How to Collect Art

Every collector of art is as unique as the art they collect. However, there are guidelines which every new collector can follow to forge their own personal approach to collecting. Established collectors follow many of these basic guidelines.


Guideline One:
A collector should only collect what they like rather than follow the rules or tatses of others. If you will display it, then that is what you should collect. Every other guideline is secondary to this one, because art collecting is a passion that you should enjoy for the sake of collecting. Purchasing art as an investment is always a lesser point than collecting for cultural pleasure.


Guideline Two:
Establish relationships with artists so you can follow their work and collect new art as they produce it. It makes sense to follow an upcoming artist's career from obscure beginnings to renown. It is okay to own art from both established and new artists.


Guideline Three:
Focus your collection around a general theme, artist or style. You can also add variety to your collection, but keep a form to the collection that unifies it as a whole.


Guideline Four:
If you collect multiple pieces from an artist or group of artists, then try to get at least one of their specialities as well as one of their more unique works. You may want to acquire a painting, sketch, and drawing from the same artist  to complete your collection of their work. If they do a series, then try to obtain the entire series.

Promote Your Art Simplified

This post provides the simplified system to promote your art. The system allows artists to exercise their creative impulse in the promotion process. The essence of this system is that a successful artist is both a producer and promoter.


This two part system of producing and promoting can be seen as a ratio between the two. If the ratio is 80 to 20, then the artist spends 80% of their time making art and 20% on promoting. If an artist works 10 hours per week, then 8 hours are art production and 2 hours are promoting.


Every serious artist should create a portfolio of work to display and sell. Once that is done, then the artist can apply this two stage system to promote their art.


The first stage is the Start up and this has 4 simple steps:
1) Set up
2) Monetize
3) Publish/Produce
4) Promote


The second stage is Expansion and upkeep and has two steps:
1) Publish/Produce
2) Promote


The Set up step involes building your personal online network by setting up accounts. These include:
1) Email
2) Social networks
3) Art galleries
4) Groups
5) Blogs
6) Journals
7) Websites
8) Money Transaction accounts such as Paypal


These are easy to set up because many online resources provide free templates to use.


The Monetize step involves any action which generates revenues from your network. You can advertise, sell products or services or set affiliate accounts.


The Publish/Produce step involves publishing art or art related content on your network.


The Promote step involves adding links throughout your network and to your network to promote it. You can link up with other artists and networks to expand your reach. Artist should use their network as a creative outlet and treat it as a labor of love.