Collectors Take Note

I was so proud to see the excellence of the art that was shown at the Art San Diego Contemporary Art Fair particularly at the San Diego booths. This quality will hopefully be reported in stories taken back to Japan and Mexico City and New York by the other participants at the fair. We sold art to the valued of over $20,000 in our SD Art Prize display, met a huge number of new people and saw lots of friends and colleagues.

I hear over and over that there are not enough sales galleries in San Diego. I know why this is…. there does not seem to be enough people buying art to support those galleries. But I have noticed a few other bad practices that make it difficult for galleries to survive and for trust to develop between artist, galleries and collectors. So this is my plea: Break a few bad habits and create better ones. Then our galleries can survive and prosper in San Diego and support more artists and encourage more art collectors.

Artist

· Don’t go behind your gallery’s back to make a sales direct to a collector and cut them out

· Make sure your prices are the same for all

· Art work does not go on sale. Destroy the work you don’t like and don’t undermine your prices.

Art Gallery/Dealer

· Pay artists on time when you are paid

· Split your commission and work with agents and consultants and other galleries to build audience for your artists. Greed will restrict growing the reputation of the artists and thus hamper the rise of prices.

· If you discount the work more than 10% to make a sale, take the discount off your commission, not the artist’s share of the price.

Collector

· Use galleries…don’t cut them out to go directly to the artist. You affect the whole market with this practice.

· Don’t negotiate the price so that the gallery barely makes a profit. Pay full price if justified by quality, reputation and provenance.

So now there are so many wonderful visual art events in San Diego county that we are spoiled for choice. The San Diego Visual Arts Network has registered almost 6000 events since 2003 and you can find something to do almost every day of every month on our calendar.