Buy Local Art How and Why It Is Important to Collect Local ArtFirst and formost you are making an investment in the local economy. Most people do not think of art in these simple terms. Every artist is a business owner.Second the best way to increase the value of locally purchased art is by continuing to purchase from local artists. An artist who is highly collected on the local, then regional, then national level will normally be able to sell original works for top dollar. Local artists on the other hand who are just getting a start do not have that same name recognition and cannot charge top dollar. Locally, this is your best chance to invest in the art market. If you are in a coffee shop or restaurant and see a piece of art that you like for under $100, act on your gut instinct to buy it. Don't just buy the work though, get as much information on the artist including an email address and phone number. Find out if the artist has a social networking page, a blog or website and keep tabs on them. Further continue to buy pieces from that artist, but also begin to keep your eyes peeled for other local art that speaks to you and buy it too. Soon you will have an apartment/condo/house full of local original art.Local artists become regionally or nationally collected because they are highly collected on the local level. So in part it is you, as a local art collector, that is responsible for an artist gaining fame. But also as that artist progresses, those initial small investements you made will increase in value. For centuries art has actually been the commodity that wealthy families have invested in. Because the economy is in a recession there is more reason than ever to invest in art. If you say, but I don't have extra money. Think of it like this. What extra do you do during the month? Find ways to cut those extras out. Commonly smoking and drinking are the two biggest extras in the US. What if you stopped smoking? You could definitely afford to buy at least one piece of art a month. Or if you can't give up your vices, stop going to commercial movies (this does not include Salem Cinema who shows independent art films). If you stopped paying $10 to $12.00 a ticket to see a commercial movie you would see that you have enough to buy local art. Many times you can buy great local art for between $10 and $60. That's a night at the movies.The Wall Street Journal recently published a story on the art market. Please read the following excerpt which reinforces this idea:"The art market has bucked the prevailing economic gloom before. Art boomed for 33 years in London in the late Victorian years when the British, who paid the highest prices for pictures in the world, saw their agricultural economy fall into the Great Depression of 1872 to 1895.In New York, art prices climbed steadily from 1885 to 1935 when U.S. banks repeatedly failed because of the loans they issued to railway builders that subsequently went bust and the U.S. narrowly avoided national bankruptcy in 1895 and 1907. Gold reserves dwindled and dollar devaluations were regular. When Pierpont Morgan, the richest man in the U.S. at the time, died in 1913, most of his estate was invested in art and books. An exhibition of his art at the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh in 2008 estimated his collection at $60 million 86% of his net worth.Mr. Morgan knew better than most people how unstable the public and corporate finances were at the time and how close the U.S. Treasury was skirting the abyss. While U.S. companies were going bust by the day, Mr. Morgans paintings by the likes of Gainsborough and Raphael remained enduring stores of value.The correlation between stock collapses and art booms carried on throughout the 20th century. During the 1920s while the Weimar Republic became more threatening, the UK endured a general strike and the Wall Street crash, art prices enjoyed one of their biggest booms of the 20th century. In 1931 the US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon paid a world record price for a painting: £240,800 for Raphaels Alba Madonna , the most expensive of his 21 purchases from the Hermitage museum in the then Soviet Union. Art prices were also resilient in the late 1980s after U.S. stocks fell 24% on Black Monday in October 1987."When you attend the Emerge Oregon Art Series you will see many pieces of art for under $100. Typically between 1 and 10 pieces sell at each show. We do not take a commission so your money goes directly to the artist. Our role is not only to educate artists on how to show their work, but to educate you as local art collectors on how and why you need to make this investment.If you have any questions at all about how to start your own art collection please feel free to contact us via our contact page!Thanks,Jonathan BoysFounder of the Emerge Oregon Art SeriesLocal Art Dealer
"If there is a line labeled 'too far' in the Willamette Valley art community, the Emerge art show would like to pour bleach on it.
Maybe set it on fire. "
- Eric A. Howald
