Welcome to the business of antiques where I help you make your passion for antiques profitable.

I'm Tom McLark Haines, CEO of the Antique Steven Company and I'm on a mission to make antiques modern, sexy, fun and profitable.

I hate to break it to you, if you're not making money in your antiques business, then it's just a hobby.

In this podcast, I interview some of the leading antique dealers from around the globe, getting their advice and sharing my own on how to sell antiques to the modern day antique buyer.

We discuss ways to recession proof your antiques business by developing strategic marketing plans, elevating your brand to attract the right target market, and planning for profits.

You make your money when you buy.

Not when you sell.

So we'll discuss some sourcing tips straight out of my antique Stiva little black book.

I'm teaching you the business of antiques.

Okay, you guys know me.

I get design crushes and I am here with one of my design crushes with Mesa on Palm Beach.

But Mark, have we ever actually met in real life or do we just have a virtual love affair?

It's a virtual love affair.

That's what I thought.

I was racking my brain.

If we had actually met in real life, I, I think we became Facebook friends a few years ago.

I don't really know.

You just started popping up on my feed and you were interesting and cool and had gorgeous taste and, and that's where it started on my part.

You had me at.

You had me at Bonjourno.

Oh, that's so kind.

You know, Facebook has really changed my life in terms of creating a community of people who are like minded, that really love art and travel and beauty and having the opportunity to share that with like minded people.

You gather sort of a group of friends that some are virtual, some you know, but it makes a difference in your life.

It does.

It really does.

Okay, so tell everybody.

Tell our listeners at home.

Tell them who you are, where you're from, give them all the specific details to get us started and then I'm going to power off a variety of questions.

Sure.

Okay.

So I launched my career in 1990 in fashion.

I started with Joseph Abood real quickly.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

We never said your name other than Maison Palm Beach.

So let's start with your name.

That's important because other people may want to think differently.

Sure.

My name is Mark Lucas.

L U K A S since everyone spells it with a C, but it's actually a K. I started my career in 1990 with Joseph Abboud.

I was in fashion for 30 years.

After a boot, I moved on to Calvin Klein and then became a creative director at Perry Ellis and moved to Europe and worked for years in London and Milan and then came home to wrap up my career.

And I retired at 52.

And when I retired, I decided that I wanted to move out of New York and to Palm Beach.

It was always a dream to live on the beach, but something happened in that move, which I found really powerful in my life as a creative.

When we were moving down, I asked myself one question.

As a creative, who am I now?

And the answer to that question is really what defined our move and how we moved.

And when we sold the properties up north in Manhattan and the beach houses, we sold everything.

30 years of collections.

Every chair, every picture, every decorative object, and basically drove down in a car to start fresh.

And that one powerful question.

Yes.

No, I said, bam.

That one.

Oh, thank you.

That one powerful question led me down a rabbit hole.

And I really discovered that I have hidden passions that I didn't know about, because I think situations reveal certain parts of us.

And in creating a blank canvas and a new home, I started to design the new apartment and decided that I wanted to live with large sculpture, something we had never done before.

And in the research and in the discovery and in the restoration and in the placing of large sculpture in our home, I discovered that I have a great passion for it.

So after about two years of collecting, and I've always been a collector my entire life, I decided that I was going to continue to buy and offer large sculpture for sale.

And that's what has led me to today, to the establishment of Maison Palm Beach, Marc Lucas fine art.

You have a gorgeous aesthetic.

I think you have to.

To.

One of my feelings in interior design is you have to be bold.

You have, like, it's.

I'm convinced people need to make bold statements.

And as I said one day, I don't even know how we were connected on Facebook, but one day I realized I saw, like, these cool things showing up in my feed, and it was like sculpture in a living room.

And, like, it was things that I thought, oh, yeah, this is how I want to live.

And, like, you caught my attention, but with the boldness of the art juxtaposed in a living space.

And here in Venice, there is.

There's a designer who lives here in Venice.

His name is Shahan, if you've ever heard of him.

He's a Lebanese Parisian interior designer.

Yes.

And so, Shahan and Richard, I'm a.

Very good Friend with one of his designers.

Yes.

Amazing.

Okay, so Richard live here in Venice, not too far from me.

And his design work is always.

I walk into his design work and I always think I. I think he's hands down the best interior designer in the world.

And I walk in and I see these spaces where there's these amazing, amazing works of art.

He did an exhibition or a show house with Kanagi, which is a.

They sell brand master paintings.

