When set decorator Marthe Pineau was tasked with turning downtown’s Blue Post bar into a restaurant for the film “Tammy,” she had a couple of different looks in mind. 

“It’s a barbecue joint but they have live music. It’s hip but sort of in this urban setting,” Pineau explained. “So how do you marry all those things when they seem kind of incongruous?”

To achieve the “Kentucky barbecue eclectic urban environment,” Pineau enlisted the help of Terry Espy at Wilmington’s Checker Cab Productions to find art to cover the walls.

“She pulled things for me and sort of acted as my eyes to find pieces that might work for the scene. Then I went in and fine-tuned the choices,” Pineau said.

Eventually, Pineau tapped the Checker Cab’s collection for pieces from 11 artists – 10 of whom were local.  

“We ended up pulling some industrial art, some Colleen Ringrose encaustics, Ralph Coats,” Espy said. “I mean, it was just so neat to walk into Blue Post and see these different artists.”

Espy and her Checker Cab co-owner, John Sharkey, have found a market helping creative professionals like Pineau, most whom come from film and television industries, find local artwork to rent, lease and buy.

Though their brand evolved during their time in Wilmington, Espy and Sharkey embrace their current role as liaisons between production workers and visual artists, hoping not only to make a profit but to also to support area artists.

“Our main focus is to give a source of art to make the set decorator’s job easier and more streamlined. And then obviously our second thing is to promote the local arts as much as we can,” Espy said.

And the move has been good for business. While revenues remain about the same, Espy said, the company’s profitability is much higher because overhead costs are lower.

Founded in 2010, Checker Cab is the brainchild of Sharkey, an artist who helped restore Thalian Hall, and Espy, who works in real estate development and founded a design firm. Together the couple combines the artistic and business expertise to operate in Wilmington’s art world.

Checker Cab’s previous business venture was operating a retail art gallery downtown, with ideas of incorporating a restaurant or venue space into their business plan. But the couple shifted gears after receiving increasing interest in their collection from the film and television workers who wandered into their gallery. The pair saw an opportunity to cater almost exclusively to creative professionals and in March they swapped their retail gallery in downtown’s Dennis Hopper building for a warehouse and an expanded online catalogue. 

Checker Cab’s online presence is useful for the clients from different parts of the country and those looking for a more complete artist portfolio than a physical gallery can offer. The website, combined with the local warehouse, allows clients to shop for pieces efficiently.

“Working with a gallery or an individual artist, being able to see their work online is important because you see what’s available. You see a comprehensive range of their work,” said Pineau, who has worked in Wilmington for more than 20 years. “Now, once we’ve made some picks I like to actually see the work. There’s always going to be a color difference and in my world a tone matters, a texture matters — all of those things that make up a painting tonally, texturally, dimensionally. I have to see it in person and that’s the beauty of working with a local gallery. We can go over and see it in person and check the color.”

Besides meeting clients’ aesthetic needs, Espy and Sharkey tailored their business to meet logistic and legal demands of the film and television industries. Checker Cab’s inventory is all pre-cleared by artists, ensuring production companies won’t be liable for copyright infringement.

“If a set decorator’s running around trying to grab art at the very last minute, it can actually slow down production of the film sometimes, waiting on those releases. They don’t need releases on a sofa or lamps or miscellaneous things like that, but creative pieces need those legal releases,” Espy said.

Espy and Sharkey also serve the local artists who create 99 percent of their inventory. While coastal scenes are popular in many local galleries, Wilmington’s artistic talent is diverse, featuring a wide range of styles and themes. Espy and Sharkey help these artists find a market for their work by tapping into a larger customer base where variety is in demand.

“A big part of our job is to promote,” Espy said. “It’s taking people who aren’t necessarily business people and helping them with marketing and selling, making a living doing what they’re passionate about.”

While business has been steady so far, Checker Cab and the clients and artists it represents depend on the strength of the film industry in the area. 

Qualifying filmmakers can currently get up to a 25 percent refund of their production expenditures in state. The film incentive is currently set to expire Jan. 1, 2015 and it is unclear whether the General Assembly will vote to continue the incentive.

Espy said Checker Cab supports tax incentives for the film industry because her company sees the benefits, especially when big movies come to town.

Recently-filmed “Tammy,” which stars Melissa McCarthy and Susan Sarandon, had a props and rentals budget of $240,000, almost all of which was invested locally, set decorator Pineau said. 

“Movies like that have a wonderful budget,” Espy said. “In one set we delivered over 40 pieces and there were 11 artists involved in that. They all saw nice checks from art being rented and they still own the piece.”

And for many of Checker Cab’s artists, the benefits of working with the film industry continue after production.

“The artists still own the piece. It can be sold again, it can be leased again and once it’s been on a set they can tag the piece, ‘As seen on …’ whatever movie or show it was in,” Espy said.

Rhonda Bellamy, the executive director of Arts Council of Wilmington/NHC, said she sees these partnerships between visual artists and the film industry as part of a larger effort to strengthen the arts community and foster collaboration.

The demand films and television series create for original paintings is just one example of how local artists of all kinds can capitalize on the film industry, Bellamy said.

“I think that’s one of the benefits of having an industry like the film industry here. Artists are finding ways to intersect it, whether it’s an artist or a hairdresser who wants to work on set. There’s opportunity for them to navigate in that world,” she said. “It’s all a part of us trying to establish Wilmington as an arts destination.”