January 18, 2022 / Christina Garcia

The first piece of art I acquired for my personal collection was a printed edition of a photograph taken by Jackie Furtado. I came across it during a print sale some friends of mine organized to raise money for domestic workers during the height of the first covid wave.

This felt like a reasonable way to ease into beginning a personal collection. It was a chance to own something unique that I loved, which told a story, all the while giving back to a good cause and supporting friends—at a price I could afford. No brainer, right? This was the gateway piece which opened up my personal gallery’s doors.

You might be considering whether it’s the right time for you to begin collecting artwork. Maybe you’ve always aspired to support artists you love, or want to embark on an emotional, thoughtful pursuit of cherry-picking your pieces. I posed this question to collectors at different stages in their journeys and discovered that there’s no time like the present if you’re experiencing any of these symptoms:

1. Receiving artwork from a loved one begins to thrill you.

   Giorgia Brugnoli, a Brooklyn-based illustrator born and raised in Rome, told us about her coveting for her grandmother’s sculpture collection. “I feel like I’ve always had a tendency to collect little vintage objects since I was little by going to markets here and there in Italy. But a major influence was my grandma’s house. It was full of [various sizes of] sculptures of many different materials that added so much to the decor. And I was like, ‘I want to do the same.’ I actually have a couple pieces from her house now in my apartment.” Giorgia also waited until she had her own apartment, bringing us to to our next point:

2. You’re settled in a place you see yourself long-term, and feel inspired to intentionally fill the walls to be a reflection of your style.

   (PS - Today’s walls transcend the physical realm: if you don’t have the wall space or prefer to enjoy your art in your digital wallets, I vibe with that too! You can create a digital gallery on platforms such as OnCyber, admire your artworks as rotating backgrounds using this app, or decorate the walls of your digital real estate in the metaverse. Displaying work digitally can be just as simple as putting work up on your tv screen [I’ve heard The Samsung Frame is great for this]. Or, if you’re in the market for a high end digital art frame, there are an increasing amount of them coming to market such as Infinite Objects or Luma canvas.)

   Jordan Robin, an LA native and creative, described a unique creative experience when she found the perfect loft to rent in Williamsburg 11 years ago. “As an artist and creative myself, I treasure creative exchange. In my early twenties I worked with a high profile artist and signed a lease on my first studio with a group of other artists. My whole world was colored by the interplay between artists’ ideas on all levels. Trading work and giving gifts between artists was then and is now, an absolute joy and pillar of my life.” Jordan’s trade of ideas and gifts with other artists means she has, “never bought a single piece of art.” That being said…

3. You have a special connection with an artist or collector.

   Lean! In! You never know what inspiration or exchange will come out of it. @toni_marinara, who boasts a beautiful collection of some major generative and digital artists, told us about how as a child he “met a collector of Roman artifacts. He gave me a piece of pavement from the via Flaminia. This sparked an excitement for all things Greco-Roman and renaissance art which I quickly realized was out of my reach and led to discovering more contemporary items and art I could gather.” This early experience informed so much of his current personal taste and ultimately sparked his journey as a digital collector.

4. You just have an overwhelming urgency.

   @Sebastianss.eth, a gallerist, curator and overall crypto art pioneer, has amassed an epic collection of various mediums. He told me, “I knew for a long time I wanted to start collecting but at one point it just hit me that I had to pull the trigger. Asked galleries for payment plans at the time, which was super helpful.. Then it became real.”

5. You’ve found your personal taste.

   There’s an underlying thread that ties together artworks you are drawn to. Ellie Hayworth, founder of the art consultancy Hayworth, described that this was a process for her. “I started collecting art in graduate school, as I had acquired some preliminary skills and a framework to start trusting my eye and assessing what works brought me joy, but also had depth and merit beyond just aesthetically. I started with acquiring small paintings by artists whose larger works I admired but couldn’t afford — with a few months of graduate school and a full undergraduate art history degree under my belt I felt comfortable and informed enough to speak with the gallerists to inquire about pieces that were at my budget at the time. That was how I started to hone my eye as well as my vocabulary in order to negotiate what I wanted and ultimately make the initial investments. I’ve gotten bolder and more audacious in my collecting practice with every acquisition since then.”

If you collect, how did you know when you were ready? It’s a super personal question, and there’s definitely no right answer, but hopefully this can help you if you’re not sure where to begin.

