Whether you’re ready to move from your old dorm room decorating style of posters on the wall, you’ve bought your first home or you just want a little more culture around you, you may be wondering how to get started with art collecting. While you might see stories of multi-million-dollar deals made at auctions, you don’t have to be wealthy to start a modest collection. If you have the disposal income to buy games, clothes or restaurant meals, you’ve got enough to collect painting, prints, sculptures and more. The tips below can get you started.
Free Up Cash
Collecting art can be both a hobby and an investment activity. Of course, art collecting can also be risky, and there’s no guarantee that what you buy today will be worth more tomorrow, but even if that isn’t the case, what you buy will bring you pleasure. You might be able to cut back on your monthly expenses so you have a little more cash to spend with a student loan consolidation. Some private lenders can offer consolidation that is applicable to both federal and private balances. This can also simplify your bill-paying if you are juggling multiple balances and due dates.
Follow Your Taste
You may have heard others say or even said something along the lines of “I don’t know a lot, but I know what I like” when it comes to art. The idea behind this statement is that the speaker may not have any formal education in a particular art form but they do have a strong sense of what their taste is. If you are serious about building a collection, you will probably enjoy it more and make better choices from an investment sense by learning more about art investing, but you should still stick with what you like. The art world is fickle, and if you follow trends instead of your instincts, you may end up with work that is worthless in a monetary sense that you also hate. Even if what you like is not particularly fashionable right now, it could be next year or next decade.
Buying on a Budget
So, how do you go about buying art when you would as soon find yourself on another planet as bidding against billionaires at Sotheby’s auction house? The internet and social media have hugely democratized the art world, and you are almost sure to find some artists that you love by poking around online. Your next favorite artist may be as close by as your local coffee shop or university art program. Look out for local gallery shows as well, especially if your city has a monthly night of gallery open houses. You can pick up prints or small pieces by artists just starting out for as little as $20 or $30. When you are considering what to buy, you should also think about where you would hang it in your home and how it would fit with the rest of your decor. For example, a painting that you love but that is so big that it would overwhelm every room in your house might not be the best choice.
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