And he juxtaposed these grandmaster paintings with some mid century art and his spectacular.

His spectacular east meets west interior design vibe.

And I. I simply fell in love with what he does.

And what you do reminds me of.

It's like you're very.

You're very different and simultaneously you've got that same punch.

Earlier a moment ago, I punched my fist in the air and said, bam.

And that's what you have.

When I see your design floating through my feed, it goes, bam.

It packs a punch, and it packs a punch in that same way that Shahan does.

So I'm a fan, and I'm not a fan of everybody, for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can I tell you what creates that?

You know how most people, when they come up with an idea or they want to do something new, a new project, and most people start with a no conversation in their head, they say, well, I can't do that.

I don't have the education.

I don't have the money.

I don't have the time.

I don't have the wherewithal.

You know, after 30 years of fashion and 60 seasons of having to recreate the color palette, the message, the look, the silhouette, change has become my best friend.

And I embrace change because change is exciting.

Change is new education.

Change is discovery.

It's expansion, if you will.

And I think it's really important to approach projects with a yes conversation.

Yes, I can.

Yes, I can figure it out.

If I don't have what I need, I can find it.

If I don't have all the skills, I can find other people to help me put it together.

And I think being collaborative in that way over 30 years of fashion and has led me to this moment in establishing my own fine art business.

It just feels like a natural extension of the creative choices that I've made in my life.

And I really am focusing on my passion.

But I'd like to digress for a minute and talk about my Italian grandmother, because she really set the foundation in terms of me loving and embracing and pursuing beauty.

She taught me about Michelangelo.

She taught me about Being Italian, she taught me about food and travel and encouraged me to do a few things when I was very young.

And she said, travel as much as you possibly can and follow your curiosity.

And when there's something that you don't know about that is interesting to you, why don't you pursue it and find the best examples?

And I'll quote her, she said, go and touch them with your eyes and your hands.

And I've done that my entire life.

And I think it's really important to understand the self and to pursue these things in a very personal way instead of following the crowd.

That's what's always worked for me and always served me well.

And when I wake up in the morning, I look at the day as an opportunity to create.

And that's a different come from most people that I meet.

But that's my natural come from at 57 years old, which today is my birthday.

Ah.

Happy birthday.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I am so happy that I get to be with you on your birthday.

So you have said three things that I believe so deeply in my heart.

And it's funny because this is our first time we've ever had a conversation.

You.

You've got thrown into the podcast with me, just saying, hey, I'm recording right now.

Hop on.

You have a new store.

We gotta promote it.

And I like the fact that you were brave enough to just swing by the seat of your pants, but.

So we didn't even have any precursor to this conversation.

And what I like is there are three things that are the way my heart beats.

So number one, you said, who am I now?

And this is one of the things that I try to ask myself with regularity, because who I am today is not the person I was three days ago.

And how I show up today is not how what I had the capacity to show up for three days ago.

And I've learned at 51, I've learned at this stage in my life that I am continually evolving and I am refining, and it is like I am polishing silver.

You like, it's.

You're polishing silver, you're cleaning it, you're cleaning it, you're cleaning it.

And I. I keep getting.

Each morning, I think I'm waking up to the next version of myself, and I'm really proud of that, of doing the work to continue waking up at that next version of myself.

Sure.

So I think, yeah, for me, it's.

It's, you know, early on.

I've been with my husband, Edward Salata, for 30 years now.

And one of the keys to that relationship is similar to a key to the relationship with yourself, which is when you decide to create a life with a partner or in a career or in a new endeavor at a certain moment, I think it's really important to look at the situation and look at yourself and to make a list of things that are disempowering, things that sort of steal your energy, things that don't really add or they don't help you create your vision and managing those things that are disempowering in life and changing your relationship with them or getting rid of them or setting them aside because they don't serve you as one of the things that has really served me well in terms of jumping over hurdles and eliminating hurdles to move forward and create from there.

And, you know, as a creative person, whenever you're out in the world, you're traveling or you're in business or you're having a conversation, there's always a chance to learn and always a chance to try new things.

But I think the key is if we don't allow ourselves that permit, give ourselves that permission to create, if we don't own ourselves in that way, then we can't maximize the opportunity.

And I like to have fun, and, you know, I attempt to live out of my passion, but passions change as we change.

And I think it's really important, at least for myself, I'm speaking for myself, that I embrace these things and try new things.

And sometimes my husband looks at me and he says, I don't.

