The myth of prior knowledge that discourages many novice collectors is a misleading notion. You should not feel that you lack the expertise needed to successfully put a collection together. That will come in time and it will grow as your collection expands.

John Lennon said it best: “All you need is love”…and in the world of collecting this is the very first and most important requirement. A deep love for the object itself be it a quilt, a vase or a painting, should always be the starting point of a collection.

After that, the hunt begins. Enjoy this process and be patient. Experience the joy of searching on your own terms and go where your heart takes you. Never allow someone else to select items for your collection as it would transform it into something impersonal and disconnected from you.

Buy those objects that tug at your heartstrings. Don’t think in terms of monetary returns or investment and don’t worry if you cannot afford works by internationally known artists. The emerging artists you are supporting today could very well be the famous figures of the future.

Notice how your taste changes over time. If your focus shifts into a different arena a great option is to trade or even donate the items you wish to remove from your collection. Perhaps, you could give a piece to a friend who loves it and, in turn, spark the launching of a new collection. Eventually, you will find your niche. Specialization on a specific medium, style or period emerges with time.

Above all be a good caretaker of your artworks. You are a link in a long chain that will go on for as long as a piece remains intact. Read about how to best expand the life of you collection and how to protect and properly store the items that you so lovingly and patiently gathered.

Time will do the rest and you will acquire a great deal of experience and an education that no other pursuit could have provided. The artwork you selected for your collection will tell your story and your collection will be a tangible and beautiful reflection of who you are inside.

Cristina Clarimon Alinder is the owner and curator of ArtHaus66 Contemporary Gallery, an online art gallery specializing in the promotion of mid-career and established contemporary Spanish artists.

She believes that everyone should have the opportunity to view and collect beautiful, high quality yet reasonably priced artwork. Visit her online art gallery to learn more.

Nonetheless, there are things that we can all do to continue or perhaps start collecting without breaking the bank. Artists are offering highly collectible artwork at unprecedented low prices. They have also seen a decrease in their sales and have repositioned themselves to accommodate those collectors with shrinking funds.

Search high and low for the kind of work that catches your eye and your heart. Use the Internet to locate galleries who will work with you to meet your needs. Gallery owners and dealers will find that special piece for you and will help you purchase it with payment plans, layaway options or on the spot discounts.

If you find or are introduced to an artist whose work you love, ask about his or her price range. There will be cheaper pieces and more expensive ones and you can choose. That means purchasing a drawing instead of a painting or perhaps asking for the same photographic print in smaller dimensions. There are always options. Remember that both the artist and the dealer want to find a home for that piece. If you love it, they want you to have it.

Another option is to put a larger more expensive piece aside and pay for it in installments. You might not have $700 of discretionary income at your disposal this very month but can you spare $50? Put a small down payment on the piece and reserve it. It’ll be yours before you know it and it will be quite painless.

Work with a reputable dealer who will get to know you and your particular focus. They can often make deals and get special prices that you would not be able to get on your own. Make sure they pass the savings on to you. Everyone should benefit from such transactions: the artist, the dealer and the collector. Having someone help you from within the art world should not mean more fees or hidden price hikes. Your dealer should rather be your main ally in your efforts to grow your collection.

Collecting is a little bit like a Nike commercial:”Just Do It”. Ask about pieces already in inventory. There are real gems in storage in galleries all over the world just waiting to be unearthed. The truth is that artists do not want earlier work back and dealers cannot indefinitely store it. It’s quite often the best, fastest way to find that special item.

Snatch a tabletop mixed media sculpture for $85 or an assemblage for $65. A drawing can start as low as $100 for an 8×11″ and prints are always extremely reasonable and very beautiful, with limited editions starting at $250. Even small paintings are not out of reach these days…Do not hesitate and you’ll be glad you bought while the market was yours for the taking.

Cristina Clarimon Alinder is the owner and curator of ArtHaus66 Contemporary Gallery, an online art gallery specializing in the promotion of mid-career and established contemporary Spanish artists.

She believes that everyone should have the opportunity to view and collect beautiful, high quality yet reasonably priced artwork. Visit her contemporary art gallery to learn more.

In a matter of months we are finding ourselves adrift in the stillness of an empty sea with no land in sight. Collectors have been decimated by the economy and the ability to purchase art (or perhaps, even the willingness) seems to have drowned, weighed down by fears of an impending recession. Many Americans who made their living in one way or another through art, are barely making their mortgage payments or covering their most basic expenses.

