Trompe d'Oeil
I’m not a packrat, but I have an eye for memorabilia, socking away strange little keepsakes that would otherwise land in a dumpster. Examples include circuit boards from the PDP-11 system I managed in college, and the brass corporate mission plaque from MediQual, my first post-college employer.
Another such item is a poster-sized oil painting that hung over Sapient’s front desk back in 1995, when I was first hired by the nascent internet consulting company.
It was an original composition by Courtney, Sapient’s receptionist, who had recently graduated with a bachelors degree in studio art at Dartmouth College. Painted a year earlier, it depicts a streetscape of brownstones in Boston’s South End, where she lived.
During her years at Sapient, Courtney left the front desk and led new employee orientation, then ran Sapient’s People Strategy Organization (aka HR), and finally took overall responsibility for corporate culture. Over that time we had several moves and refreshes of our office space, and her painting was thrown into permanent storage and forgotten.
When the Dot-Com bubble burst, Sapient needed to shrink its physical footprint. Being a curious little opportunist, one day I accompanied our Operations team as they cleaned out one of the storage areas. Unearthing Courtney’s painting, and knowing that she was no longer around, I received permission to adopt it.
That was around 2002, toward the end of my tenure at Sapient, and just after my purchase of a condo in Boston’s Copley Square. When I brought the painting home, it took pride of place on the brick wall in my front entryway. And there it hung.
Years later, before I left Boston, I reached out to Courtney and offered to pay her or give the painting back. Despite initial interest, she never made arrangements to pick it up, and I never heard from her again.
The painting has been with me for nearly two decades, and now graces our Pittsburgh dining room. It is a treasured reminder of Boston, my time at Sapient, and the Back Bay condo I loved.