January 18, 2022 / Christina Garcia

The first piece of art I acquired for my personal collection was a printed edition of a photograph taken by Jackie Furtado. I came across it during a print sale some friends of mine organized to raise money for domestic workers during the height of the first covid wave.

This felt like a reasonable way to ease into beginning a personal collection. It was a chance to own something unique that I loved, which told a story, all the while giving back to a good cause and supporting friends—at a price I could afford. No brainer, right? This was the gateway piece which opened up my personal gallery’s doors.

You might be considering whether it’s the right time for you to begin collecting artwork. Maybe you’ve always aspired to support artists you love, or want to embark on an emotional, thoughtful pursuit of cherry-picking your pieces. I posed this question to collectors at different stages in their journeys and discovered that there’s no time like the present if you’re experiencing any of these symptoms:

1. Receiving artwork from a loved one begins to thrill you.

   Giorgia Brugnoli, a Brooklyn-based illustrator born and raised in Rome, told us about her coveting for her grandmother’s sculpture collection. “I feel like I’ve always had a tendency to collect little vintage objects since I was little by going to markets here and there in Italy. But a major influence was my grandma’s house. It was full of [various sizes of] sculptures of many different materials that added so much to the decor. And I was like, ‘I want to do the same.’ I actually have a couple pieces from her house now in my apartment.” Giorgia also waited until she had her own apartment, bringing us to to our next point:

2. You’re settled in a place you see yourself long-term, and feel inspired to intentionally fill the walls to be a reflection of your style.

   (PS - Today’s walls transcend the physical realm: if you don’t have the wall space or prefer to enjoy your art in your digital wallets, I vibe with that too! You can create a digital gallery on platforms such as OnCyber, admire your artworks as rotating backgrounds using this app, or decorate the walls of your digital real estate in the metaverse. Displaying work digitally can be just as simple as putting work up on your tv screen [I’ve heard The Samsung Frame is great for this]. Or, if you’re in the market for a high end digital art frame, there are an increasing amount of them coming to market such as Infinite Objects or Luma canvas.)

   Jordan Robin, an LA native and creative, described a unique creative experience when she found the perfect loft to rent in Williamsburg 11 years ago. “As an artist and creative myself, I treasure creative exchange. In my early twenties I worked with a high profile artist and signed a lease on my first studio with a group of other artists. My whole world was colored by the interplay between artists’ ideas on all levels. Trading work and giving gifts between artists was then and is now, an absolute joy and pillar of my life.” Jordan’s trade of ideas and gifts with other artists means she has, “never bought a single piece of art.” That being said…

3. You have a special connection with an artist or collector.

   Lean! In! You never know what inspiration or exchange will come out of it. @toni_marinara, who boasts a beautiful collection of some major generative and digital artists, told us about how as a child he “met a collector of Roman artifacts. He gave me a piece of pavement from the via Flaminia. This sparked an excitement for all things Greco-Roman and renaissance art which I quickly realized was out of my reach and led to discovering more contemporary items and art I could gather.” This early experience informed so much of his current personal taste and ultimately sparked his journey as a digital collector.

4. You just have an overwhelming urgency.

   @Sebastianss.eth, a gallerist, curator and overall crypto art pioneer, has amassed an epic collection of various mediums. He told me, “I knew for a long time I wanted to start collecting but at one point it just hit me that I had to pull the trigger. Asked galleries for payment plans at the time, which was super helpful.. Then it became real.”

5. You’ve found your personal taste.

   There’s an underlying thread that ties together artworks you are drawn to. Ellie Hayworth, founder of the art consultancy Hayworth, described that this was a process for her. “I started collecting art in graduate school, as I had acquired some preliminary skills and a framework to start trusting my eye and assessing what works brought me joy, but also had depth and merit beyond just aesthetically. I started with acquiring small paintings by artists whose larger works I admired but couldn’t afford — with a few months of graduate school and a full undergraduate art history degree under my belt I felt comfortable and informed enough to speak with the gallerists to inquire about pieces that were at my budget at the time. That was how I started to hone my eye as well as my vocabulary in order to negotiate what I wanted and ultimately make the initial investments. I’ve gotten bolder and more audacious in my collecting practice with every acquisition since then.”

If you collect, how did you know when you were ready? It’s a super personal question, and there’s definitely no right answer, but hopefully this can help you if you’re not sure where to begin.