I was journaling this morning, and I ran across an exercise I did after reading about sales in business. Sales is not something I feel that I'm very good at, but I'm an artist, so there aren't huge expectations of us as business people. While this is not a garment I wear proudly, it is warm and comfortable, and fits me like a glove.

The point of the exercise was the realization that everyone has particular needs, and they know that as long as the need outweighs the pain, they will resolve their needs below their pain point. So in many cases, money is a tool we all use to resolve some if not most of our needs. If I need to clean myself, I will buy soap. If the soap is wonderful, and luxurious, and softens my skin, and makes me feel wonderful, I'm likely to spend more for that soap. If those luxuries are not worth the extra money, I'll buy a cheaper brand. That all makes perfect sense to me.

The problem is that I don't sell soap, or toothpaste, or clothes, or cars... I sell art. While I can easily extrapolate why someone might want to buy a refrigerator, it's harder to understand why someone would want to buy a painting, and in particular, my painting. So I think this was a great exercise. I broke things down and came up with six needs that art fulfills in people.

People want to surround themselves with beauty. We've been doing this since we lived in caves, so that shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone. We all want to live and work in a beautiful environment, and that makes our lives better. So is my art beautiful, yep, so number one is solved.

The second need is related. Not only do people want to live their lives in a beautiful surrounding, they really want that beauty to reflect their tastes. They want to be able to choose and curate the beautiful surroundings they live in. They curate their world based on loads of personalized criteria. People may collect art from places they've visited, or artists they have met, or certain schools or art movements, or just based on an emotional reaction they have toward a piece of art. We do this all the time with music. We may appreciate that there is music on the elevator, but that doesn't mean we choose the same tunes to listen to at home. So does my art appeal to certain people who are curating a beautiful environment? Yes... a much smaller slice of the pie, but yes, there are those who respond to my art and buy it for their collections.

The third need people have is to belong to a tribe. People who love art want to be around other people who love art. They're looking to build their personal art collection, but they're also looking to hang with others of like mind. They want to have an experience of art. That's why we try to host events in the studio, and introduce our collectors to one another. We want to build a community around our art business as well as run a shop. I think this may be as important as the art itself. Creating a loyal following of collectors, most of whom will end up buying several pieces of art over my career, is huge.

The fourth need people have has to do with finding others with skill sets we don't possess. I think one of the reasons why artists don't buy a lot of art is because we figure we can do it ourselves. But let's be honest. I would never build my own kitchen cabinets. Even if I could construct them, they would look awful. Many collectors purchase art that they feel they could never create. They are looking for an expertise, an excellence in art that has value to them. It's like the soap analogy I used before. A masterpiece from a skilled artist is worth more than a painting by an amateur, and people will pay more if they value that degree of excellence. Does my art reflect a degree of skill that others cannot reproduce. Sure, not bragging in any way, but no one is going to paint the paintings I craft. My work is unique, and gets better over time.

The fifth need people have is to build a sort of legacy. They want to invest their time and money in certain things that is outlast them. A collection of anything says a whole lot about the collector, and the notion that the grouping of art that I have curated will exist as a "thing" after I'm dead is quite appealing. I think that's why people donate their collections to museums as a unit. They want the collection to exist as a collection always. I know this is a sore spot for several of my collectors. They tell me that they spend so much time and money building an art collection that means nothing to their children. That prompted Bogdan and I to write a short book on the importance of having a plan for the art you are collecting. I have created an entire series of paintings that I call my legacy series. It is so important to validate that need in collectors, and inspire them to create legacy plans of their own.

Finally, we can't ignore that art collecting brings with it a social status. Those Renaissance patrons that funded portraits and church frescos got a lot of satisfaction from the status they had as patrons of the arts. That certainly a perk in collecting art. There is a societal value, a mystique, placed on art collectors. People who can afford luxury are admired, and if you can afford to pay hundreds of millions of dollars on a Picasso or a Rothko, society scoffs, but secretly admire anyone with that much money, and that much appreciation of the finer things in life. Is my art a luxury purchase? Well, yes... in a qualified way, yes.

So how does your art solve the needs of your collectors? Take some time and think it through. I believe it is super important to be able to understand, not only why I paint the things I do, but also why anyone would want to buy my art and take it home.