all this art on the walls and sculpture that we're commissioning? Like, why aren't we commissioning people to make bespoke furniture and design for us? It was sort of, we were in London looking at buying some antique furniture and I was sort of really more along for the ride. I was doing the art, but got drawn into that. And Chris and I had always really been interested in art and design and architecture when we were collecting.

0:18:33 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so I've always found it very interesting. And so she sort of said to me, look, I think when we get back to Australia, you should start looking at people who you think sculptors or artists that could make a coffee table or a chandelier or something like that. Let's investigate that. And so functional art. So functional art. And so that's sort of how, you know, I sort of meandered into doing the design as well as the art.

0:18:57 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I had to really, we study up very fast on that because I had an interest, but not to advise, be able to advise on, because I also take that quite seriously that if you are advising people and not that I advise on investment art, I mean, you use an advisor to make sure pricing and everything is right. But I would never tell someone this would double in price or do whatever. So I had to really learn about design and do a lot of research there to feel comfortable that I could work in that space.

0:19:27 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Like everything I still learn every day about art and design. But we started commissioning artists and then I started having collectible design artists or functional artists saying to me, we went to industrial design school, we went to art school, we studied timber or sculpture, marble, whatever it might be, and to make collectible design pieces. And there aren't galleries in Australia doing this. So we have fallen into working for big companies making beautiful pieces, but. But no different to other way Pieces are being made. They weren't even limited edition.

0:20:01 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so they said they had been tinkering in their studios themselves making pieces. And the opportunity that I had with my clients, and I'm sure there would be other people that I don't know at the same time provided them to have that creative outlet. And so they started saying, please open something for us. So Chris and I talked about it, and we thought we would open a foundation. And so it wouldn't be commercial, but we would. Maybe twice a year we would approach an artist that we felt could work in the functional design area to commission them, to make a body of work. We would then exhibit it for four months, and that's what it would be.

0:20:43 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so I started looking down that space. Chris was helping me with that as well. And I've talked to an agent to try and find me a location, and I sort of thought I'd found something. And then I started talking to these artists, and I went, no, no, no, no, no. We need a commercial space. We don't need another museum. We need a commercial space. Because to be able to keep making, we need to make sales.

0:21:05 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely.

0:21:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And they said, you know, you have been a benefactor of museums and spaces and Biennales sort of all your married life, which is really great, and you've been obviously a supporter by acquiring work. But really the best philanthropy for an artist directly is coming from sales.

0:21:25 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely. Because it keeps them going.

0:21:27 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Keeps them going. It allows them to make the next piece. So I went, okay. So then I had to pivot again. And I guess all my life has been pivoting. Nothing's really being planned. I love the pivot. The pivot is wonderful. So I so thought, okay, fine. So I then started having to try and research other things. And then I found this fabulous space in Rush Cutters Bay. And so I had to have concurrent conversations because having a foundation meant that I could keep my advisory.

0:21:53 - (Linda Habak): Right.

0:21:54 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Opening a commercial space meant I had to have conversations, and I didn't want to give up my advisory. I have clients that I've had for 25, 30 years. And I. I didn't want to let that go. And so I went to them and I talked to them and I said, look, this is. As you know, I was planning this foundation. It's now evolved into something other, further conversations and developed into, it needs to be a commercial space.

0:22:18 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Whatever happens, I need to be there day to day and have real input. I can't just be a silent backer in this. And so they all actually gave me my Blessing. And they made a really good point that I hadn't thought about. Advisors actually don't necessarily not own stock. So some advisors will buy, purchase stock and hold it. Exactly.

0:22:38 - (Linda Habak): And sell it to the right. For the right person.

0:22:40 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Not all of them, but some of them. Like there's different ways of working because the art world is actually one of the most. Well, it's an unregulated industry. So they all said, you know, well, if you're gonna have a website, if anything, you're now more transparent than ever before because we can see who you represent. So there are all these sort of things that seem like they might be obvious, but because you're looking at other.

0:23:02 - (Linda Habak): Things, you're looking at it from one lens, aren't you? Exactly. So it's almost like an echo chamber.

0:23:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): It is.

0:23:07 - (Linda Habak): So when you get the advice from others, it's like the lens comes off and you're seeing it from a completely different perspective.

0:23:13 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly.

0:23:14 - (Linda Habak): That's incredible.

0:23:14 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I guess I'm so. I've never owned stock with my advisory, so I've always been very transparent, risk adverse, all those sort of things.

0:23:23 - (Linda Habak): That wouldn't be because you're married to an accountant.

0:23:25 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Is it? Because I know that feeling very well. I know, but it's. Hey, isn't it? It's so good.

0:23:32 - (Linda Habak): It's the best, best advice. Truly. I'm so grateful because I think I. Yeah. Could make some really bad decisions if it weren't for the very level headed financial brain.