It is at this desperate time that you need to find an outlet for your work or the work of those you represent. Desperate times always call for desperate measures and even though you might have a natural aversion to all things technological, plunging into the virtual world of online networking may be your only chance for survival.

Let yourself be propelled by the notion that someone out there is searching for this exceptional artwork and the extraordinary talent that you are bringing forward. You just needed to reach them. You need to find them.

You are not guaranteed a smooth transition and you will probably be riddled by doubt: How can I make the time for such things? Who’s going to care about it? The answers will not present themselves right away, but you should resolve to set a few goals to help yourself stay on task.

Facebook will be your window to communicate ideas about your art and the artists you represent. You will be promoting your work by creating an outlet for your vision. Post images and comment on them. Talk about your sources of inspiration. Strive to introduce others to new artistic trends. It will be a challenge, but one you will be happy you undertook.

After a few short weeks of regularly posting on Facebook you will be encouraged by fans (I bet you did not know you could have any), comments and good reviews. The artists you meet will be happy with the additional exposure you offer them through your site and folks that otherwise would have never found you will get to know your art and will become interested in purchasing some of your featured artwork.

For now this computer-generated lifesaver will keep you afloat in the treacherous undercurrents of today’s art world. In the meantime, try keeping your gaze fixed on the horizon because the waters are bound to recede sometime soon.

Cristina Clarimon Alinder is the owner and curator of ArtHaus66 Contemporary Gallery, an online art gallery specializing in the promotion of mid-career and established contemporary Spanish artists.

She believes that everyone should have the opportunity to view and collect beautiful, high quality yet reasonably priced artwork. Visit her online art gallery to learn more.

Many times before, she had heard fabulous tales in which princesses slept inside crystal coffins undisturbed for centuries, their beauty preserved by inexplicable magic. She had read accounts about wooden boys turned real by the power of true love. She’d listened to myths of tiny fairies fluttering about and little winter pixies huddling inside a magpie’s nest. She was utterly convinced that all these creatures were out there in the forest, teasingly glancing at her without allowing themselves to be seen. Yet Frances always felt truly at home in this land of make-believe among her whimsical companions.

This is how Frances Melhop grew up to be a story teller. Her affinity for fairy tales only became a stronger source of inspiration as time went on and, quite naturally, women became the focal point of her visual tales. Her photographs now incorporate every possible aspect of the archetypal female: the damsel in distress, the marionette craving for autonomy, the persecuted heroine and the youngster untainted by malice or deceit.

Frances’ characters are never regarded as mere objects of tantalizing beauty, but rather as vehicles through which the story is told in successive vignettes. Melhop despises the way in which women have come to be portrayed in fashion and advertising. Often times they are nothing more than the unwilling recipients of a vulgar and distasteful set of attributes and expectations. In sharp contrast, her work breaks away from this trend to render females in a much more thoughtful, considerate and elegant manner.

Marionette is an ideal illustration of how, through such a succinct and forthright image, Frances Melhop is able to imply the many layers of meaning within the tale. Here, the puppet and the master are one and the same. The duality of their roles develops into a symbiotic relationship between them. It is a complex bond that simultaneously grants them both freedom and confinement.

In appearance, the human is simply in command of the toy. Paradoxically, the puppeteer enacts her dreams through the actions of the marionette, so that the puppet turns into an agent of freedom despite her attachments. The issue of ethical behavior and personal boundaries is candidly addressed in this photograph.

What remains unequivocal is that Frances Melhop is the one gently holding the strings behind all her images. Her work is distinctively her own. In recreating these fairy tales she whispers secrets, unveils beauty, washes away bias and connects us all with the acorn of truth that sleeps within our collective consciousness. Her lens is the rabbit hole of our childhood that holds the promise of a magical, kinder world.

Cristina Clarimon Alinder is the owner and curator of ArtHaus66 Contemporary Gallery, an online art gallery specializing in the promotion of mid-career and established contemporary Spanish artists. Visit her site to learn more.

Do you have a personal favorite? If so, which one? Why?
 
I tend not to get attached to my work…Very few of the pieces that I work on end up having sentimental value for me…There are exceptions, of course…Pieces in which I use images of my father, for instance…Those are usually pieces that I keep and do not put up for sale…I would pick “I wish I’d never met you…” I’ve felt like that many times…I guess it’s inevitable as one gets older…The image of the stars in the jar…A whole universe of possibilities captured, confined to that little space…She feels like that…The painting is about what could have been and also about entrapment…What she could have done…Fate, in the form of a chance encounter, stopped her…

How does your art communicate your experiences?  How do you want your art to be interpreted?

