There is a gracious southern city where the cobblestone streets are lined with stately houses, towering oaks are draped with moss and verdant squares dot the city with lush foliage. It is hauntingly beautiful and the unlikely home of a unique private collection of contemporary American art. This dynamic tension and juxtaposition of form makes a great collection even better. The city has one of the newest and sleekly modern museum buildings in the country. This stark yet handsome stone-clad structure works harmoniously with its 18^th and 19^th century neighbors and is a catalyst not only for the older architecture, but a nexus as well. The museum is the venue for many concerts, lectures, exhibitions and educational forums and its collection of traditional and contemporary art us superb. As transplanted northerners, part of the draw of this city to these two collectors was the cultural scene and a vibrant arts community concentrated around several downtown blocks. The collectors are a husband and wife with other art-filled homes, and they prefer to remain anonymous, so I will refer to them as "Dr. P and Lady X." Lady X was, of course, the anonymous beautiful society belle from New Orleans immortalized by John Singer Sargent. The portrait Sargent painted of Dr. Pozzi, her Parisian physician, will serve to provide the husband with his own cloak of anonymity.

Eric Cohler: The two of you have the most marvelous collection of contemporary American art and design. How did it all begin?

Dr. P: My interest in collection actually began while I was enlisted in the Navy as I was able to take evening courses in art history. This ignited my imagination and I knew that I was hooked. I began collection shortly thereafter.

Lady X: I was trained as a potter and fell in love with the medium as well as painting and sculpture. In the beginning, I traded my pottery for other artist’s work.

EC: So there is a personal connection to art for both of you.

Dr. P: Yes. But, of course, great collectors are born, not made, so we both must have collecting in our DNA.

EC: Most collectors would probably agree. Tell me about your house and the collection.

Lady X: Our interior designer Dann Foley designed our house to be a timeless ‘envelope’ for our collection; one that would allow the art to be seen in as much natural light as possible. . . .

Dr. P: And so there is that perfect dissolve between interior and exterior.

EC: Love that. Especially the way the art seems to float against the glass and on the walls.

Lady X: Our walls are mostly shades of white so that the art is the statement.

EC: In other works, the art is the exclamation point.

Dr. P: Exactly.

EC: There is a synergistic plasticity between the art and furnishings as well.

Lady X: Yes. We worked with our interior designer, Dann Foley, to make sure that happened. Our objective was for a seamless whole.

EC: Living sculpture.

Lady X: That was the idea. We have an active family as well with children and grandchildren and didn’t want them to feel stifled by the space, but rather to find our home intellectually liberating and inviting.

EC: From what I can see you certainly succeeded.

Dr. P: I love our house. It’s comfortable but at the same time reflects our collection and allows it to be seen and lived with simultaneously.

EC: Speaking of ‘seen,’ I love your neon sculpture.

Dr. P: It’s by Keith Sonnier and is titled Job.

Lady X: One of the most wonderful things about our collection is that we have met almost all of the artists. Most of our pieces were created by living artists (at the time), and the visits that we’ve made to their studios helped us to understand the art and what the artist was saying when the piece was created.

Dr. P: The added dimension of meeting the artists is priceless as far as I’m concerned and has given greater focus to us as collectors and to the collection as a whole.

EC: do you live with all the art or do you rotate pieces?

Lady X: We rotate the collection a bit and have many things in storage or on display in one of our other homes. The collection is enormous, with four or five hundred pieces, and we store what we can’t exhibit . . .

Dr. P: Or give to our children.

EC: Are they collectors as well?

Dr. P: Yes, as are their children.

EC: That’s a wonderful gift, to be able to pass on the love of building a collection.

Lady X: Our children grew up with art and they could have just as easily repudiated collecting, but they embraced it instead.

Dr. P: Thankfully. Collecting is something that the entire family can be involved in together. It unites the generations.

EC: I always tell people that art build bridges.

Lady X: Absolutely.

EC: Speaking of building - what is the totem pole?

Dr. P: We shipped that here from the Pacific Northwest. It’s Intuit.

EC: Fantastic. It makes quite the exclamation point.

Lady X: It’s Native American and actually fits in quite well with the collection.

EC: Do you work with art consultants?

Dr. P: Sometimes. It depends what we’re looking for at the time. In the past we’ve collaborated with Barbara Toll from New York or often work with dealers and artists directly.

EC: Do you buy for investment?

Dr. P: We buy for the love of the piece. If we can afford an artist’s work and it fits in the canon of our collection, we’ll take the plunge.

Lady X: Yes. We buy things that make us smile and speak to us in different ways. Art isn’t always about beautiful things. Sometimes art is gritty and difficult, one has to listen to what it is saying and to soak it in. We collect art in many mediums, from fiberglass abstraction by Steve Keister, to woven paintings by Barry Feldman, to liquid compositions by Donald Lipski.

EC: That takes guts. Many collectors will stick to one area or medium. I admire your range and diversity

Dr. P: It gives added dimension to the collection as a whole and to how we live in our homes.

EC: As a designer I fully understand that sense of curated eclecticism.

Lady X: I wouldn’t want to live any other way. Once, when I was in the hospital, my husband brought a piece of art from home and hung it on the wall directly in front of my bed. It made a tremendous difference in how I viewed my surroundings and in the healing process.

EC: Art does heal. I call in balm for the soul.

Dr. P: And for us, art truly does come first after our family. Art helps us reflect on life and to channel the day-to-day.

EC: It’s all about reflection and looking at and living with art that makes one think.

Lady X: Otherwise why collect?

Dr. P: A good painting says something, and must engage the viewer.

EC: Do either of you have any advice to other collectors?

Lady X: Buy what moves you. Look beyond the obvious. And get to know the artist if at all possible. My husband and I will walk around a studio or gallery and always hone in on exactly the same piece that we decide to add to our collection.

Dr. P: Art is a win-win situation. Let it unfold and you will be transported to another plane.

EC: If you could each have one piece of art regardless of price?

Dr. P: A floral or unfurled piece my Morris Lewis.

Lady X: For me, definitely a Louise Nevelson wall sculpture, the larger the better - in black.

Dr. P: We’d need to build another extension on the house.

EC: I think that the two of you, dancing your magical pas des deux through studios and museums and weaving your spell on younger generations, should be immortalized in some way.

Dr. P: If we have inspired even a few future collectors, as we were both inspired, that’s enough immortality for us.

Lady X: We’re perfectly in step on that thought.