0:23:42 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): My other half, I think too, to have that, to have someone that you can bounce over the breakfast table is really, really important because yes, you can pay people to do all of that, but there is a different level of interest and I think commentary that goes along when someone that's really invested in your success.

0:24:00 - (Linda Habak): That's right. And I can see that with Chris to digress for a minute. But he's just always there at all of the exhibitions that you've held and the gallery openings and he's just always there. And it's so beautiful to see that actually that you both have this joint passion for something and that he's your advocate actually. Because I'm sure when he was building his career, you're there supporting in a different way. So it's really wonderful to see from the outside.

0:24:26 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, that's lovely. And we are, we are a partnership and I do feel very, very lucky for us to have found each other.

0:24:32 - (Linda Habak): He's a great guy.

0:24:33 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that was my journey. So I'm very It's a very long journey. I love it.

0:24:39 - (Linda Habak): Maybe let's stay in the gallery now that we're here. I'm not going to ask you who your favourite artist is. Cause that would be like saying, you know, which of your boys do you love more? But what is the common thread that runs through the different artists that you represent in the gallery? So what are you looking for? Because I imagine maybe one day someone will listen to this episode who is a budding artist and wants to be represented by you. So what's inside of your mind and what are you looking for?

0:25:07 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): That's a really good question. I explained that the gallery came from people asking me. It's not something that I had ever thought that I would do. And probably at the time that I did, an interesting time when my husband's sort of retiring and the children have, you know, left. Left home and on their own career paths. But it came from really the design space. And when I looked around. And I think part of this actually goes back to my time, not just growing up, but my time at Christie's.

0:25:33 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So working for one of the three best auction houses in the world, Phillips, Christie, Sotheby's, you are exposed to everything. So even though I was the painting specialist, Australian painting specialist, I looked at rare books. If the ceramic consultant wasn't their specialist for the day and someone brought something in, I would have to, you know, hand over and catalogue that. So, you know, I learned all of a sudden about Meissen and Claris Cliff and different things like that. So I think I was exposed from the very.

0:26:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): As a child. But then in my early career, to looking at the art as just beautiful items, no matter what their form is, that are made by humans, which in this AI world, robot world, computer world, 3D printing world, when new materials are being invented every other day, I think that's really what stuck with me. And so that's what the gallery. And when I really looked around, when it was changing from a commercial gallery to a foundation, because again then, as a commercial gallery, you have a stable of artists, whereas a foundation, I'd be commissioning just two artists a year or something. So it was a very, very different move.

0:26:42 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So what I realised was there was some specific photographic galleries in Australia. Not so much. They've sort of almost gone by the wayside now, which is really unfortunate. But most of the galleries really focused on painting as their main medium and they may have a sculpture in there or something. And I'd known this, you know, through my advisory. Australia has always had a great Practice with artists working in sculpture, works on paper, photography and painting.

0:27:11 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But works on paper sculpture have always sort of been the poor cousins in a lot of people's eyes. And so I didn't want it to be a gallery that just had design furniture. I wanted then to bring in all the arts and to really put them on a pedestal on an equal footing. So yes, we have photographers, painters, sculptors, I have ceramics, glass as well as all the design pieces. And it's really to celebrate the arts as a whole.

0:27:42 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I think it's not a new concept. There are galleries that have been doing this overseas for a long time. But the pure nature of the Australian market being quite small and being so far removed from the rest of the world, you know, distance way. We hadn't really had galleries like that. So that's what I was really wanting to champion. And so they were the artists very hand driven. So when you look, often when you look at the gallery on the website or we send out mail outs, it can be hard to understand.

0:28:12 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You can see that they're quite beautiful, but to really understand them you need to come to the gallery. And I think that's one of the comments we get most. It's like, I'm so glad I came to the exhibition because they're even more beautiful and I can really understand them in person. And so I think that's, you know, something that is the common thread that I'm drawn to. Being able to see the artist's hand.

0:28:31 - (Linda Habak): I love that, being able to see the artist's hand. Because as you said, you touched on AI before. We are coming into this time where we will have agentic robots doing everything for us, but what they cannot do is replace the human element, the human connection. And I think being able to celebrate and champion these works, whether it is a painting or a sculpture or a piece of furniture, it's the artist's hand.

0:28:58 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): It is.

0:28:58 - (Linda Habak): So art is obviously all about the handmade, the head and the heart. I think, I think a lot about AI. I'm sort of obsessed with it the last sort of six to eight months. How do you think AI is going to impact or is impacting art and the art world and artists these days?

0:29:18 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, that's a really good question. And we get asked a lot about AI and how that's going to affect our industry. And I think if we link it to my thread in the gallery and the artists that I'm drawn to personally and professionally, is that handmade quality. And yes, you might be able to feed into something saying Paint me a painting that looks like this, that has an impasto or is flat or glossy finish.

