10 Steps of an Emerging Art Collector - Week 5 Area of Art Interest

Through the last 4 weeks of The 10 Steps of an Emerging Art Collector your art education has been below the surface. This week your art interests are breaking ground and your personal preferences are going to see the light of day. The focus will be

Assign an Area of Art Interest

You are going to assign yourself an area of art that interests you. There is so much wonderful artwork out there that your art advancement can suffer from over crowding. Interest could end up all over the place without any coherency. Assigning an Area of Art Interest will - 

• Narrow the art field, lending focus
• Personalize the collecting process
• Help build familiarity and knowledge within a genre
• Show availability of art and price ranges

Questionnaire 

This section is to help you recognize what you are drawn to. This is all about you. It doesn't matter what anyone else likes or if anyone likes your inclinations, it is about what you like. You do not need permission to have your own point of view about art. If you thought you did you are free from that idea. 

Answer these questions in your Art Journal.

• What subject matter to you stop to look at over and over?
• What colors are you continually drawn to?
• Is there a certain size that you prefer over another?
• If you've gone to a gallery what type of art do you look at first?
• What content brings the biggest emotional response from you?
• If you could commission any piece of artwork what would it be?

Answering these questions will start to point you in your preferred genre.

Art Journal

Hopefully, you have written notes in your Art Journal during the early process. Your ideas, impressions and inclinations about the art you have viewed over the last 4 weeks. Go through your Journal and find art styles that repeatedly drew your attention.

Also check your internet bookmarks (from step 2 - Appreciate Art) for the types and styles of work that you saved. Note the genres. 

Genres

Review of your art journal and answering the questionnaire will help you pick 1 or 2 genres that you will concentrate on over the remaining weeks. You don't have to stay with one genre forever. It is a starting point for your emerging art collecting.Here is a link to a more in depth definition of Genres. 

Just a short list of possible genres (to add to the one under the Genre definition post) - figurative, still life, portrait, realism, fantasy, folk art, marine, military, indian, western, religious, symbolism, conceptual, pop art, victorian, rococo, modern, graffiti, impressionism, landscape, etc.

Example

Here is a genre distinguished by content - cups. It makes for an interesting, yet focused, collection. Click on an image and you'll be taken to that artist's website.

Now from exploring the above suggestions pick 1-2 genres you'll be focusing on. Post them for us. 

---

Date Night Idea: Invite some friends (maybe your Art Allies) to go to a diner and get a cup of hot chocolate and discuss what Area of Art Interest you are going to assign yourself.

---