I don't know about that, but sometimes I have to say to them, I don't know if I'm an idiot or I'm a genius, but I'm going to try and I'm going to find out.

Yeah, and you're brave enough.

To me, that's what makes it fun.

That's what makes it fun.

No, it's taking that chance and being brave enough to take the next step.

I like the fact that I've been photobombed by my cat.

This is Fortuny, by the way, who has moved his head into the screen.

I said there were three things.

And the second thing that really resonated with me, you used the word, which I think is the most important word that successful people use.

And I think it's why you are so successful at what you do.

You use the word curiosity.

And I honestly think that that is the secret to success, that if you're curious, you.

You're continuing to follow threads, you're continuing to learn, you're continuing to expand.

And I think curiosity is a really important element of creativity.

Absolutely.

Each morning when I wake up, there are usually a few ideas rolling around my head.

I don't know whether it's from the dream state or whether it's just an expansion on what I've been thinking about or what I'm trying to create.

But following curiosity has always served me well.

And sometimes they say curiosity killed the cat, but I believe that that's the way to create newness in your life.

And again, it's something that my grandmother instilled in me.

She said, follow your curiosity and you don't know where it's going to lead.

And in terms of being a creative and enjoying a creative process, if you set limitations, you'll never fully expand to the degree that you need to expand to create the value and the beauty and the benefit of what you're looking to create.

So I think curiosity is really, really important.

And I think in today's society a lot of people are taught that they're not good enough or they don't have enough or things that are very limiting.

I think that living a life of less limits and more creating opportunity out of nothing, even if it's just dreaming big dreams are very, very important because dreams turn into intention and intention turns into action and action turns into results.

And then you can say that worked or that didn't work.

And then one of my favorite words is next.

What's next?

Yeah, what's next?

So you know, you said earlier this point about starting from the point of yes, and I think so.

I moved to Paris when I was 20.

I was 24.

I turned 25amonth after I moved to Paris.

And I've lived in Europe ever since then.

So I've lived in Europe now more of my life than I lived in America.

My whole adult life's been been overseas, but I grew up in Oklahoma.

So I have kind of a weird mix culturally from having grown up in a small town to having sure been now a very international life at heart.

I'm still a small town girl though, let's be honest.

But sure.

Moving to Paris at 25, the thing that I learned, I lived in Paris from 25 to 31.

And in Paris, every conversation, every question starts with no, no, no, it's not possible.

No, it's not possible.

And what I learned in Paris was when they say no s, you say okay, what about?

Okay, what about?

And it's like a 16, it's like a 16 point turn, like you're trying to get into a parking spot and you pull out and you pull back in and you pull out and you pull back in.

And eventually you.

In a French conversation of eventually, there's a point where it's may we be uncertain.

Okay, why didn't you ask me this already?

Like, why didn't you say but yes, of course?

And so I think whenever I hear no, my answer is, okay, let me step back.

I'm going to try it again from this angle.

I'm going to try it again from that angle.

I will say it can be infuriating people in my life because I do not take yes, so sure.

So you said a major yes recently in your life by starting this new store.

So tell us everything about, first of all, where's it located?

How are you running it?

Where is like, what are the hours it's open, how do you run it?

Like, give us the layout of what's the format of the store gallery?

Sure.

Well, you know, when you start these things, you know, I have decades of experience of determining where a store should be and what's the foot traffic and does it have the right adjacencies, you know, when you're looking at replacing retail.

And I worked in Europe, the Middle East, China, all over America.

I did a lot of traveling and either as creative director or brand director of brands.

And this is a passion project.

This is something that I really, really wanted to create.

I didn't have to create it.

I wanted to, wanted to create it because it's an extension of now the way that I want to live and the, the, the type of people that I want to interact with.

Collectors, other dealers handling beautiful things, beautiful objects.

So I decided to place my first gallery in the Palm Beach Art Design and design showroom at 500 N. Dixie highway in Lake Worth.

It was a matter of the right placement in terms of convenience because it's about three minutes door to door from my apartment to the gallery.

So if I'm needed and I'm not there, I'm literally three minutes away.

The other advantage is starting out on my own where I'm a one man band.

I'm acquiring, I'm shipping, I'm restoring, I'm dealing with the movers, I'm dealing with the placement.

And then there are a lot of mechanics within the business which are new to me, like creating the museum labels with the history and the piece and managing inventory.

