So, I guess I am a business reporter now? I’ve been talking to Gene Pellegrene and the crew at Artist Painters for the last few months — and the result is my first story for Chicago Grid, the online business publication from the people who bring you the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reader, and, well, who knows what else soon.

Because it’s a business story I focused on, yep, Gene’s business. But he’s got a lot more to say about art, gift-giving, the reciprocity of relationships. He’s an interesting guy and if I’d hung around a few more months I could probably have written a 10,000-word feature. Instead, here’s one little bit hat didn’t make the cut:

“I can tell at the end when people don’t know about the art. I’ve learned not to describe the concept of Artist Painters as an art piece when I give them the art. I do it before, and then I go get the art. Because sometimes they’re just dumbfounded. If it’s done right it’s a powerful thing, and it’s an emotional thing. And oddly I find that I’m more emotional about it than anybody. There’s something about the beauty of what can happen that gets me. People have teared up or just had these expressions of complete joy, or wanted to hug me. People don’t know how to wrap their minds around it and I think it takes a bit of time to sink in.

“I don’t want to tell people up front that we’re going to make them a piece of art because then they might not take us seriously as a painting company. And we should be taken very seriously as a painting company, because no one is going to be as neurotic and crazy as me. And all of us, we really care about the painting aspect of it. So that’s why I tell people the quality has to be so high for this to work as an art piece. So that’s another reason not to tell people up front about the art because I don’t want people to think it’s a gimmick. Or it’s some kind of hook.”