The Art of Going with the Flow!
I met Marcus Crane of McCully & Crane at his large oak desk, sitting in the centre of the gallery. We were surrounded by the skilfully curated works of the artists he represents. Marcus candidly acknowledges; “ It was all a very happy accident, there was no plan as such. Each project just happened off the back of the last one.”
Well, if you’ve got it, then go with the flow!
Marcus in McCully & Crane, 27 Cinque Ports Street TN31 7AD
What did you do between school and starting setting up a business in Rye?
Marcus. I grew up in Sevenoaks, so not too far away, and my original connection to Rye is as my closest seaside town as a kid. School trips and family beach days out, we’d come down here, so I’ve known the town from an early age. I left school and moved to London to study an art foundation course, but it wasn’t really for me. So I worked a hilarious series of jobs in bars and restaurants, fashion wholesalers and styling for the music industry. London in the early ’90s was a hotbed of freedom and excitement for me mixed with a heady club culture that was almost a full-time job in itself!
A few years passed, and I decided to become a florist, so I became an apprentice at the age of 27, learning on the job. Then, after working as a freelancer for a while, I took a position at Wild at Heart in Notting Hill, one of the most significant florists in London, working on their incredible events and with all their private clients.
It wasn’t until a few years later, 2008, with an ever-growing pack of rescue dogs, that we knew we needed a move. So we bought a rundown townhouse in Rye, the opposite of what we’d imagined we’d buy, and set about gutting it and putting our stamp on it.
How did you get from working on your house to owning a gallery?
Marcus. When we’d finished renovating the house in Rye, I needed to find something to do. One day I was walking past the building where Sailors of Rye is now (see page 2), and it had a ‘To Let’ sign on the window. We had an idea to fill it with everything we’d bought down from London in the move and see if it would give me something to do for a few months; it just seemed like why not? So in 2009, McCully & Crane was born! I had thought it would last about six months, and then it just kept going. But pretty quickly, we outgrew that space.
At the beginning of 2009, I moved the shop to where it is now on Cinque Ports Street. The aesthetic was different in those days, but the enduring themes and ideas of old and new reworked and salvaged remain.
What is the balance between your artists/ gallery and your interior design projects?
Marcus. Recently I decided to stop the interior design side of my work to concentrate on the gallery. But initially, the interior work came about from people buying pieces and asking if I could help them put it all together in their houses or businesses. My first job was to decorate a private dining room in a Notting Hill restaurant. Word of mouth and recommendations meant I got asked by others.
My first big residential commission was for Tregulland & Co, a luxury holiday rental company. They purchased an amazing old farm with a massive stone barn and a cottage, sleeping 24 people, amongst the rolling hills in Cornwall. I sourced everything over a few months, applying the same style that we had in the shop at the time, eclectic. It was a big hit.
Then I was approached to work on the renovation of Goodnestone Park, a listed stately home near Canterbury. For this project, I teamed up with my friend Francesca, another interior designer. The result was another great success.
For me, the whole interior design journey was a very happy accident; there was no plan, each project just happened off the back of the last.
In 2015, we started showing the work of fantastic artist Luke Hannam. Luke was the first contemporary artist we showed before we extended the gallery into the neighbouring unit.
“I like finding self-taught artists with natural talent. When people are overeducated in some things, it just becomes very controlled, and I am drawn to things that are slightly off, out of control, and natural.”
How do you find and connect with the artist that you represent?
Marcus. We regularly get approached directly by artists interested in showing with us. We also source through platforms like Instagram; it’s a great tool to connect to artists, particularly if they’re not on your doorstep. We don’t have any hard and fast rules, but we go with our gut feeling and how any particular artist might suit this environment aesthetically. If the artist lives next door or in New York, it doesn’t matter; we find ways to make it work. Helping them with framing etc. is one of my favourite parts of the job.
We are not a fine art gallery, not in the traditional sense; we are coming at it from an interiors angle, and our artists find working with us helps broaden their audience.
Many artists can be a little bit put off by big white space galleries. Here it’s more relaxed and intimate, with the art hung amongst interior pieces to give it context. It is the way we like to buy art, so it is the way we present it.
Poppy Ellis.
Tell me about Poppy Ellis and her work?
Marcus. I love her portraits; we were talking one day and having Poppy’s paintings in the gallery came up naturally. Gareth and I have collected portraits ourselves for many years, so we are always drawn to them to find a contemporary artist who so cleverly explored that genre was a real find for us. Her work evolves all the time, and that keeps it interesting for our clients and us too.
She initially offered us four paintings to try in our gallery, and I said yes immediately! They went on show and were immediately incredibly popular. We offered her her own show not long after that, which we don’t do very often. I could see it was a perfect fit.
Poppy worked for months on a series of about 20 paintings. The exhibition should have launched in late March 2020, but we all know what happened there, so we decided to forge ahead and show it online instead. This was new territory for us, but the success of that kick-started what was to become a new chapter for McCully & Crane, and our recently relaunched website has been designed to reflect that. It now features profiles of our growing stable of artists and their work on show here at any given time. Woven into it are editorial moments about what we’re doing here and Rye as a place to visit too.
