Persus

There are people who so arrange

their lives that they feed

themselves only on side dishes..

~José Ortega y Gasset

QUOTE

THE APOLOGUE OF PERSUS:

MOST PEOPLE remember 1991 as the year of the Persian Gulf War and Anita Hill. For me it also marked the inauspicious renewal of Persus. In the early spring of that year, my friend Michael C. and I discussed names we would use concerning ideas, concepts or even companies. My selection, Persus, was the name of a boat once owned by my Great-Grandfather, Zachary Taylor Davis.

While Michael indeed plunged forward with plans for a new company, I began to develop my skills as an art dealer at Merrill Chase Galleries; an internationally renowned group of galleries owned by the Pritzker family here in Chicago. While there, I developed a passion and expertise for twentieth century art, cultivating my experience as an art consultant and participating in several museum quality exhibitions. Persus, as an idea, remained in the corner for most of that time.

In 1998 I stepped into the design world to learn about European modern furnishings at Ligne Roset. This experience enriched my career, and heightened my exposure to design and architecture, two areas of concentration that I had long wanted to cultivate. It was at Roset that I conceived my title, “Design Consultant.” My boss & I wanted to find a comfortable fit for me in between the art and design worlds and the moniker stuck. The term is quite common now, but at the time I thought it to be unique.

After a near fatal illness and one month in hospital during the spring of 2004, I suddenly appreciated three tangible aspects of my professional life; my education, my knowledge of fine art and design, and Persus. This reincarnation of Persus as a website also furthered my investigation and passion for Villa Turicum, a place I first visited in 1984. As the brilliant Kurt Vonnegut used to say: “So it goes.”

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