Well, you are what you paint….or sculpt or print…It’s about translating an idea into some kind of marking…Something outside of you…I would say ideas are rarely detached from feelings…When I paint, I mean physically engage in the act of painting, I have already gone through a long process of ruminating and layering all kind of experiences, communications, thoughts…In creating the one piece that is going to capture this long sequence of recollections and emotions, the essential thing for me is to edit what’s superfluous…but the core of the experience is always there because it’s always inside you too.

I have no concrete expectations about how my work should be interpreted…You can never please everyone and I know that there will be those who enjoy it and those who dislike it…It’s just fine…If somehow it pulls at your heartstrings, then the work has “arrived” so to speak…if not, it becomes no more than a passing notion…like the elevator music that everyone despises so much…It’s nothing more than a temporary nuisance…and you can step away from it.

Is there any one piece that you feel speaks louder or more of yourself than the others? Why or why not? 

Perhaps, the one with the “bully”…It’s titled Refuge… I feel for the girl who obviously has few choices available to her…Come down the ladder and face him…Stay in the isolation of her little house….There’s something ominous about the black cloud in the corner…despite the fact that I like rain storms I think this one is man made… by him…He thinks he’s hot stuff with his crown and all…The one sign of hope are the little wings that are keeping her afloat… The wings could help her stay clear of trouble…or at least I hope so.

Which piece(s) took the longest to work on?

Actually I am very slow with my work…I am very much in my head all the time…Not always a good thing…I change my mind about the pieces and rework many of them…Detail seems important somehow…and quality also matters a great deal.

How long overall did it take you to finish this project?

Well over a year, I would say…and I’d probably still be working on it if I had not made the conscious decision to turn the page…It’s a link in the chain…everything is built on something that was there before…Projects never happen in isolation.

What made you decide to start this project?

I was contacted by Lane about a possible show…I was working on some of the initial pieces at the time and the call gave me the incentive to expand on the ideas I was working on…

Several people have commented on your gallery. Many of the comments revolve around the face that remains static in most of the pieces.

Yes, sometimes the pieces are linked by an element such as this one…She could be the heroin…or the villain…but in this case I think she’s the one who endures difficulties and remains “in the picture” (no pun intended)…She has her reasons for being there (hence the title of the show) but they run deep…Her face does not really show her emotional state…The face is the “public” part of her, but we can see what she’s feeling inside…The waters rising, the holes in her heart, the regret, even a glimmer of hope at times…

Who is the little girl, and how does she relate to you or your work?

I don’t really know who she was, but I found her very endearing…She appears in the pieces as an iconic figure who is also, as her older counterpart, enduring and struggling…She should be sheltered in that little space of her own, but as she moves through the field, from frame to frame, she experiences new and unexpected things…I think she looks very much adrift…she does not seem to have a say in anything that’s going on…Again, it’s the idea that her circumstances mold her and that we really cannot tell what anyone is going through at any given moment…We judge other’s reactions by our own standards without knowledge of their reasons for acting the way they do…It’s a universal kind of disconnection that we all experience…

What are the typical reactions to your artwork?  Are they the kind of reaction you want? Why?

I enjoy getting feedback…Obviously, someone is taking the time to let me know what the work conveys to them…I feel gratitude for it. Of course, sometimes the feedback is critical of the work, but even then there’s something to learn from it…People’s comments tell me a lot about who they are as well…Each person sees the work through their own personal lens and their comments and interpretations reflect who they are too…

Most of the time I get comments and questions about the symbolism behind some recurrent elements in the work: houses, fire, flowing water, red lines and so forth…but the story is not really mine to tell…My story merges with their stories and together it transforms each time and with each viewer… Therefore, fire sometimes means desperation and others anger…Water can be tears or the changing tides…ladders can go up into heaven or down towards hell…It’s all in how you look at it.

The gallery is coming along…More expense than anticipated, but it should look beautiful in the end…So much nicer than out own home! Perhaps we should move into it…

We are having a nice reception from artists who are participating in the Grand Opening…The invitations should be here very soon…Very talented artists (some renewing their collaboration with Arthaus66 and some new) are sending us very good pieces to exhibit…It should be a great first show!

Evenings with Tony