Dear Art Lover,

No doubt, most emails you receive today will be pressuring you to buy something.

So, instead, here are some brief thoughts on why I use the money I earn making art to buy art.

As I see it - making art is a transfer of energy.  The sun lights up the landscape; the light bounces from the ground and water to my eye; I wet a brush and soak it in pigments and describe what I see in paint; the sun dries the paper; the sun lights up the painting; the viewer sees the represented light of the description of a landscape on a digestible rectangle… seeing a version of what I saw.

The energy I put into painting as well as I possibly can is recognized by other people being excited about the work and buying it sometimes.  Those investments allow me to keep making work.  They also allow me to have a budget for artwork that I want to buy.  I can invest in the artwork I love, especially that being made with exceptional skill and care by people who are dear to me, and it can fuel further production of their work, in some small part.

It’s never rational, or calculated, to buy art.  Being able to “afford” art you love isn’t something that resonates with me.  I set aside money specifically for art.  I believe owning your own art collection, however humble and personal, is a non-replaceable necessity for the production of any art at all.  Culturally, most of what I’m up to these days is not “valuable” in the same way that it once was, or in the same way a laptop or a new car is “valuable”.

Anyways, enjoy the endless emails pressuring you to buy something.  There is no pressure to buy art.  I want to find the people in the world today who love art so much they have to buy it, because it will become a part of their lives.  That’s how I feel about the art I buy.

Cheers,

David

DavidOSmithArtist.com