So with all of these things, I thought, why don't I make it easier for myself and be and start my first gallery in a multi dealer co op environment that is staffed so I don't have to be there, you know, from 10 to 5, Tuesday through Saturday I will be there a lot because I think it's important to explain the works with passion and I'm the one who knows the most about them.

But the idea of placing these beautiful objects in a staff gallery, it's sort of for me the best of both worlds.

And like on Friday we're flying to Italy for a little bit of vacation and research, quite frankly.

And I feel like I'm in very good hands with my, my inventory and the, the gallery is open and of course I'm always reachable because we live in a completely connected world now.

But it seemed to be the right, the right balance for me right now and, but I did take it to the next level which with most projects I really enjoy doing that.

And whereas people will bring their, their, their art into a white walled space, I contracted one of my contractors to fully panel the space to make it look like a luxurious library, a really unique backdrop for sculpture.

One of the things that we didn't talk about is the types of things that I'm offering.

I think it's important to have a specialty while not being completely limited at the same time because there are going to be things that pop up that.

And one of the things that I most love is, you know, I have about 400 keywords that are listed on probably six different platforms around the world.

So I'm an early riser and I'm usually up around 4:30 and my husband is sound asleep until much later.

So I have quiet hours while I can watch the sunrise because we live on the beach and I go through dozens and dozens of emails for the keyword searches, things that are coming up at auction.

And I have to say that early morning review of what the market will bear is for me completely magical because your eye is exposed to so many new and exciting things and a lot of things that you never even knew existed because no one can know everything.

So in the course of a morning I may discover new loves, new passions, new ideas.

I'll give you an example.

I have never collected anything or purchased anything that would be coming from the Symbolist movement.

Symbolism was a movement sort of in alignment with the art nouveau movement, but it was a rejection of reality and it was an embrace of the emotional of another world, a dreamlike state.

And I came across a bust of a young girl and I normally collect male figurative.

But the piece struck me and it connected with Me, her eyes.

And I started to go down a rabbit hole with very deep research on the Symbolist movement and became completely taken by it.

And I acquired the piece.

It's in restoration, and it's a new journey, a new way of looking at things and something that I didn't know about.

But I'm in love, and I love that moment of discovery.

It's like a life spark for a new part of who I am and what I respond to.

And I think that comes from another thing that my grandmother taught me.

She was very influential in my formation and in my upbringing.

She said, when you travel or.

Or when you look at things and you discover things, you're not just discovering the place or the object.

You're discovering something about yourself, what you respond to, what you're reacting to.

Previously unknown, but now in the moment.

Powerful.

And that moment is something that you can't.

You can't buy.

You just have to move through it and create it and enjoy it.

And then in this case, I've decided to acquire and then go through all of the work it takes to get the piece ready to place in a collection.

And that entire journey is what I'm really enjoying at this point in my life.

It's not only what can I create today, it's what can I learn today.

Like, I mean, it's really interesting.

These levels that are.

That you're.

That you're going into.

There's a thing, and I. I may get it wrong on what it's called.

It's like the spiral of emotions.

Have you heard of this?

So they say that.

So if you say you're in a bad mood, your objective is you want to get out of the bad, bad mood.

You don't.

You can't go from here to here.

You start here and you want to spiral to the next level up, the next level up.

So what's the next most accessible emotion I can achieve right now?

So I feel really crappy, so I want to feel less crappy.

And now I kind of feel like crap.

And it's like you're.

You're moving up the crap skill.

That.

That's the concept of the spiral of emotions, what you do.

Yes, research.

It's that spiral of emotions.

You're finding something interesting and then you're following the spiral.

You're following the spark.

Successful people follow the spark again.

This.

It's coming back to the.

That curiosity and creativity following this joy.

And this thing that is bringing you to the next level of emotion, of climbing up to joy, joy, joy.

Joy.

Joy.

Yes.

Well, let me give you an example.

My husband and I have traveled pretty extensively, and I've.

I've visited in my career and in my off time, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of house museums, palaces, country estates, England, France, Italy, China, America.

And having all of that as a frame of reference is really powerful.

And you think you know yourself when you hit your mid-50s.

But I have to say, we're always evolving, and there are things that we don't know about the world and we don't know about ourselves until we look at ourselves in situations with a new perspective.

I think moving is a real change in perspective because it's a realignment of the norm, the routine.

And I think that that's a great way every once in a while just to take a fresh look with fresh eyes.

But where I'm going with this is as an example, I've been to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota twice.

I went, of course, I enjoyed it.

