What is a collector?

To my mind, an art collector, first and foremost, is someone who acquires art strategically.

That strategy might be based on a variety of considerations: specific artistic medium, historic or stylistic period, specific artist, specific culture, investment opportunity. (No doubt there are others.) So before a ‘collector’ can acquire a new piece, it needs to be measured against some criteria. Will it ‘fit in’ with their other art?

I certainly don’t fit that definition of ‘art collector.’

My decisions are usually spontaneous, not influenced by specific criteria. But on the other hand, I don’t think I’ve acquired art haphazardly. So what has informed my decisions over the past three decades?

I had to give this question very serious thought once I decided to exhibit some of the art that hangs on my walls and sits on my shelves.

Finally I had an ‘aha moment.’ I understood that this has been the single most influential factor: I was an anthropology major in university. (In the broadest terms, that’s the study of people, and their stories.)

Whenever I first set eyes on an artwork I now own, I experienced an overwhelming feeling—a story is being told here. That story might be historical, cultural, political, psychological, or even aesthetic. And as will soon become clear, most of those stories are about people quite different from myself. (Always the anthropologist.) 

Suddenly the arc of my professional life—which heretofore felt random to me—seemed less disconnected. It’s followed that same early spark. Anthropology student, immigration paralegal, international travel marketer, long-in-the-tooth art history student, curator, website founder.

Thanks to the Internet, I managed to track down many of the artists even I’d never had the pleasure of meeting most of them. Surprisingly, every one of them replied to emails from me—an art-world nobody.

As a result, this exhibition became a sort of double artistic memoir—recalling the lives of the artists, and that of this ‘accidental collector.’