Photography by Michael LoBiondo

A Chihuahua sporting a flaming red Mohawk sparked Diane Sulg’s imagination in the gray days following Valentine’s Day 2009. The co-owner of Maddi’s Gallery in Charlotte, N.C., spotted the pup while she scrolled through pictures on the Internet. She quickly came up with a plan to boost lagging sales by releasing a postcard and posters featuring the image along with the message: “It’s March Madness at Maddi’s!”

“It was very un-gallery,” Diane says with a smile. “We usually put a beautiful piece of glass or art on our postcards.” Being unconventional proved profitable. Customers burst through the doors laughing about the Chihuahua and left with bags in their hands.

The ability to make connections between unrelated things is just one of the many talents Diane brings to her store, which has been named NICHE magazine’s 2009 Retailer of the Year. As the former founding director of an arts council serving quad cities in Iowa and Illinois, she applies years of marketing and business experience to the gallery she opened in 2002 with her husband, Madis. Maddi’s Gallery, located between the trendy neighborhoods of Dilworth and Myers Park, specializes in fine American craft, artist-made jewelry and Southern folk art. The gallery moniker is a combination of Mad for Madis and di for Diane.

For more of “Anything but Ordinary,” pick up a copy of the Winter 2010 NICHE magazine.