0:29:46 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But what it can't do is a lot of the artists and we actually. The artist Edward Waring, that we have in the gallery at the moment, did an artist talk on Saturday, and he talked about his journey of being an assemblage artist and how he is now settled on glass through working through different other found objects. And he talked about a lot coming from trial and error and actually mistakes. And it's the curiosity, so the curiosity of the artist exploring different ways, ways of making, creating, thinking.

0:30:20 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And that's what AI can't really produce. From what I understand about AI, it doesn't. It's not going to produce a mistake. So the artist actually learning something and delving in or, you know, extending their practice or going down a rabbit hole because of a mistake. Exactly, is something that I think is. Is really special to an artist. And why AI won't replicate certain parts of the art world. I think it can be used for artist statements and all of that. But I have to say, I am now seeing words being used that I think, you know, there are certain set rules that you talk about art in.

0:31:03 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And there's a couple of new words that have been coming out that I've been watching. And I'm sure that it's because people are starting to feed their things into AI, and AIs sort of giving them these words back. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, how that develops. And then I think, you know, as much as the artist has to stay curious and learn from their mistakes, collectors and buyers do too, you know, keep looking at work and stay curious, because curious is what keeps us all young.

0:31:31 - (Linda Habak): Curiosity is everything. I just love what you've done with this gallery, and it's really beautiful. And I think it's a culmination of all the things that you've done all through your career, and it's represented in this incredible space. Yes, it's wonderful. What makes a powerful exhibition in your mind, Something that.

0:31:52 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): An exhibition that people remember and they can remember for the good reasons, and they can remember it because they didn't get it or they disagree with it or they didn't like it. It wasn't their style.

0:32:02 - (Linda Habak): Sure.

0:32:02 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I think that's a really important point, too, that don't always feel that you're going to go to a museum or a gallery or a sal and think you have to like everything, because part of the journey is actually understanding what you don't like. And I'm sure that's like, what's in your business, you know?

0:32:19 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely.

0:32:20 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You know, walking into a room, I think sometimes, you know, and I get to go into really beautiful spaces to walk into a room. And, you know, and I'm obviously a little bit picky.

0:32:32 - (Linda Habak): I go, oh, high standards.

0:32:33 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): High standards, Sally. That's what it is. Exactly. And we all have our personal style, of course. And I love working in. Into a space where. I don't know why, but I just feel good. Yeah.

0:32:44 - (Linda Habak): Because I think it's easy to design.

0:32:46 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): It is. It's great design.

0:32:47 - (Linda Habak): It's good design.

0:32:48 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And that's. And you don't see it. You feel it.

0:32:50 - (Linda Habak): Exactly.

0:32:51 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Whereas it's easier to walk into a space and go, oh, I don't really like that, and start picking it apart. Why? And so I think you should approach going into a gallery the same way is go in with, you know, sometimes you'll know the artist, so you will go in with, you know, preconceived ideas, but the other time is going in and you don't know the artist and ask questions and actually really just be with the art and just look at it. And you don't have to go.

0:33:14 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): I mean, obviously a museum you can't buy, but you don't have to go to a commercial gallery to buy either. You know, you need to be able to come and just spend time with it.

0:33:21 - (Linda Habak): Can we hold on that point? Because I think there's a misconception. I think there's a lot of people that feel really intimidated by art. Not everybody. Not, you know, people that are in it, in the industry or. But I do think for the general layperson who might have the means but not the knowledge, they feel a little intimidated. And I constantly say to people, just go, you don't have to go to purchase. You can just walk in and just be with it and just experience it and start that journey. So maybe we could touch on two things. One is, what advice would you give to someone who doesn't know much about art but is interested? Like, is there a starting point or some advice on that?

0:34:02 - (Linda Habak): And then I want to touch on designers and architects, but we'll get back to that. Let's. Yeah.

0:34:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So the way I've always started with my advisory, which some of it would be very similar to how you and your colleagues start, is that you need to sit down with the clients and get into their head and understand and go to their spaces, whether it's a corporate space or a private space. I use My eyes. So that visual thing, looking around because you're starting to absorb what they've already got and really understand with art as to why, if they're starting to. Starting to collect or wanting to collect. Like, why do you want to do this? Because there's different reasons to collect. You know, you think you should because your friends have, you know, you've always loved art, but you're not an artist, but you want to have it around you as an investment.

0:34:51 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly. All those other things that I don't really enjoy, but people do. So work out the why and then work out what you're drawn to. And so I always say to people, go to museums first.

0:35:04 - (Linda Habak): That's good advice.

