Finding affordable art that looks great, is unique and will add a bit a sparkle to your decor is not as hard as you might think.
Expensive art is great if you want to impress your country club friends as they gaze at your newest art auction buy over cocktails in the study. But for most of us, great affordable art that we can enjoy on a budget and still be able to send the kids to college and retire, while enjoying a smartly decorated home is more of the goal.
For the one percent who can afford to collect high end artwork, loan pieces to museums and create their own private museums in their fourth estate, that’s great. More power to them.
But for the rest of us, we’re caught between art beyond our budget and mass merchandised factory art. Surely, there is a solution in between.
The Problem With Low End “Investment” Art
There is art that is of fine quality that can be purchased as decor and then there is a category of art that is just expensive enough to have to be sold with the idea that you are making an investment.
Beware of this “investment” art sold in flashy galleries in tourist spots such as Las Vegas or in Key West or on Maui. Galleries staffed with pushy salespeople who steer you into special viewing rooms with perfect lighting and talk about investment quality, limited editions and how you should act now before the edition runs out.
Peter Lik galleries are one example of this – located in tourist locations the well trained sales staff sells “limited editions” up to 995 copies plus a few “artist prints”. The salespeople emphasis the investment value of the artwork because the pricing formula dictates that the print prices go up as the edition sells.
The problem is that:
1. The artist is not collected by any museum or sold at auction so the likelyhood that you are going to cash in on the next Andy Warhol type skyrocking prices is slim.
2. The artist produces nice looking work but it is ultimately decor. There is no high concept as required by the modern art world.
3. The secondary market is flooded with product. Basically you are buying something that drops in value the minute it leaves the showroom. Your piece is now used. The next person who walks in to the showroom can buy the same exact piece new, for the same price you paid. And if you peruse Art Broker.com you’ll see hundreds of “used” prints by the same artist for sale. Why pay the “new” price when you can get the same thing for less on the secondary market? Basically the editions are so big that the secondary market builds up before the edition runs out.
So let’s eliminate the idea that we are buying art at a certain price point for investment.
What If You Get Tired of the Piece?
Buying artwork is easy. You pull out your credit card or write a check. But selling the same art work later is not so easy.
Tastes change. Trends change. What was cool twenty years ago might not be in now. You might move, change careers, get married. You might move to a different style of home and want new types of artwork. Or you move out of your swanky bachelor pad into a family home with a modern farmhouse style. Or you might get a promotion and its time to trade up those “Hang In There Baby” dorm room type posters for something more executive.
Haven’t you seen artwork in offices or people’s homes that has faded so badly half the color is missing? Not all artwork stands up to the test of time physically or ascetically.
I have an old college friend who still has framed Ansel Adams posters in his living room. Those were trendy back in 1988. He probably paid $50 for them at the college bookstore.
So we’ve established that you might not be married to a piece of artwork for your life. What to do with artwork that you don’t want? Well if it is a substantial piece like an oil painting by a well know local artist, you might be able to sell it at a local auction house, on Ebay or on Craigslist. But if it was something that has no real secondary market you might have to end up donating it to the local charity. So much for “investment” grade artwork.
So another plus for buying affordable artwork is that you don’t feel guilty or disappointed when you want to let it go.
Finding Great Affordable Art
So if you are on a budget, affordable art is the way to go. Art that doesn’t break the bank and art that you won’t feel guilty about if you change your mind about it in the future.
Of course, all affordable art is not the same. You want the best quality you can get and you want something that is unique and speaks to your individuality.
Mass produced, factory made artwork sold by the pallet on the floors of Walmart is not going to cut it. The most embarrassing thing is to have someone over for dinner and they look at your living room and say “hey that is cool I almost bought that at Walmart but it looks good in your place.”
Embarrassing!
Consider that the art for sale at these national retail chains was chosen by a product buyer at corporate headquarters. Here are the five toasters we are going to carry, here are the 10 rugs we will stock and here are the 8 canvas prints we’ll offer.
Luckily there are solutions to the world of force feed art from the national retail chains. One is buying original artwork from local artists.
Artists around the country offer original handmade art at prices that much different than the prices of the mass produced art in stores. Buying from an independent, local artist supports the artist directly and keeps your money in the local economy rather than shipping it over to China.
The next solution is buying Print On Demand prints, canvases and framed artwork. Print On Demand or POD prints are original artwork offered by individual artists that are custom printed when selected by the customer.
POD prints by a quality printer such as Fine Art America offer museum quality prints in hundreds of variations. You can choose from thousands of artworks, ten different papers, hundreds of mat and frame styles as well as canvas prints, metal prints, acrylic prints and even wood prints. The choices of sizes start at postcards and go all the way up to sofa sized prints.
Here are some examples of various framed prints purchased recently by customers from the Edward M. Fielding portfolio to give you an idea of the different custom framing choice available.
Affordable and Limited Edition
Prints rolled in a tube start at under $50 and can be purchased in standard sizes to fit into pre-made frames. Or you can order a custom museum quality ready to hang framed version complete with paper, mat and frame choice. Or order a canvas or metal print that doesn’t need a frame for a modern look.
Artwork purchase from the artist POD is inherently limited edition. Only a few prints of any one image in any particular size will be purchased. Chances are the total number of prints sold will be less than the 995 touted by well known artists like Peter Lik.