What got you into collecting?

[drunkmunky02]

many of us made the transition to art from toy collecting (or at least i did). what made you start buying originals and prints? and what was your first piece?

besides a few jled and luke prints, my first original was luke chueh's "appetite for destruction"

[masao626]

my very first original was this little puppy in 2005 (i belive):


i'll love joe forever for making accessible artwork that eased me into this world.

[dearyou]

I got into art at the same time I got into toys, but I really had phases.
To be honest, some of the first artists I discovered were Jeremiah Ketner and Tiffany Bozic in 2004 or something, then I found out handmade plush, then I bought my first vinyl, "drinky crow" (I still love it) in early 2005.
Then the craziness kicked in.

[marcusslo]

amy sol

first print - sea pony
first original - summer snowberries

[ck]

i got into art on my honeymoon fall 2006. my husband and i were lost while driving somewhere in new zealand. we pulled over at a random stop on the side of the road where there happened to be a gallery. we ended up really liking a piece, but we've never bought art before. ever. at the time, i couldn't image spending $300 for a painting. we argued about it for awhile and decided it was ok to splurge on our honeymoon. lol. i've come a long way!

here's the first piece i bought: "sweet love" by soraya bradley


then a few months later, my husband and i found this piece on a trip to SF and bought it. it was very pricey, and paved the way for my more expensive purchases:

"Fields of Tuscany" by Igor Medvedev



i got into "low brow" art after i saw audrey kawasaki's "horn girl" in jane magazine. she got me hooked. that's how i found all the boards. and now all my extra cash goes to art.

[masao626]

that is awesome background, ck! and i adore both pieces - so lovely!
i'd love to see pics of your full collection!

[ck]

thanks, charity! i'm working on finally getting pics together for the collector's gallery. stay tuned.

[highbrow]

My obession started when I met LEBO while touring, I was in my hometown Miami with a concert I was tour manager for and two days prior we had a chariety event he was doing a live painting at, i feel in love with his work and to make it that much cooler he was one of the nicest people. After chatting at the event we excanged numbers and he invited me to have a look at his gallery while in town, I made the trip and he expressed interest in doing more live paintings. I had him do one at the concert I was working in Miami and put him in touch with a bunch of other people who did the same. We always stayed in touch and have to this day. He is reposnsible for my first OG painting which was done at the concert ( 4ft X 8ft ) and also for three others. He turned me onto artists like Biskup, Baseman, Parla, Sorren, etc. from there I found my way to message boards and have him to blame why I am now a student after 10 years in the concert field and purchasing artwork valued at more then I make in a year at my part time job. Thank god my wife makes good money.

[sleepboy]

wow, all interesting stories.

i had to move west LA for some of my training about six years ago. ate a lot of japanese food on sawtelle st. walked into giant robot one day and saw kozyndan's stuff, bought my first artwork during that show. also about the same time walked into black market on sawtelle and saw luke chueh's show. didn't buy anything, still regret it to this day. those monkey with hats were like $85 each!

the kozyndan.

[mute]

I just bought my first home not to long ago and spent so much time on buying furnishings that I ended up staring at a lot of empty walls. I had no idea as what to decorate them with as all I ever had before was music/concert posters from living in apartments and that just wasn't going to cut it. One of the posters I have was for the album Screaming Trees Uncle Anesthesia

Which made me remember how much I used to love Mark Ryden's work when I was a teenager. So I began searching for Ryden prints or artists similar to him. These searches of course led to many of the so-called "low brow" sites like Juxtapoz,Kidrobot...and so on. I never could bring myself to spend $2,000-$3,000 on a Ryden print(not yet) so I ended up buying a Nicoletta Ceccoli print instead ,"Corvi". Once I got it and saw how amazing it looked I was hooked, I just had to have more. Another poster I had was for Calexico's "Feast of Wire"

With artwork by Victor Gastelum, but I still haven't been able to find out much about where to purchase or how much his work sells for. If anybody knows could you help me out. I love his stencil work.

So my love of music has led to my new love of art.

[otaku975]

i started out not too long ago with vinyl , then that got me into paintings prints etc , thinkin to really limitate my vinyl collection , and start spending more on prints and paintings

[irsk]

I don't really have a cool story.
I can never remember what got me onto the kidrobot forum, but that got me into toys. And then seeing some of the collections (hey Masao!) got me into thinking I could actually buy art too. And then I found my Sam Flores piece, fell in love with the bunnies (I was in a bunny phase) and bought it. And then just kept buying.