0:35:04 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, start in the museum. And we've got great museums across Australia. Our regional galleries are some of the best in the world. And the National Gallery of Australia now has this new development program where they're lending key works to regional galleries. So, you know, you might end up finding blue poles in Timbuktu, which, you know, somewhere like that. You know, they're just. They're lending things around all over the place and then drawing in their collection.

0:35:31 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So you don't have to be in a situation city to go to a state gallery. Go to your regional gallery. There are community centers. Just engage and look and look and look. Because the one thing that I can say is that it's so much easier to buy than it is to sell if you start collecting. And collecting is a really interesting word because I would say the amount of people that are real collectors are very, very small.

0:35:56 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Most people. Exactly, exactly. Most people just, just acquire work and, you know, not saying it's not museum quality, but they're not necessarily collectors because they don't keep going, they don't have storage units. You know, they're building a body of work, if we want to call it like that, to live with, to maybe pass on to family members or to donate to museums or whatever it might be, or turn it over. But they're really buying to satisfy something in themselves, usually. And even if they're to trying, you know, their friends have told them they should do it, they'll end up getting the bug and it'll be about them in the end.

0:36:33 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So go to museums and have a look. And then I always say I would rather have a blank wall or a white wall. So that's probably a bit to a designer and architect too, than have the wrong art. Once you start then visiting the commercial galleries that have the same artists as the ones that you're Seeing when your eyes align, museum and commercial, that's when I think you're in the right moment to buy.

0:36:58 - (Linda Habak): Right.

0:36:58 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Because it means your eye is really sort of settling in. And it doesn't mean you're not gonna make mistakes, that you're not gonna buy something. You think, I shouldn't have done that. You know, And I think during COVID there was a lot of buyer's remorse buying over the Internet and. Cause everyone was sitting home and weren't spending money on going on holidays or restaurants. And you can even, you know, put that in somewhere that you don't visit or. There's nothing wrong with actually selling it if you've made a mistake or you don't like it anymore.

0:37:24 - (Linda Habak): What's the best way to sell an artwork these days?

0:37:27 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, it's actually quite tricky. So I think there's a misconception that you buy it from a gallery, the gallery will buy it back. That's number one. Yeah. Even before having a gallery, I would let you know that's not a thing. Occasionally, if you buy a work from a gallery that is by a significant artist and they're not prolific, which means they don't make a lot of work, the gallery will look at either buying the work back or taking it back on consignment.

0:37:52 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But if it's a contemporary artist, that's probably less so because they're still making. So then it's really through auction. And there are a couple of good. There's Deutsche, Hackett, Shapiro, Smith and Singer artists. But they're also. Lawson's quite picky in what they'll take. So it gets back to know what you're like. I have a thing that I've always said that, you know, you buy with your heart, but with knowledge.

0:38:17 - (Linda Habak): I love that.

0:38:17 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And the knowledge is that you ask questions, you know what you're getting into. You know, is there a checklist?

0:38:23 - (Linda Habak): Do you follow, or what? When you say knowledge, what are you checking against? What's the benchmark?

0:38:28 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, well, I guess it's that the knowledge is that you've asked questions, you've satisfied yourself that this artist has got an exhibition record. They've either been in museum shows, whether it's been a solo show or a group show, a Biennale, you know, something like that. So that they've got some sort of backing behind them. That's not just the gallery and you. And there's nothing wrong. I would never suggest someone that they didn't buy something that they like. That's the buying from the heart. You have to Have a connection to it. And the connection may not be that you just love it. It could be you're connecting on an intellectual level or, you know, some people connect with a piece because it's like, at the moment we've got an exhibition in the gallery and the work's all named after lyrics from songs. And, you know, you might like the work, but then you choose it from that. So there's different reasons to choose things, but that's what I always say. Ask the questions and be comfortable.

0:39:25 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And then at the end of the day, if you can afford it and you've got the place to put it and you don't have to know already, but you know, well, there is a spare wall or, you know, I can move things around, then just do it.

0:39:37 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, just do it.

0:39:38 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You know, just do it. Because having these things around you does change you. And I don't think until people start actually bringing the works into their space that they realise how much it transforms their lives. It's, you know, I think they think it's something that we are people put out there. I mean, I still. Years after. I mean, Chris and I have been collecting for 35 years and we do rotate. Cause we do keep buying and we do have storage.

0:40:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But I will still catch myself walking past a painting at a certain time of day and smiling because I will just have seen something in that, or sculpture or whatever it might be ceramic, I will have seen something new or for that moment, it will remind me of something that hadn't reminded me of before. And there is something that very few moments provide that to you and that's transformative. It is. It just stops you.

0:40:32 - (Linda Habak): It does, it does. That's the beauty of art and a space that holds you, you know, so we're in, you know, in the business of creating spaces that mean something, but not for no reason. You know, it's really to support yourself, your inner self.

