I almost always buy from these sorts of artists…

I have a growing art collection, which, not surprisingly, is mostly ceramics. When I look around my small cottage, I see artwork and handmade objects in the lounge room, kitchen, office, bedroom, veranda, bathroom, and even the loo.

Washing the dishes, I run my eye across the kitchen windowsill and recall the names and faces, hands and places in the objects resting there. Almost all of them are from someone I know. Very good friends, colleagues, known well through my mentoring work, paths briefly crossed. I rarely encounter work in my home I don’t have a person-to-person human connection with.

My serious New Year’s resolution for the last two years is to stop trading money for pots. How many bowls and plates does one girl even need? I’m only eating out of one at a time, I’m not spinning them on poles, for goodness' sake.

I firmly tell my friends as I enter a gallery or shop: DON’T let me buy anything. But when I see something special, and I can’t live without it, or I feel I would be very sad to live without it, I falter. Who wants to be sad? My friends rarely hold up their end of the bargain.

So, I live with many people. It’s a cramped cottage.

Two recent purchases of mine are glorious.

A large platter by Janice Keen and a lidded box by Hiroe Swen.

I confess I am a sucker for Janice’s work. I already have one of her signature apple tumblers, a plate and bowl. And to show how much I am attached to them, for two years whilst house sitting, moving from house to house, they would all come with me.

This platter of hers is sexy. It has a sumptuous layered meaty slipped surface, like cracked wet gum bark. Its ‘imperfections’ are what make me love it. It’s both a painting and a vessel, right now holding my ever-ripening bananas.

I interviewed Hiroe Swen on behalf of Skepsi Gallery. I asked her a question about the birds in her work, and she said, “the work was not about birds, it was about air” stretching her arms wide. She said it with such impassioned conviction. I ended the Zoom call, opened the catalogue and went searching for the lowest priced work I loved. That’s how I found this gorgeous, lidded box, The Evolution of Flight.

So why am I writing this?

I bet you are a collector of one sort or another. You might not call yourself that. You have purchased or acquired people’s work you love.

Recall the latest addition to your home. What made you decide to own it? What moved you over the line? It offers clues to us and how we can have our own work valued and, in the hands, and homes of people that love it.

When I think about the works I own, I can identify the things that made me reach for my purse.

Proximity – timing – opportunity – budget considerations – my aesthetic – conversation – how I could use it – where it could go – how it would get to me – durability – size – experience – trust in the work and the maker – impulse.

The most important, knowing the person…the emotional connection. I am after all inviting that work to live with me.

So, here’s a question for you: are you putting yourself in environments where, over time, you are being known, and your work is being known? If you already are, what’s the next step that could help you deepen those connections even further?

Amy x

P.S. Don’t tell Dawn Vachon her dish is in the loo. It fits perfectly on the windowsill, and honestly, it has the best view.