It's the finest Venetian Gothic Revival house in America.

The collections are good.

And I only knew what I knew then, but now I know something different.

I'm now fascinated with Naples bronzes, or Grand Tour bronzes that were made in naples in the 19th century.

And there are five or six foundries, chiarazzi, summer, De Angelis, Gemito.

I mean, really, really wonderful foundries that were given actual access to the greatest museums in Europe to take actual molds from the sculptures from antiquity, something that would make.

Never be allowed today.

So those bronzes made in the 19th century in Naples and Rome, but mainly Naples, are amongst the finest of any reproduction of those works, and they're as accurate as they possibly can be.

I did not know until about six months ago that the finest collection of bronzes that were made in Naples from those molds in America is at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, where I've been before.

So my point is, when you have knowledge and you have things in your mind's eye and you've learned about something, you will look at the same thing that you've already experienced very differently.

You will want to see a closer.

You want to take a closer look, you'll want to see the details.

You'll focus in on that on the next visit, because that's what's top of mind, and that's what I enjoy, is the discovery and then the research and the pure joy of being with those things.

And it's not just about things that also extends to people.

We invite a lot of people into our home for dinners Constantly.

And I think people and art for me are two of the most fascinating things in this life.

Agreed.

I joke.

People always ask me, what do you collect?

And it just so happens I have a lot of 18th century Swedish furniture.

However, if you ask me what I collect, I collect people.

Like, that's, that's ultimately, I. I am drawn to people and stories and yes, these are the things that I live with.

But my collection is interesting.

It's surrounding myself with interesting people.

And it's the way you said something really key when you were talking about founding your store.

You said your store was set up to support the way you want to live your life.

The way.

The way you want to live your life, the type of people you want to spend time with.

And it's.

I think, again, I'm coming back to what.

What makes someone successful.

What makes a business successful is if you can build a business that actually supports what you want to be living.

It's like that's the dream.

And it's where I think when you're starting an antique store, you're starting an antiques business, an art business, I think you should start with that foundation of this is how I want to live.

And now I'm going to build the life.

I'm going to build the life.

I'm going to build the business that supports that.

So I think you started at the most genius spot.

And it's often.

It's not where people start.

Often people start from a completely different side of the business.

I think, because this is sort of a next chapter in my life, and I've always been a collector, and in terms of the sculpture as a new passion, I was first and foremost a collector.

Filling the apartment and, you know, a condo on the beach can only hold so much large sculpture.

So as I continued to acquire things, my husband said to me, he said, okay, here's another large piece.

Where are you going to put this?

No, I am convinced we are borders, actually.

So my come from in building the business is.

Is as a collector that wants to expand his circle of objects and people and have the.

The joy of the interaction between those two things.

And obviously it's a business and hopefully it will create income and it will sustain itself and it will allow me to acquire more, which is for me, more discovery, more discussions in restoration, because each piece is unique and needs certain things.

I also have a close relationship now with my restorer.

And we sit and we look at things when they arrive and we both just take a moment to be with these things because you sort of have to understand and feel the piece before you go and make decisions.

The woman I work with, Susan Kent, she's a restorer here in West Palm Beach.

And when a piece arrives, obviously we're both excited because it's a new adventure together.

And everything that I place in the gallery is ready to place.

I'm not selling projects, I'm not selling damaged things.

It's got to be in a condition where someone can come in or interior designer can come in and literally take the piece and place it in a beautiful environment and it's ready to go.

It's something I pride myself on.

That's the type of business that I want to have.

So obviously it's an extra layer of work and attention.

But for me, it's pure joy to take something beautiful and to bring it back to its original splendor and then have it be ready to be enjoyed by a new generation for new reasons in a new environment.

Which also leads me to the fact that I'm dealing in grand tour sculpture, which is mainly classical Roman and Greek forms.

Or I'm going to sprinkle in some 1970s abstract, because there was some really good abstract done in the 1970s.

And I love the dialogue between the ancient world and the modern world.

But I am firmly not in the antiques business.

I'm in the art and design business.

And I think it's really important to look at these more classic pieces and visualize them in a very modern environment.

Most people today, if they're renovating, they're doing a gut renovation, they're doing a more modern, more minimal, cleaner look, aesthetic.

One of the terms that I like to use when I do an interior is what are the surfaces?

I mean, we're going to choose two or three surfaces, and then I like to repeat surfaces so that there's a oneness throughout the space.