[commandax]

Two pieces of art got me hooked on collecting. One was an unsigned amateur dream painting that I bought on eBay about 8 years ago. I just adored it, even though the painter wasn't terribly skilled at painting people. It's so unusual – the Goreyesque couple in a rowboat should really be having a romantic moment, but they seem depressed, possibly even devastated, as if their child has drowned in the lake and they can't find its body. With its odd perspective, queasy green and gold waves, and mysterious falling glow-lights, it really captures the essence of a dream. (This photo doesn't really convey the richness of its color saturation – there is some kind of varnish on the painting that defies photography.)


Untitled by Unknown, oil on panel, circa 1970, found "at a church rummage sale in upstate NY," according to the seller

After that, I knew I needed more art, but I also knew I coudn't afford it. Unfortunately, prints just weren't going to do it for me. The fix I was seeking had something to do with owning a little one-of-a-kind masterpiece and being able to have tactile communication with its surfaces. I wanted to be able to see the brushstrokes and the rough edges and even the little pieces of cat hair that got caught in the paint.

Over the next few years, I bought a lot of naive and primitive art on eBay, most of it quite cheap, in search of the same feeling I got from that first piece – a quest which was largely unsuccessful. Then I lucked into this little gem, which gave me the same rush, and then some.


"The City" by Nicole Wong, oil on board, 2006

By this point, I had realized that, for the most part, eBay and ETSY artists weren't really my cup of tea. Most of them seemed to be pumping out versions of their bestsellers at a rate of one (or more) per day. I wanted paintings that were unique, strange, emotional, inspired, visionary – paintings that wouldn't be replicated a hundred times with slight variations. (This is a complaint I have with a lot of artists in our little lowbrow/pop surrealism universe, as well, of course.)

Frustrated and dissatisfied, I happened across deviantART early last year and soon discovered Dylan Sisson and Sarah Joncas. Fortunately, my financial situation had improved markedly since I began suffering from this little fixation, so I bought a painting from Dylan right away – but Sarah was elusive. She would sell her paintings (to someone else) before she even sent them to the gallery! I followed the Sarah breadcrumb trail to Thinkspace (I had never entered an Art Gallery with the intention to buy in my life) and though her paintings were already sold (for like $350, which is just ridiculous) I soon fell for a Kelly Vivanco painting in that show, and from that point on, each month's budgetary computations have centered around the question, 'How much will be left over for art?'

[sleepboy]

commandax said:

Two pieces of art got me hooked on collecting. One was an unsigned amateur dream painting that I bought on eBay about 8 years ago. I just adored it, even though the painter wasn't terribly skilled at painting people. It's so unusual – the Goreyesque couple in a rowboat should really be having a romantic moment, but they seem depressed, possibly even devastated, as if their child has drowned in the lake and they can't find its body. With its odd perspective, queasy green and gold waves, and mysterious falling glow-lights, it really captures the essence of a dream. (This photo doesn't really convey the richness of its color saturation – there is some kind of varnish on the painting that defies photography.)


Untitled by Unknown, oil on panel, circa 1970, found "at a church rummage sale in upstate NY," according to the seller

After that, I knew I needed more art, but I also knew I coudn't afford it. Unfortunately, prints just weren't going to do it for me. The fix I was seeking had something to do with owning a little one-of-a-kind masterpiece and being able to have tactile communication with its surfaces. I wanted to be able to see the brushstrokes and the rough edges and even the little pieces of cat hair that got caught in the paint.

Over the next few years, I bought a lot of naive and primitive art on eBay, most of it quite cheap, in search of the same feeling I got from that first piece – a quest which was largely unsuccessful. Then I lucked into this little gem, which gave me the same rush, and then some.


"The City" by Nicole Wong, oil on board, 2006

By this point, I had realized that, for the most part, eBay and ETSY artists weren't really my cup of tea. Most of them seemed to be pumping out versions of their bestsellers at a rate of one (or more) per day. I wanted paintings that were unique, strange, emotional, inspired – paintings that wouldn't be replicated a hundred times with slight variations. (This is a complaint I have with a lot of artists in our little lowbrow/pop surrealism universe, as well, of course.)

Frustrated and dissatisfied, I happened across deviantART early last year and soon discovered Dylan Sisson and Sarah Joncas. Fortunately, my financial situation had improved markedly since I began suffering from this little fixation, so I bought a painting from Dylan right away – but Sarah was elusive. She would sell her paintings (to someone else) before she even sent them to the gallery! I followed the Sarah breadcrumb trail to Thinkspace (I had never entered an Art Gallery with the intention to buy in my life) and though her paintings were already sold (for like $350, which is just ridiculous) I soon fell for a Kelly Vivanco painting in that show, and from that point on, each month's budgetary computations have centered around the question, 'How much will be left over for art?'

great story. i like the first piece you got, very cool expressions lol.