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E-mail StoryArt show meets open house: Inspiration strikes amid sour housing market
| Wednesday, Mar 26 2008 4:57 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Mar 26 2008 4:56 PM
Art, business, friendship and faith are fusing together Saturday to kindle the dreams of local painter Tim Kirkindoll and his buddy, self-defined Bakersfield-Los Angeles “bi-city” real estate agent Shay Brandon Burke.
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What: Open House and Art Show, featuring a nearly 4,000 square-foot property for sale in southwest Bakersfield, and worship art paintings by local artist Tim Kirkindoll. Prices for pieces featured range from around $200 to $400
When: 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: 7900 Luces Corta, at the Stockdale Estates, near the intersection of Gosford Road and Kroll Way.
Admission: Free. Soft drinks and appetizers will be served.
Information: TimKirkindoll.com or BuyBakersfield.com
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Photos:
Realtor Shay Brandon Burke, left, and artist Tim Kirkindoll are ready to blend art with an open house at 7900 Luces Corta.
This painting, titled “Spirit Gazing,” is from local artist Tim Kirkindoll. (Photo courtesy of Tim Kirkindoll)
Tim Kirkindoll painted this untitled work with pastels on paper. (Photo courtesy of Tim Kirkindoll)
Kirkindoll, 33, a faith-inspired artist who paints mostly during worship times at The Garden Community Church, which he attends, had been looking for a place to showcase and sell his art.
Burke, 36, his friend of 15 years, had been helping him develop marketing ideas while also looking after his real estate clients’ needs on both sides of the Grapevine.
And then inspiration struck.
“It was a fluke, a brainstorm, a daydream I had,” said the multitalented Burke, who also performs in the theater and is a member of the Arts Council of Kern. “Why not combine an art show with an open house?”
Why not, indeed?
Whoever he consulted with liked the idea, Burke said, and he had the perfect art/living space to make it happen — a large for-sale home on Luces Corta in southwest Bakersfield.
“As you know, there are lots of properties out there right now and prices continue to drop,” said Burke, who works for Watson-Touchstone Real Estate. “So to sell a home you have to be as creative as you can to get a home seen and sold.
“The owners are very supportive and they want to get their home sold,” he said, “and this house lends itself so well for an art show: It’s 3,971 square feet. It has a giant great room with hardwood floors and a balcony upstairs.”
A great room, Burke said, is a multipurpose space big enough to hold a living room, dining room and family room, although Saturday’s show property has all of those amenities besides a great room.
TWO BITS FROM A HOME STAGER
Annette Clements, 48, is the owner and operator of Stage Your Move home staging. Clements works with local real estate agents and sellers to help them “stage” homes, or enhance the property so it has more interior and curb appeal. The staging may involve the strategic pruning of shrubs as well as adding furniture or art pieces.
“If anything, what we do is un-decorate, de-personalize and de-clutter the space,” Clements said, so it’s the most appealing it can be to the greatest number of prospective buyers. Which sometimes may actually require bringing in an art work or two, she said: anything to accentuate the positives in the home and detract from the negatives.
However, what Burke is doing is quite different, she said — and daring.
“I’m really quite impressed. This is something they would do in Chicago or the Bay Area. I applaud what he’s doing because I like to see this type of thing go on in our city.
“But,” she said, “I’m kind of worried because (potential buyers) might miss the bones of the house” for all the art that will be on display — about 45 pieces, according to Kirkindoll. “Most buyers will not be able to see the home. It can be quite a distraction for most,” Clements said.
Another thing that worries her about Kirkindoll and Burke’s art show/open house, she said, is that the home will be displayed unfurnished.
“About 95 percent of buyers cannot envision themselves in a vacant home,” Clements said. “Only 5 percent have the imagination to do so.” She said she learned this in a course from Canadian-based Debra Gould, who is internationally known as the “staging diva.”
“We all buy on emotion,” she said, “even the analytical types. It’s hard to attach our heart to a blank slate, to an empty space.”
But as a struggling artist who has just set up his own business, Church on a Hill Art Design, Kirkindoll — his family name means “church on a hill” in German, he said — is doing things on a shoestring budget, which rules out house-staging costs.
Kirkindoll will be so busy at Saturday’s event that attendees may actually see two of him: He is having his identical twin, Terry, a caterer, take care of the food.
“I’m thrilled. I think it’s great that he’s making the sacrifices to finally take this talent he has into a career move,” Terry Kirkindoll said about his brother.
KEEPIN' THE FAITH IN HARD TIMES
“There was a time, five years ago, when all agents did was put a house on the market and put it on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and wait for the offers to come in,” Burke said. “I’d get a buyer and they’d look at a home that was listed the day before, make an offer that day and there were already offers on it.”
But that is no longer the case.
“What are you going to do to make my house stand out?” is the question Burke said desperate sellers want to have answered up-front nowadays.
He said the two-story house on Luces Corta, which has four bedrooms, 21⁄2 bathrooms, an office, a swimming pool, a play area for children and sits on a quiet cul de sac, would have sold for about $800,000 and possibly up to $1 million just two years ago. Now the going price for such a home is in the $500,000 to $600,000 range, Burke said.
Even though it is not a bank-owned home itself, foreclosures of other homes in the neighborhood have affected its price, he said.
Maria and Howard Caywood, who live just a few streets away from the Luces Corta home, think Burke is doing right by his clients.
“I think it’s really cool,” Howard Caywood said Tuesday about Burke’s art show theme for an open house. “You’ve gotta have the edge.”
He said he and his wife were on their exercise run when they saw the open house sign and decided to pop in, not realizing Kirkindoll and Burke were only there to discuss preparations for Saturday’s event.
In their mid-40s and with just one of five children — an adult daughter — still at home, the Caywoods said they were just looking. But they like the house.
“It’ll sell, Howard Caywood said. “This is an awesome neighborhood.”
Maria Caywood said she and her husband are patrons of the arts and are excited about coming back to the house to see Kirkindoll’s art.
“Everybody loves to go through these big old vacant houses and kind of snoop around so I think it’s going to lend itself really well to an art show,” Burke said.
People are welcome to view the art or the home, or both, he said. “Or just come and grab some food.” And if the event is a success?
“We might do another show six months from now,” Burke said. Or maybe sooner: “We might do a show for Mother’s Day and it might have all to do about mothers.”