And then the focus can really be on the art and taking these, transitioning these things which are more classical, whether it's a seated mercury or it's Antonio Canova's wrestlers.

But to put that in a white space, maybe with some modernist paneling and good lighting and really beautiful modern furniture, for me, that's the way to look at the antique world today.

And it's one of the things that I'm hoping to tap into, which is the need for good design.

And this good design happens to be larger scale and it happens to be classically inspired, but they're beautiful.

And I focus on 19th century or early 20th century pieces in that vein because the quality was there.

Whether it's a bronze or large scale plaster cast, which was made by the Atelier des Moulage in France or one of the Royal Societies in Brussels, large scale plaster casts and large scale bronzes add so much to a room and they become sort of an occupant or they take up physical space.

In a room, you're living with an object and not just having a two dimensional painting on the wall, wall, a three dimensional object, a life size young male athlete in the room.

Who doesn't love that?

I'll take two.

Although, although I do have to say I acquired from a private collection in Girona, Spain, the Charioteer.

And it's, you know, it's a Greek bronze.

And you know, one of the, one of the most fascinating things is when I went down that rabbit hole of research, I discovered that in terms of mostly intact Greek bronzes, there are only 30 or 40 pieces left in the world.

Most people think, oh, there are hundreds and hundreds, there are hundreds of arms and legs and busts.

But in terms of mostly intact Greek bronzes, not Roman Greek, there are not that many.

So the only way for people, people to really enjoy them is to acquire the plaster casts from the 19th or 18th or 19th century, which are the finest quality possible, and then if they are restored properly, you have as close as you're going to get with an authentic piece in the collection.

So the Charioteer I acquired from Spain had it shipped over.

Susan and I sat down and looked at it and we stared at it, we fell in love with it and we created a relationship with the sculpture and it was painted flat, black, green, as if it was supposed to be bronze even though it was plaster.

And I said, why don't we get some high quality pictures of the original bronze in the museum and give this piece, which is life sized by the way, the patina of the original bronze.

And we did that together and it took a while and it was not inexpensive, but when the piece arrived in my apartment, it was as if living with a Greek original bronze because the look, the feel was exactly as the one in the museum.

Although I do have to say it was one of my first nights living with a true life size sculpture.

And there was a thought in my mind that when I shut off the lights that he was going to reanimate and step off that pedestal.

I can imagine that.

Yet another feeling I've never really experienced.

I was like, okay, it's all going to be okay.

That's funny.

Where, how did you meet your restorer?

Because I think that is something people, that is something people in the industry struggle with.

And it sounds like you have an amazing relationship with your restorer.

And it's incredibly, incredibly, it's an incredibly important aspect of having a successful antiques or art business.

Sure.

Well, if it doesn't sound too woo woo.

I believe that when we have intention and we look, we declare to the universe, this is what I'm up to and there are going to be resources that I need.

I first started with my first large scale sculpture which is a 7 and a half foot 19th century plaster cast of the dying slave by Michelangelo.

It's French 19th century and when I acquired it, it was covered in soot, it had a broken leg and it had five areas of repair with different materials and it needed some serious tlc.

And I called an art restorer basically off of Google that I did not know.

And I worked with Barbara Stella Stella Conservation in West Palm Beach.

And Barbara is a spirit unlike anyone else I've ever met.

She's so kind and loving and talented and she put together a small team to work on this because it was such a large sculpture.

And in that process I met Susan who is bronze and plaster and faux finishing and she's 40 years of experience in doing this kind of work and we just immediately bonded in a way over the love of beauty and art.

And ironically we have the same exact birthday.

So happy birthday Susan.

Her birthday too.

Happy birthday Susan.

So I believe it's in the power of intention and in meeting like minded people and in creating relationship.

And I think it's, it's, it's all dependent upon how we show up in the world and the energy that we put out there which attracts like energy.

And I think that that's really the reason.

I believe that too.

I believe it wholeheartedly.

And it's, I mean intention, honestly, that sort of vibration we're talking about is how you ended up on the podcast.

I've been a fan of you, of what you're doing over the years.

You and I've talked a few times over the years about statues.

Yes, you, When I saw, I saw that you had opened a store, I was like, I want to, I want to help promote this because I, I believed in what you were doing.

I understood that we were both at a similar vibration.

So truthfully, sure.

The fact that this, that you're here on this podcast right now is entirely because of somewhat woo woo reasons because I have felt that connection with you without even, without even having met in real life.

And it's, it doesn't always happen that way.

