Collectors

"First Light"
Oil on Canvas
14x18"






I’m continually amazed at the cool people I meet through painting, and am always pleasantly surprised at how friendly and helpful people can be in the art world, whether they be artists, dealers, or collectors. One of my favorite things about selling my work is learning more about the collectors who buy it. The gallery I work with in town sends me the name and address of each person who buys one of my paintings, and I usually send them a thank you note or some sort of personal message. Most of the time, that’s the extent of my communication with each buyer, but sometimes I get a little bit more.

One guy sent me a note back about how a scene I had painted looked down on the site of an old molybdenum mine – he had worked on reclamation of the land back in the 80’s, and sent me a note to tell me how pleased he was to see that they had done such a good job that an artist would want to paint the place 15 years later. He had ended up buying a different painting of mine, but took the time to write me a note about this one because it had an impact on him. I do environmental engineering for a living, so I thought his perspective was just as interesting.

The painting posted above recently sold to the man who apparently owns the ranch that makes up the foreground. Apparently he was in Denver and went into the gallery, recognized the mountain and his property in the painting, and bought it right away. I couldn’t think of a better person to buy that particular painting. I loved the scene enough to shoot a picture from the side of the highway on a REALLY cold morning – what better home for the painting than with a person who loved that scene enough to actually own the land?

I love knowing who buys a painting and why they were drawn to it – it’s one of my favorite parts of the business of art. Thankfully I work with a gallery who shares these stories with me – I know a lot of dealers won’t disclose this information to their artists at all.