Art on a Budget

"You don't get anything decent under $360," says Marc Zuver, exhibit director at Fondo del Sol in Dupont Circle. "More likely an artist is going to start at $800. You've got to spend money, and you've got to have a good eye. If you put $3,000 a year into buying first-rate art, you'll never lose money, and you'll have fun owning it. Twenty years later, it'll beat everything except gold as an investment."

Sounds like a rosy situation if you've got money to burn, but many of us can't justify laying down $1,000 at once (or $3,000 a year) for what is really a luxury item. Before you rule out buying a great work of art you're in love with, however, consider the options. There is generally a 10 percent leeway in price, and most reputable dealers will give regular customers a 10 to 20 percent discount right off the bat, says Chevy Chase artist and critic F. Lennox Campello, who has been involved in the art industry at almost every level, from dealer to gallerist to blogger ( http://dcartnews.blogspot.com). And most galleries offer payment plans without interest.

When you're investing in art, though, take care to make the proper inquiries. "The most important question to ask is, 'Is this original work?' " says Campello. "Technology now can visually fool people into thinking that a reproduction is an original. When you see the word 'print,' be careful. If you have copies of a watercolor made on watercolor paper, that's not a print. That's a reproduction."

With proper inquiries comes proper budgeting. Aspiring collectors should set aside a certain amount to spend on art. Some say allotting $500 per year can yield a respectable collection in five to 10 years. In 1990, Adams Morgan resident Philip Barlow started earmarking $100 to $200 a month for buying original art. Eighteen years and 262 pieces later, Barlow, a 48-year-old actuary, is a well-known area collector who buys almost exclusively from local artists. Why does he do it?

"I want to help promote the local art community, because I think it makes Washington a better place," says Barlow. "And it's kind of nice that I get the benefit of getting interesting artwork that I can look at whenever I want to."

Last year, Molly Brose of Adams Morgan painted three to five small watercolors a week and sold them for $95 apiece on her blog, A Day's Work ( http://www.mollybrose.com). She made hundreds of paintings, and buyers e-mailed her from across the country. If you have a small living space and a small budget, the Internet's the place to look. Artists who want to avoid the anxiety and overhead of galleries are selling through personal Web sites or through communal sites such as the Daily Painters Gallery ( http://www.dailypainters.com).

"It's been so natural for artmakers and art buyers to find each other like this," says Brose, 27. "This is a way for art to be affordable and accessible. It's not intimidating to get on a blog."

Brose puts her own spin on the "painting a day" concept hatched by Richmond resident Duane Keiser, who was in the news a few years back for posting photos of original works daily on his blog ( http://duanekeiser.blogspot.com) and auctioning them on eBay, a business model followed by hundreds of artist-bloggers today.

There are, after all, more people getting MFAs today than anytime in the past century, and not enough physical galleries to house them, says Lisa Hunter. She is the author of "The Intrepid Art Collector" (Three Rivers Press, 2006), a guide to finding, buying and appreciating art on a budget. So the Internet becomes a universal gallery for the talented but otherwise unconnected, as well as a way to bring together artists and buyers.

Hunter suggests the Web site 20x200 ( http://www.20x200.com) as a resource for fine photography at cheap prices. Started last year by New York gallerist Jen Bekman, 20x200 issues 200 smaller reprints of new work and sells them for $20 each.

"I thought $1,000 was the entry point for serious photography, and now with 20x200, it's smaller size and cost," Hunter says. "Not every piece works small, but if you choose carefully, it's a terrific opportunity."

When it comes down to it, you should go for the best art you can afford, says art consultant Allison Marvin, founder of the D.C.-based business Sightline ( http://www.sightline.biz). She tells her clients to consider quality and how much they like a piece rather than quantity for the sake of filling up their walls. And for those wanting to amass a collection but lacking the space to exhibit one, there's an easy solution.

"Think about your art collection as a rotating, living collection," Marvin says. "Just because you decide to put something on the wall one day doesn't mean it's static and has to stay there forever. Maybe you have just one wall, but you can change it up every few months. You can enjoy more art than your space can allow."

Indeed, even a tiny bathroom with a teeny sink can be transformed into a personally curated exhibit. All it takes is the money that would be used to fix the leaky toilet.