I will tell you, I'm someone who tends to post on social media, but I don't follow social media very much.

Right.

I believe that the right people.

People show up in my feed and sure.

What always happens?

Someone that I need to know miraculously shows up and I'm like, oh, this is someone I need to know.

And so clearly you were someone I need to know.

Okay, so, speaking of which, you're leaving to come to Italy.

Where are you going in Italy?

Tell me everything.

I'm landing and I'm going directly to Saturnia.

Yeah.

Nice, nice, nice.

Just because, you know, with jet lag, I want to take some time and relax.

And then there is a very small, tiny atoll off the coast of Monte Argentario called Janotri.

And it's one of my greatest joys to jump on a ferry and go to the atoll, which is basically rocks, scrub birds, and a few private homes and a restaurant, and swim and get nice and hot in the sun and eat pasta and breathe in the most beautiful Italian air.

For me, it's miraculous.

And then we'll continue up to Lucca.

We'll be spending time with some friends there.

I want to revisit Villa Torrigiani because it's amazing and they have one of the most beautiful grottos that I've ever seen.

And we'll just continue on through Tuscany and back down through Rome.

And if I have a day or two, I do want to skip down to Naples and see the archaeological museum again.

Again with fresh eyes and look at things in a very different way.

So Italy is my second home.

I used to live in Italy.

I lived on Lake Como for two and a half years in the little village Chernobyl next to the Villa d'.

Este.

And I was on a design contract with Rina, Shante Opim, and I worked in Milan.

And that was an amazing, amazing chapter to live in Italy.

And what I determined from that experience and 30 years of going to Italy constantly for fabrics and ideas and manufacturing, is that there is a sweetness to life in Italy that you cannot buy in America.

It's a magical combination of the quality of the food, the ingredients, the landscape, the art, the more relaxed way of approaching life.

The people I just.

The people I just.

I love.

Here's.

Here's something.

I like who I am and how I feel when I'm in Italy, and it's different than when I'm in America.

Also, the opportunity to use my Italian, which is not quite fluent, but sort of comfortable and I like how I feel there.

So I consider Italy my second home.

There was a moment maybe 20 years ago that.

So I, I moved to Paris 25 years ago.

And there was this moment about 20 years ago that I realized my mouth wanted to speak Italian and my French decent.

So I, I lived five years Paris five years, Amsterdam eight years, Berlin.

I've been in Venice seven years.

And my French is decent.

My Dutch is worse.

My German is really awful.

My Italian finally has stoico progressi.

So no content.

I'm making progress.

I'm.

I, I still have Frank Sinatra.

It's a problem.

I have an accent like Frank Sinatra.

But no, I'm making progress and I'm proud of myself because I've worked very hard at that.

But there was a moment 20 years ago that I knew my mouth wanted to speak this language.

And I, I work in French, I love French French, but I don't have the same love affair with French as I do with Italian.

And I think you have you for me.

I show up as a different person in different languages.

And part of it is my comfort level with the language.

But they're, they're one of my good friends in Paris, Katrine, her sister is.

Her sister in law, Isabet said, she goes, I'm really.

She tells Katrine, I'm really surprised you and Tom are such good friends.

Tom is so naive.

And Katrine said, Tom has many things, but naive is not one of them.

She's very sweet, she's very nice, but she's not naive.

It was really an interesting thing for me to realize, oh, this is how I'm perceived in this language.

And part of it had to do with my choice of words, my capacity in the language.

But also part of it was my confidence level.

And it was.

I wasn't as confident, so I was a little timid when I spoke.

So I, maybe I had a little bit of a stutter.

Like there were things that how you show up has to do with how it feels in your body.

And in Italian, I show up in all my Italianness and I don't have a ounce of Italian blood.

Native American, English, Irish, and.

And yet Italian has showed up in my body.

Somewhere along the line it arrived.

And I always joke that in the summer I get more Italian by the day.

My hair gets bigger, my boobs get bigger, and my shoulders get lower.

Well, I think it's because the Italians are some of the most passionate people.

And I think that that's what creates the creativity that exists in the mom and pop factories.

And studios all throughout Italy.

It's.

There's a magic and a permission there to let it fly, to be open, to create, to always have the new idea.

What's the next take?

I remember over the course of 30 years of being in fashion, I would shop Milan, I would shop Rome, I would shop Florence.

And there was always a hot brand that season or that year, and everybody in Italy was wearing that brand.

And then the next year they were off it, it was on to the next thing.

