Diane Hutt has recently celebrated 25 years of successful business as the owner of the Diane Hutt Gallery, at 95a Uckfield High Street.
Diane has a natural and inherited affinity with the retail trade, offering customers good value craft and art: a framing service and the sale of original pictures and prints.
There is an inherent balance in her business: her partner Martin is an accomplished and experienced carpenter, able to create a sturdy frame for all purposes – even for a large and crumpled ‘tote’ bag at a customer’s insistence: the bag was a memory of the day he proposed to his fiancée. She accepted, and instead of a ring or a rabbit he produced a cake from the bag. The cake is long gone, but the bag is now framed, loose crumbs and all.
Diane grew up in the retail business in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, where her carpenter father owned a department store, Hutt’s, the first in Britain to have an escalator from ground to first floor. As a child she used to play in its toy department. Once with a friend she ordered one of each of all the toys they liked from a local supplier, an order later amended for the department store’s needs by an indulgent dad.
As department stores became scarcer throughout the UK in the 1990s, eventually Diane brought the art gallery and picture framing element down south to East Sussex.
There have been some difficult periods over the last quarter of a century, but each problem brought its own solution or mitigation, for example the Covid lockdown improved the Gallery’s online sales, which made up for the lower footfall.
More recently, many businesses have suffered from the cost of living. But Diane has always believed that selling quality adds value overall. Her hand-made frames are prized as being durable and long-lasting, and she selects her pictures from the best artists locally and further afield.
For spare time, where it exists, Diane is a committed litter picker. Uckfielders will surely have met her on walks in the local area, armed with a litter-picker and a refuse bag.
She feels lucky and privileged to have found a good living which offers clients a touch of quality and permanence in the perennial balance between art, craft, and good value, represented perfectly by the Diane Hutt Gallery. diane@huttgallery.co.uk