0:40:48 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Self.

0:40:48 - (Linda Habak): Your outer self. So I love that enhances your well being 100%. Have you had an experience with a client over the years where you've placed artwork in their home and you've seen that transformation happen?

0:41:01 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, I have. So for me, as an advisor, and that's the sad thing a bit about having the gallery, like we do become very friendly with a lot of clients and friends. So I do get to see where work goes and they'll often send us a photo of it. But it's the joy for me has actually been working and with a couple of these advisory clients that I've had long Standing relationships with is they'll often take me to the first meetings with interior designers or architects to say, you know, you need to make Sal your best friend because she'll tell you the sort of walls that we require for the work that we already have, but also to future proof the spaces for when we want to change things or things like that. So, so going in then and acquiring something that is just perfect for that space, and whether it's there for a moment or long term, there is nothing more beautiful. Cause you can actually have the best work of art and hang it or install it in the wrong place and it doesn't do either justice.

0:42:01 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So actually getting that right, you know, there's lots of pieces in the puzzle.

0:42:05 - (Linda Habak): That's my next question. How do you think the placement and curation of art can shift the emotion resonance of a space or of a home? So what are your thoughts around that? And what advice do you give to architects and designers in terms of what do we need to consider right from the get go?

0:42:23 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Well, I think if you've got the opportunity, and I think everybody's got the opportunity, but maybe it's learning the delivery in opening up these conversations really in the first meetings with the client. Like, what is your view on art? Like, would you like to incorporate art? Do you already have art? Like, why? And if they say yes, we do. Like, okay, so is that something that you've been building for a long time? Is that, do you just have pieces that are special to you that you've collected?

0:42:50 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Understanding that and then trying to incorporate conversations about the art at the beginning so that it's not an afterthought. And I guess, you know, a lot of people say, well, I'm biased because I work in that space. And yes, I am. I'm biased too. But yeah, but I think, you know, you can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on beautiful curtains and fabric for sofas and things, and then without the equivalent on the walls or the floors or the tabletops, the mantels, you're not having a completed life to live in.

0:43:25 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I appreciate that we all have budgets and I certainly have a budget at home. And there are choices to make. And I think I totally understand. And I've been in this position before. When you're building or you're renovating, there are certain things that need to be done at that time, you know, whether it's the plumbing, the joinery, the electricity. So there are certain things that you can't shift on.

0:43:46 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But it's, well, could I live with that coffee table for the next 18 months when I move in and get that piece of art. But say to the architect and designer, can you put a note in the diary and can we revisit that coffee table or that something in 18 months time, you know, when I now then got the resources to change it?

0:44:05 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely. I mean it's a conversation I have all the time. I'd rather you buy less but buy better. You can't buy it now. Hold, just hold.

0:44:14 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly.

0:44:15 - (Linda Habak): Leave in the new renovated new build and then hold. But don't throw things in there. Cause you want this fully completed version of it and it's not right.

0:44:24 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly.

0:44:25 - (Linda Habak): So. And I've said to you before, often it's a long Runway because it's what people value. So. So sometimes art is just not on a client's radar.

0:44:35 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): No.

0:44:35 - (Linda Habak): So you have to start having those conversations early and almost it's incumbent on us to educate them, to offer them, to go to the galleries to see what they like, what they don't like. So it comes back to everything you're saying. But it's a, in my experience, it's often been a long Runway.

0:44:52 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah, absolutely. And some clients will be intrigued and they'll be scared, as you say, and not wanting to do things but. But you know, at the end of the day, I often try and give analogies and sometimes that's the easiest way to bring a client or a friend or a family member, you know, across and just open up their. The conversation and the world so that they might see it slightly differently. It's like, think about it like fashion, you know, we always say you better to buy that investment piece, one piece than five other pieces, Zara pieces, fast fashion pieces.

0:45:27 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So it's no different.

0:45:28 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:45:29 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And you know, when it comes to design, and you will know this, you know absolutely as well as I do, don't go and buy that copy. You know, again, do your research and design as much as you might do it in. You know, we spend a lot of time, we're buying a new car and we research it, you know, what model do we want? And we're comparing them and comparing specs. And a car is a major, you know, outlay of money. It's not an investment usually that depreciates.

0:45:54 - (Linda Habak): The minute it drives out exactly.

0:45:56 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): The showroom. And but people spend so much time looking at that for depreciating, mostly depreciating asset. Whereas with their art they're really scared to even start the investigation to go to a gallery. I mean now to me there's no excuse now because you can go online. Yes. And look it up and then read and read a little bit before you even go into the gallery. So do all of that. That's what I would say to architects and designers. Just start the conversation early and also have conversations with galleries, like, get comfortable with them. Because most. Not all, I mean, some can still try, you know, have a little bit of an air.

