On Collecting Art When You're Not Rich

"I wasn't buying a painting. I was buying hope."

On Collecting Art When You're Not Rich

I collect art the way I buy into things I love — starting small and building up.

If I see an artist whose work stops me I'll buy a postcard or a small study first. Something I can afford. Something that gets their work onto my wall and into my life. Then I watch. If the work keeps working on me, if I find myself looking at it differently six months later, I save for something larger.

The most I've spent on another artist's work is $1,600. A wood panel textured mountain painting by Barak Rozenvain, He is an artist I stumbled upon in Whistler BC just as I was starting to get a grasp on painting with acrylics. His paintings were majestic. You could feel that this was a man who knew these mountains, who lived with them and who could capture that first sense of awe you get on the first time going into that beautiful place. I didn’t have enough money on me to buy one of the grand pieces he had hanging that day but he gave me mine at a deal. That is probably the only painting I have bought purely for the love of that painting. Although the artist was a lovely person I would have bought the painting no matter who was there. 

I don't collect one artist. I collect moments and support the person. A piece from a market in Belgium that caught the light in a specific way. Something from a show in Paris a friend invited me to go to with them. Work from people I've studied under or been in conversation with. The collection is a map of encounters as much as it is a map of taste.

The world had just shut down. I was in Rome and trying to sort out food for the next few days as the airbnb didn’t have a stove. We walk into Piazza Navona and there is a lone artist still standing there. Everyone else was gone. He didn’t speak English so we had a conversation in my broken Italian. My companion didn’t understand Italian so it made the conversation private, in a way more intimate. I told him I was looking for food and he told me about a restaurant who “Will make sure you’re taken care of for a song.” Little did I know at the time he was speaking literally. He told me about his worries too in that unknown pandemic and I asked him to pick me out a small piece that would fit in my suitcase. One that showed his love for Rome. He picked out a beautiful 5x7 watercolour of Castel Sant'Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel) and the bridge, Ponte Sant'Angelo (Bridge of the Holy Angel). I paid way too much by any standard but I wasn't buying a painting I was supporting an artist who took the time to help me. Santas (yes that was his last name) was the one who gave me a gift that day. He gave me the hope that everything was going to be alright. When I have a bad day I just have to look over and he and the painting reminds me of that.

What I tell people who say they can't afford art is that they're thinking about it wrong. You're not buying a painting. You're buying a relationship with an object that will live with you for years and change with you. You’re supporting a person who made you feel something. 

So start with a card. Start with a print. Start with the smallest thing an artist makes and see what happens.

The card may become the print. The print may become the study. The study may become the painting you save for. But it’s not always about the art itself but the relationships you build over a common love or interest or maybe just a moment that leaves you with a smile.

That's how it works. That's how it's always worked.

Jackie