following the money -- art’s destinations

Owning art advocates for art that can be owned, not by museums, not by corporations or foundations, not by any business entity hoping to enhance a public image, but by individuals for personal use, to be hung in a house, an apartment or office, and seen everyday. For practical living-space purposes the favored form is painting, although anything original qualifies, drawings and by-hand prints. 

There are two distinct pathways to arrive at decisions about acquiring art, depending on whose pocket provides the purchase price. People who purchase art with other people’s money, on panels and committees, choose a different sort of art than they'd want to live with day to day, or pay for themselves. The Rockefellers were leading advocates for abstract art back in the day, providing foundational support and prominent display in big banks, but that wasn’t what they had over the fireplace back at the home-place, just regular folks after all. 

The decision to part with personal money points the consciousness, refines discernment, and provides the most direct avenue to visual sophistication and market savvy, lessons etched in the skin. Without buying, owning, and living with art, the most erudite expert is just a spectator, a press-box commentator who ‘never played the game.’ Owning art also favors representational art, but that’s just being practical as well, recognizable images being both more accessible to the viewer and more challenging to the artist, a gravitational realignment long overdue. Of course it’s possible to maintain a timely sensibility concerning contemporary art, but this ain’t no disco -- long term ownership has little interest in time-bound fetish art, so tired by the year after next.

Is this asking too much, this quiet corner? After all, it’s only a niche, a small slice of the big art pie, the quaint notion that the-less-than-wealthy might support working artists as community-based professionals who provide a bit of curry in bland suburbs, flavoring each house with its owner’s own personality. There’s the problem of stupidity, of course, that average citizens just will never have the background to even look at art, but we’ll just have to laugh that one off. It’s actually the people overly concerned with reputation and resumes who have trouble seeing art.

Could this potential audience be largely imaginary as some would suggest, maybe, but might just be invisible so far, nibbling at the edges, getting to know local artists by sight, counting pennies. Area art production could suddenly become a torrent if neighbors, business owners, friends and associates all bought a starter piece together, a rolling coincidence all across town. When enough art is seen in public the mystery will disappear, area painters will have fans, and businesses will want to display their work. Simply spending money out of pocket makes everybody more discerning and aware, and the artists will all get better, working everyday.