0:46:31 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But I know with us, we. We just want people to come and, you know, we want to chat, we want to talk. That's what we're there for. And, you know, this is probably something that shouldn't be said, but at the end of the day, we sit under the retail award. We are a luxury shop. We might want to call ourselves a gallery and everything else, but we're just selling really beautiful pieces.

0:46:54 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely.

0:46:55 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But it's no different than going somewhere else. So maybe just trying to break down.

0:47:00 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, that's the way you perceive it. Construct it.

0:47:02 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly.

0:47:02 - (Linda Habak): Construct that perception of, oh, it's a gallery. It's, you know, it's very. Yeah, absolutely. Because I think there is a lot of intimidation around it. I'm forever trying to tell people, just go.

0:47:13 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly.

0:47:13 - (Linda Habak): Just go and experience, connect.

0:47:15 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): See what you like.

0:47:16 - (Linda Habak): Take your kids.

0:47:16 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): All the kids study art at school now. They all get taken to the art gallery and things. Take them. And I find sometimes you get kids that touch, but most of the time they're in awe.

0:47:27 - (Linda Habak): And we love.

0:47:28 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): We've actually started a book at the gallery, Things that children have Said.

0:47:32 - (Linda Habak): Oh, I love that.

0:47:33 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Because they say the best things.

0:47:36 - (Linda Habak): That's fantastic.

0:47:37 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You could actually probably publish it. I think we probably could, yeah. Because we have. Because artists are always saying to us with the exhibitions, you know, can you tell us some of the things that people have said? And so. So we've noticed that some of the most beautiful things that have come out of people's mouths are actually out of the mouths of babes.

0:47:53 - (Linda Habak): Mouths of babes, absolutely. I want to talk about patronage now. So you've played a very pivotal role in supporting not just institutions, but individual artists throughout your career. What does meaningful patronage look like to you? And why have you supported the arts for all this time?

0:48:11 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Personally, I had done very early on with Chris, when we weren't in a position to necessarily buy the art we wanted to buy. And so it was a way of giving to a museum to help them buy. And obviously, if we couldn't buy ourselves, it's not going to buy them something. But it was a connection.

0:48:32 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:48:32 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So we Were connecting to a community that we wanted to be a part of, for whatever reason. That didn't mean just going drinking champagne, because I think there's a lot of mystique that that's all the art people in the art world do. It was giving some and then having the opportunity to meet the curator or the artist and having that, which is the knowledge part that I talked about before and just learning more deeply about something.

0:48:55 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And again, we're not gonna like everything that's in there. But sometimes the more, you know. And in fact, I segued before that was a question you asked me about places in the right place. Sometimes, you know, you have to be a psychologist with your clients and work out what they want. And one partner may want, you know, something differently to another partner. And what I've often found in art is that after a while, one of the partner that didn't really want the work will come to me and say it's now their most favourite piece.

0:49:22 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And so that going to museums is the same sort of thing. So if you haven't got necessarily the means to buy what you would want to have in your space, or you don't have the scale of the property, you can be involved. And that's where patronage is. And I think the thing about giving to museums, it keeps them open for the wider public and for children, for tourists to learn about culture. So it's something that's really been very important to me.

0:49:52 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I mean, we support across the arts, not just in the fine arts. And so that's what it's meant. But then it's also, as the gallery taught me, those artists, it's philanthropy also comes from actually buying as well. Because a museum or a gallery made by an artist once, maybe twice in that artist's life, but actually buying from an exhibition or at their studio, if they don't, don't have representation, allows them to keep making more and more and more to be out there. Because most artists, you know, they want to be in a museum, but they don't make thinking that a museum's gonna buy them and then stop after they've been bought.

0:50:32 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): True artists go to the studio every day, or they're in their space, might be reading poetry or whatever it is every day, they're doing something towards their practice. And it's a 247 job, unlike most other careers. And whether that's the visual arts, performing arts, literature, they are. It is.

0:50:51 - (Linda Habak): It's innate and that's actually part of the problem.

0:50:53 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And it'll be sometimes part of the problem in your world too, I imagine, is when you're traveling, most people's holidays might be. Unless they're going to a beach resort or a ski resort, is going around then going to a gallery or a museum. Whereas I go. It's just more work. Like there is nothing. The only time I can really escape is, you know, going to a deserted island. Yeah.

0:51:13 - (Linda Habak): Where there is literally nothing.

0:51:15 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly. And that is actually. Poor Chris. It's sort of like, you know, we travel quite a bit and he's always like. I said, can we have like a few days somewhere? And I think it was the first time two years ago when I turned around, I said, okay, fine. Can you find somewhere where it's all inclusive, that there's not even a. Like a ruin that I can climb over, that I don't have to look at a menu, everything.

