The art world runs on information asymmetry and it suits almost everyone except the artist. I write about what a commission split covers, why your work is priced wrong in both directions, how a gallery decides who to show, and what a collector is actually buying. I sold other people's work for twenty-six years and took half, so I can tell you exactly what that half was for and when it was not earned.
If you listen to most art historians, they’ll try to sell you a version of the Renaissance that is all divine inspiration and celestial light, as if Donatello just woke up one morning with the secrets of the universe etched into his brain. It’s a lovely fairy tale, but it’s absolute rubbish. To truly understand […]
Stop letting the sheer, performative pretension of a museum lobby make you feel like you need a chaperone just to look at a canvas. I spent twenty-six years watching people hover in groups, nodding in synchronized, empty agreement because they were too terrified to admit they didn’t “get” a piece without a companion to validate […]
Stop wasting your money on those twelve-step masterclasses that promise you’ll capture the soul of the Cotswolds just by mastering a specific brushstroke. I spent twenty-six years watching artists pour hundreds of pounds into expensive tutorials on “techniques for painting realistic landscape scenery,” only to end up with canvases that looked like expensive wallpaper—technically proficient, […]
If you think a dusty shop sign claiming “fine antiques” is a guarantee of value, you’ve already lost your shirt. I spent decades watching collectors walk into boutiques and pay a staggering premium for what is essentially mass-produced nostalgia—pretty things, certainly, but hardly investments. The truth is, finding quality pieces of antique glassware isn’t about […]
I once watched a young painter, a girl with talent that made my chest ache, stand in my gallery staring at a piece she’d spent months perfecting. She had opted for a heavy, ornate gilded frame she’d found at a flea market, thinking it added “prestige.” Instead, the weight of that wood was physically crushing […]
I spent twenty-six years watching people mistake “clutter” for “curation,” and frankly, I see the same mistake happening in living rooms far too often. You’ll see influencers peddling these absurd, overpriced acrylic shelving systems that cost more than the actual pressings they’re meant to hold, as if a bit of plastic can somehow manufacture prestige. […]
People love to talk about the romanticism of the hunt, as if finding a pristine Penny Black is some spiritual awakening rather than a calculated pursuit of paper and gum. They’ll sell you on the prestige and the “investment potential,” but let’s be honest: most of the high-end philatelic market is just a sophisticated way […]
Most people approach the idea of building a collection as if they are shopping for a new sofa—they look for something that “matches” the rug or fills a void on a blank wall. It’s a polite way of saying they are merely decorating, and frankly, it’s a waste of both your money and the artist’s […]
I remember sitting in the back of a crowded studio during my first year of art history, watching a young painter spend nearly a month’s rent on a velvet-lined box of professional sable brushes, only to realize they hadn’t even mastered their color mixing. It was painful to watch. The industry loves to pretend that […]
Most artists believe that buying the most expensive tube of cobalt from a high-end supplier is the shortcut to a sophisticated palette, but that is a lie designed to pad the margins of massive corporations. I remember sitting in my studio twenty years ago, staring at a landscape that looked utterly plastic, realizing that my […]