LIVING WITH ART
Saatchi Art Collectors Take us Inside their Homes
Artwork by Julia Lesnichy, Ekaterina Prisich, and John Cottee
Meet Deanna Martin
A Retired Pilot Who Brings the World Home, One Painting at a Time
Deanna Martin is a retired airline pilot who spent the last few decades traveling the globe, and along the way, became a collector, filling her home with art and objects gathered from the places she visited. Her love of art, though, goes back even further. “Many years ago in school I signed up for an Art History course on a whim, but I was soon smitten,” she recalls. Roman frescoes and the Proto-Renaissance work of Giotto captivated her first, followed by a lasting appreciation for Post-Impressionists like Cézanne and Gauguin. But as her worldview expanded, so did her taste. “I feel like I really missed out on what Eastern cultures had to offer,” she explains—these days she’s drawn increasingly to the art of Asia, Indonesia, and the South Pacific Islands.
When she and her husband built their home 22 years ago, Deanna installed track lighting throughout in anticipation of the art that would someday fill the walls. Today those walls are full, if anything, she has more art than she has room for.
For Deanna, living with art isn’t decoration, it’s dialogue. “To look at one of my paintings is, for me, to engage in a sort of non-verbal conversation,” she says. In a world of noisy, ever-changing screens, she finds her collection has the opposite effect: it centers her. And she sees that same power at work on a larger scale, too.
“Art can bring people together in a way that words can’t. To me the very presence of art reassures that humans are still human, and they can experience unity over something that can’t be expressed in words.”
Two decades of collecting have given Deanna a highly personal system for living with an eclectic collection. Rather than organizing by color or subject alone, she’s found that brushwork is what her eye responds to most, comparing paintings that share bold, loose strokes to “the voices of different musical instruments that are all playing the same song.” Above all, one quality guides every purchase. “The one quality I consistently look for is beauty,” she says—and she avoids anything that feels dark, disturbed, or sad. “My home is my sanctuary… I don’t want noise and chaos on my walls.”
Deanna discovered Saatchi Art almost by accident, while searching online for work by a specific artist. “Imagine my delight when I discovered the incredible amount of artwork available through their platform,” she says. As a lifelong traveler, she loves that Saatchi Art lets her bring the world home without leaving it—helped along by all-inclusive pricing with shipping and fees built in, and the peace of mind of free returns.
“If I can’t actually travel the world to search for art right now, I feel Saatchi Art is the next best thing!”
Her advice to first-time buyers? Don’t shop for your walls, shop for yourself. “I would suggest not worrying too much about matching your existing decor,” she says. “People who fall into this trap really limit their choices and might end up buying something a bit generic instead of what they really want.” For Deanna, that’s the entire point of collecting original art.
Gitana Vaicyte
Swan Dance
“Art is so personal to both the buyer and the artist who created it. It’s so much more than just a space-filler.”
Sometimes the pieces that surprise you most end up meaning the most. “That’s one of the most powerful effects of good art: it ignites the imagination,” she says. Her final word of advice doubles as her collecting philosophy: “If you love it, then make it yours!”
