A Case for Collecting Art

Living with art creates a daily relationship with creativity.

Art gives you a different point of view, a different visual language, because, at the end of the day, that is what art is: a visual language. A different way of saying things. And often, it is a way of saying, or showing, things that are hard to say out loud.

It lets it sit in the backdrop of your life, almost quietly, but always there. It becomes a kind of atmosphere you return to without realizing it.

It is also good to preserve works that otherwise might disappear.

To keep them in a domain where they can be seen by others. Because, in the simplest sense, that is the purpose of art, and it is what the artist would want for their work: that it continues to live, to be seen, to be encountered. In that sense, collecting is not just owning. It is being a caretaker. An overseer, in the best way. Someone who holds the work so it can keep doing what it was made to do.

Keep non-corporate cultural spaces alive.

It matters where art lives. It is good to collect art so it is not only in corporate settings, not only in the clean distance of institutions, but alive in spaces, in homes, where it can be seen by people who might not be exposed to art on a daily basis, or in any kind of way. So it is not just about what it does for you, brightening your life, sharpening your eye, shifting your sense of things. It does help others too. It lets art enter the everyday, where it can actually work on people.

Art becomes a family anchor or story.

You can hold a piece of art through time and pass it on to your children. It becomes a memory, a kind of memento, between you and the people you pass it on to. Artists understand this. As they pass, they often give works to their children. Clifford Still, for example, gave one piece to each of his children. These are legacies. And the object becomes an anchor for the person who receives it, but also for the person who gave it.

Art is a story making tool, beyond it containing stories. And as it moves through time, through different hands, different rooms, different lives, it generates new stories too. 

Images: Image of artist Don Bachardy and writer Christopher Isherwood’s home for World of Interiors, Apartment of collectors Janine and Tom Hill with Cy Twombly’s “Untitled,” 1959, Image of Stelly Selway’s home, Interior designed by Anne McDonald Design