0:51:39 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And yes, he did find this magical place and we had four days. And because I like.

0:51:44 - (Linda Habak): Because you do need to switch off. And that's one thing I've realized is you do actually need to recharge the batteries creatively, mentally, in every aspect. Because it is all encompassing.

0:51:56 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): All the time, all day, all night.

0:51:58 - (Linda Habak): You know, partly because we love it too.

0:52:00 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah. I wouldn't want it any other way, but it is. It's exhausting because it's visual. I've.

0:52:06 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, absolutely.

0:52:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): I mean, last year, when we go to London and Paris for the fairs in October, and I knew I'd push Chris a little bit too far when we were coming back from the Louis Vuitton Foundation, I said, I just need to go back to this little gallery to have a look at something. And he just looked at me and he said, wouldn't you prefer to go shopping? Okay, he's done. One husband suggests going shopping, then to a museum.

0:52:30 - (Linda Habak): One husband who's an accountant.

0:52:32 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly, exactly.

0:52:35 - (Linda Habak): I love that. Well, we're coming. Coming to the end of this wonderful conversation. What's a risk you are glad you took looking back at the body of.

0:52:44 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Your career, Every opportunity that presented to me was a risk and it took me down another path. So I'm glad I did stop and I did think, you know, I'm not saying I just ran with it. I did stop and think. And each one particularly going out on my advisory as a young mother when I'd been on a salary, you know, not knowing what, that even though I was asked I had some sort of income that was coming in. I didn't know how long that would last, but probably mostly was opening the gallery because it was really the first of its kind, or one of the first of its kind in Australia.

0:53:20 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I didn't know how people would respond to it. I didn't want it to look like a normal gallery. So it's not in a warehouse, it's not a white box. And I know that some of my colleagues, when I first opened, even though. And I have very good relationships with my colleagues, I still acquire for them, for my clients, they were like, what is she doing? It's got. It's all glass, it's got two walls. Everything about it has been risky.

0:53:43 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): The timing turned out to be very risky because, you know, within the first year we were closed more than we were open because we opened actually at the end of 2019 and we went into lockdown in March of 2020. So I had lockdown 2020, 2021. And then my building got covered in scaffolding.

0:54:01 - (Linda Habak): I saw that.

0:54:02 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And that was for a year. And then they moved to the next building and unfortunately there were problems with that. Take the scaffolding down. And then they piled it. It's still out the front of the gallery now. So we kept saying every year it was, that's going to be the way we're going to operate.

0:54:15 - (Linda Habak): But how have you managed the pivots and the turns like this? Because it's that stressful.

0:54:20 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): It's really stressful. Really stressful. I think probably other people, everybody has something that's. That's unique to them in a situation, whether it's a personal or in a. In a business. I think because we'd only opened at the end of 2019, and then you, you know, you closed down for four weeks over the summer. So we really were closed for more months than we were open that first year. We hadn't really got in the swing of things.

0:54:45 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I think there'd been this misnomer with my colleagues and probably with some clients. Is that because I'd been in the industry for 30 years and in different parts of it, and also as a benefactor of museums and sat on boards and not for profits in that sector for which I'd actually had to come off the Archive of New South Wales, because I perceived that as kind of conflict as well. And they didn't really.

0:55:09 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): They didn't. It was an interesting thing, actually. And it's something that I see different museums still haven't changed, even where I was quite vocal about it, that as an advisor or a commercial gallery, even if you're on something like board of trustees or a collector group, you don't have say in what the gallery is advising curatorially. Curatorially, you do have insight. And sometimes perception is worse than reality. So the reality is there was no real conflict in terms of. I could sway a decision.

0:55:42 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But you could say it was insider trading, if you wanted to use another word. But then it's also the fact that I didn't want people thinking, as a gallerist, if one of my artists was collected by a museum, that I'd had sway. Yes, that was the most important thing. Or the museum was concerned that if they bought something, people would say that. And so therefore my artists weren't collected. So that, to me, was the real reason.

0:56:06 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You know, I knew that I wasn't gonna do anything wrong. The museum knew they weren't gonna do anything wrong, but it's perception by the outside world. And so that's why. And it was actually quite. You know, we had to navigate that for several months because they didn't understand because there wasn't any risk but perception, perception. And, you know, as I said, I've dealt my whole life being very transparent and very high, avoiding that.

0:56:28 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, yeah.

0:56:29 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): We all have our different things. So that was sort of. I think the risk was everyone thinking that I had this huge mailing list and I would just open on day one. One.

0:56:36 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:56:36 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And it was. It wasn't like that at all. Because, of course, my coming from, where I come from, we had telephone books.

0:56:45 - (Linda Habak): Yellow pages.