So there's always a.

A sense of what's next.

I used to follow the.

The shape of the Prada boot.

So one year it would be square toe, and then the next season it would be half square, half round, and then it would go all round, and then it would go round with a slight point, and then it would evolve into the pointed toe.

And if you were wearing the square toe when the pointed toe was being marketed, you weren't fashion.

So what I love is that evolution of design, the passion to create the new shape.

We know in America, from a marketing speak perspective, we call it built in obsolescence.

It's the eye must travel.

The eye requires newness and all of that, but that's basically what fashion is.

And I think it's also, for me, it's the same thing I get when I acquire a new, especially a large sculpture.

Something is new in my space.

There's an intrusion in a good way, something that I get to be with and enjoy and exchange the energy with, if you will.

And that's why Italy and the Italian language.

And for me personally, I love to cook, and I cook Italian four or five nights a week from scratch.

We entertain twice a week because we love to have people at the table.

But for me, it's a journey.

It's a creative endeavor to explore flavors, to explore ingredients, to ship my guanciale in from Milan because I can't find the right one here, or the smoked pancetta.

Like they have a paper moon in Milano that I can't find smoked pancetta in America.

And I go to those lengths to bring in the ingredients because I want to relive the experience of that flavor here.

And that's not easy to do.

It requires effort.

But everything good and beautiful and kind requires effort.

So that's one of the things that I would love to do.

It's all in alignment with going down a rabbit hole and doing deep, deep research on finding what's the best, what's the most unique, what's exciting, where is the finest Example, where is the tastiest tomato?

Is it San Marzano or is there some other place?

I just like to know.

I think it's.

It's part of the curiosity.

I have to tell you, you've been every bit as fabulous as I was expecting.

Like, you have exceeded, even exceeded expectations.

I literally could talk to you for another three hours.

And we're coming towards the end of our hour, so we need to think, how do we want to finish this conversation?

Like, what would you want to tell my listeners?

Knowing that my listeners are mostly antique dealers or interior designers or people who usually, if it's not.

If they're not an antique dealer or an interior designer, there's someone who has a desire to be in this industry.

In some.

I would say that if you have a love for something and you have passion for it, don't stuff it down, don't deny it.

Find out.

Find out who you are with it and expand upon that.

And I'm a firm believer in supporting other people in their dreams, just as I sometimes look around and look for support in my own dreams.

So I would say that being a source for other people and being kind and being open and not always about, you know, in America, we're, we're often driven by business and, you know, sales increases and margin and.

But I think sometimes doing things for the art of it can lead to greater opportunity because its uniqueness.

And I think people crave authenticity and uniqueness and the more that we can discover and expand and give that away from within ourselves.

That's what creates magic in daily living.

So I would encourage people to live their dreams, get rid of everything that you can that's disempowering in your life and say yes and create from there and watch the magic happen.

Amazing.

Tell everyone how they can find you.

I'm on Instagram under Mark Alden Lucas.

In that case, I use my middle name.

I am launching Maison Palm beach on Instagram.

That will go.

Will become really active once I establish my website, which will be maisonpalmbeach.com that's probably about six weeks to come.

But one of the reasons I established the gallery in Lake Worth is that I wanted to have the collection up and running before we start what is called season in Palm beach.

When people start to return in September and October and then firmly in December through.

Through April.

And I think it's really important to be up and running and, and have the inventory sitting there and displayed beautifully and have it ready to inspire, if you will.

Having that real life component to Your business clearly was a important, clearly was an important aspect.

Whenever I talk to a new client coming in, I always ask people how they want to sell and I have people who respond saying, I don't want to get out of my pajamas and I don't want to get out of bed.

I want to sell from my mobile phone, sitting in bed at 3 o' clock in the afternoon.

And I'm like, in fact, you can with this business.

If that's how you want to live, you can.

And as I said, you built a business that you, by having this location, by having, I mean, you have a gorgeous location for your business, you have gorgeous inventory and you've honestly, you have a gorgeous life and I wish you so much success and happiness and you, you are a source of inspiration.

On that note, thank you so much for listening, everyone.

As always, I do a free one hour business consultation with anyone who emails me.

That's TamantiqueSteva.com and Mark, thank you again for being here and we will see you later.

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.

Ciao, Ciao.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Business of antiques.

I'm Tom McLark Haines, the Antiques diva, and I'm helping you make your passion for antiques profitable.

Talk to you next time.

Ciao.

Ciao.

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