0:56:45 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Exactly. And white pages. Yeah. You know, you knew where someone's name you could look and you knew them, you know, they might live wherever they live.

0:56:53 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:56:54 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): You could work out who it was and bring them up or send them a letter. Now, with everything with email and mobile phones, there's no directory for that. If you're a private person, you can send something to a business. Business. So I literally, yes, I knew a lot of people to go and talk to, but again, as an advisor, I didn't have a website, you know, not handing out business cards because I had the people that I worked with. And yes, I would take on new client here or there, but it was, you know, you can only do so much with you and one other person in an advisory.

0:57:20 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): So I guess that was the biggest risk was again, there was that perception of what the gallery would be and. And you know, that I had all these contacts tax. And the reality of it is that, no, I was starting from scratch, and I was starting for scratch in my 50s where most people were thinking about retiring a new business that I knew nothing about in a space that was representing artists that hadn't really been championed before.

0:57:46 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And that was the hardest thing I knew it would be education. I needed to actually educate. And that goes back to my advisory. As an advisor, you're an educator.

0:57:53 - (Linda Habak): Yes.

0:57:54 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Because. Because people have already employed you for the job. So it's not. If you, you know, want to talk about it, you're not selling.

0:58:00 - (Linda Habak): No.

0:58:01 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Whereas in the gallery, it's open, anyone can come in and buy something. So it's a very different. If there was one thing, if you asked me what I underestimated, that would be actually that selling, selling versus advisory.

0:58:16 - (Linda Habak): Advisory.

0:58:16 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): I didn't realize, you know, I had studied and I thought I had researched everything, but there were a couple of those things, like the transparency with the advisory clients and the website saying, no, we don't have a problem. And then it was me not understanding sometimes. And, you know, maybe talking to you today, you will laugh at. Think this is that I talk a lot. Because in advisory it is talking as to Y and, you know, Y, X over Y and all those sort of things.

0:58:44 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And whereas in the gallery, people come in and often they don't, you know, I want them to ask more questions and I want to say, you know, talk. And I've just had to learn sometimes less is more.

0:58:56 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. Because ultimately, maybe it's seen as, again, under that sort of retail banner, it's a store, even though it's a gallery, but they don't want to be spoken to because they don't want to feel the pressure of, oh, God, I have to buy now. So it's a really fine balance, I imagine. But what I do know with you is you are so generous with your knowledge and so passionate about the work and the artists. So it's sad because I just think you would gain so much. I know I've gained so much and I think it is that fine balance.

0:59:26 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): It is. And that's what I'm. That's what I'm finding because I. Yeah.

0:59:30 - (Linda Habak): What have you learnt about yourself through starting this business, building this business? Because it is very different to advisory. So what would you say has been the biggest learning?

0:59:40 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): I think I've learned to continue to trust my instincts.

0:59:47 - (Linda Habak): Makes me happy.

0:59:48 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Yeah. That. That I need to listen to my young team members more because they are the way of the future.

1:00:00 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

1:00:01 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I think, you know, sometimes they look at me and. And we do have funny conversations where I say to them, no, I know, I'm. It's not just because I'm old, it's because there is A certain way of writing about art, documenting art, cataloguing art. You know, that is an internationally recognized system.

1:00:21 - (Linda Habak): I think we could probably agree, develop a ChatGPT custom GPT for you on that.

1:00:27 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): But. And I think that I'm glad that I did it and I feel that I've still got so much more to learn and to give. You know, this was not something I set up to do just for a few years. There was a long term plan and to hand it over to some, somebody afterwards. So all of that is still there. But I think it's back to just doing it like, you know, it's. I'm glad that I did it. I was capable of doing it.

1:00:55 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

1:00:56 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): And I wish more people, I wish more older people, you know, and I hate that age thing, but I think young people, you know, when I was younger and I jumped at all those things and young people are so, you know, I love watching them dart around and believing they can, you know, do anything. I would want some more of my friends to believe that they can still change and start things and. Yeah, that's just beautiful.

1:01:23 - (Linda Habak): So, very last question. It's the signature question of the podcast that everyone gets asked. But what does Build Beautiful mean to you?

1:01:31 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Build holistically from the heart and the head.

1:01:36 - (Linda Habak): Gorgeous. Love it. Thank you, Sally.

1:01:38 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): No, thank you.

1:01:39 - (Linda Habak): Such a wonderful conversation. I can't tell you been beautiful.

1:01:42 - (Sally Dan-Cuthbert): Hopefully it's been a bit of a conversation.

1:01:49 - (Linda Habak): Thank you for listening to Build Beautiful. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love it if you'd follow the show, leave a review, or share it with someone who's building something meaningful. It matters more than you know. Follow us on Instagram at Build Beautiful podcast. Until next time. Keep creating with intention and together we Build Beautiful.