How do I start collecting art?

I am often asked, usually by friends outside the art cabal, and by people who become interested in collecting art, but have never collected artwork, what they should “collect.” 

"What should I buy Lenster?" "How do I start?"

Many years ago, I formed an opinion based on empirical observations, that there are really only two basic rules to start an art collection:

1. Collect what you like, and
2. Whenever possible, buy the original. 

That’s clear, right?

Buy and collect only what you like, what attracts your eyes, and what interests you personally, and is within your economic means. If you like the work of a particular artist, or a specific kind of prints (like Japanese woodcuts), or drawings (such as figurative drawings), then focus your collection in those areas.  This also comes with a caveat, as a lot of excessive attention is often placed on a "focused" collection. A diverse collection may make less sense to some than a focused one, but it only has to make sense to you! After all, it is your collection.

It has also been my experience, that the more affluent a “beginning collector” is, the higher the probability that he/she will get swindled into spending a lot of money for wall décor and fancy frames. Since most of us are not affluent, the high end of the commodified art market is not where I’m focusing this post.

For those affluent folks: if the "gallery" has large realistic paintings of cigars resting on wine glasses, or the artwork comes with an "option" for a rococo frame, run for your lives!

The DMV offers an immense variety, and multiple, loads of, tons, mucho, a lot, beaucoup, diverse sources to begin an art collection.

The key to most of that statement is the number of art schools, art leagues, art centers, and reputable commercial art galleries that exist in our area. Add to that the number of independent artists’ studios, and you have the perfect mix for starting an art collection.

Let start with the schools; nearly all art schools and universities put together student shows. Usually these are Master of Fine Arts (MFA) shows – the graduation show for MFA program students.  American, Catholic, George Mason, George Washington, Maryland, Montgomery Community College, Northern Virginia, and others are but a sampling of some excellent places to troll for student artwork.

Buying student artwork generally equals buying an artist early on his/her career.

Buying an artist early in his/her career is the “golden nugget” of most art collectors’ hopes.  That puppy crossed my road a few times in my life.

In 1989 I stood in front of an original oil painting by Scottish painter Jack Vettriano at the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow... I loved it! 


I think that it was Vettriano’s first ever show (it was a group show; actually a painting competition or was it the Royal Scottish Academy annual show?), and there were two of his early paintings (all done as I recall, at his first - and only - art class).

It was on sale for 300 British pounds, which at the time for me might as well have been 300 million pounds, since my US Navy Lieutenant’s salary barely covered expenses in Scotland, which is where I was stationed at the time.  That painting sold for 300 pounds. .. 300 pounds at the time was around $500 dollars.

Today, although he is despised by the art critics and the British arts establishment, he is adored by the public and by some very important collectors, and his works, if you are lucky enough to get on the waiting list for one, ranges in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

And that early one that I passed on? Sold at Sotheby’s a few years ago for a lot more... a LOT more pounds. Beginning art collectors can find their own early Vettrianos at art competitions, MFA shows, outdoor art festivals, open studios, etc.

I will discuss open studios in our region later on.

Who owns the copyright to your tattoo?

Did you design your own tattoo?

Then read this.

What can I say?

Anderson The Campello
2016 Photo by Zarya Navarro

¿Quién tiró la tiza?

While I was in Miami last week, a friend turned me onto this Afro-Cuban rap song about the sad state of race injustice in Cuba, where one of the planet's most racist dictatorships oppresses their people, and oppresses their African ancestry citizens even worse.

The refrain goes:

Who threw the chalk?

That Negro

Who threw the chalk? Was it the doctor's son? No

Who threw the chalk? That Negro

Because, the son of the doctor, John, is the best

An example of one of the verses:

In class, if I raise my hand, get out of the class Negro

If I argue with the girl, it had to be the Negro

If I get a good grade on the test, I know that you copied it Negro

And if I fail the test, You didn't study - I'm happy

¿Quién tiró la tiza?
El negro ese.
quien tiró la tiza no Fue el hijo del doctor? no
quien tiró la tiza, el negro ese
porque el hijo del doctor, john es el mejor

¿Quién tiró la tiza?
El negro ese.
quien tiró la tiza no Fue el hijo del doctor? no
quien tiró la tiza, el negro ese
porque el hijo del doctor, yo

primero escucha y despues goza asi que ponte pa las cosas dio!
primero escucha y despues goza asi que ponte pa las cosas

primero escucha y despues goza asi que ponte pa las cosas dio!
primero escucha y despues goza listen to me, pa lo que digo aqui

A ver como te explico yo esta parte, para ese año estaba yo en la escuela nacional de arte
estudiando el primer año del nivel elemental y
Yo un negrito chiquitico con su uniformito y si acaso colonia Bebito encima

En cambio los hijos de de papi y mima iban con Addidas, medias deportivas y una perfuma nada que ver con la mía, mira observa aqui na´má, un dolor solo en común teníamos el color,pero, ima-gína-te papa es doctor, y ya tu sabes, cuatro puertas, pescador
Y yo el Zingaro porque el mío sí era constructor, hey yo

¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Quíen tiro la tiza? No fue el hijo del doctor. No.
¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Porque el hijo del doctor, John, es el mejor. * se repite*

El hijo del doctor da ropa, zapatos
El hijo del doctor merece un buen trato
El hijo del constructor, ese negro es delincuente
Y por eso este año, coño, va a ser repitente.
El día del maestro llegará en cualquier momento
Y ¿cuál será el regalo? Ladrillo, cemento.
Pa´llá pa'lla Esos negros, elementos,
Me quedo con el doctor que resuelve medicamentos

En clase si levanto la mano, sal del aula negro.
Si discuto con la jeva, tenía que ser el negro
Si sacaba buenas notas, sé que te fijaste negro
Y si desaprobaba, no estudiaste, me alegro

Por eso no es lo mismo el hijo de un doctor que el hijo de un constructor
Porque la vida del doctor es carro, motor; la vida de un constructor es con dolor. hey yo!

¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Quíen tiro la tiza? No fue el hijo del doctor. No.
¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Porque el hijo del doctor, John, es el mejor.*se repite*

Empezandose ejercicios complicados
Yo volviéndome un mago
Y una pila de profesores dándome de lado
Suerte que a mi no me fue tan mal
Y una profesora al frente con clase particular, cosa usual
Bien por el primer control parcial, cosa extraña
Profesores preocupados diciendo, hay maraña
Como siempre, ah, el negro y su problemática
Se habían robado cuatro pruebas y de matemática
La misma prueba que ya había examinado.
Comentario: Ya sabía por qué había aprobaó
Porque tú eres un mano suelta, sinvergüenza, descarao
No asimilaban que este negro había estudiao
Las clases particulares no eran gratis, eran pagao
Bueno, si las pagaste ya tu estás desaprobao
Men dime quien aguanta este tren
Y la esperanza de la pura era verme en la FEEM, ¿qué tu crees?
pero estas son cosas que revuelven la gantiña
antes de que me botaran yo si me fui pa la ********

¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Quíen tiro la tiza? No fue el hijo del doctor. No.
¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Porque el hijo del doctor, John, es el mejor.*se repite* y se repite

primero escucha y despues goza asi que ponte pa las cosas dio! ah!
primero escucha y despues goza asi que ponte pa las cosas, lleva ritmito

¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.
Quíen tiro la tiza? No fue el hijo del doctor. No.
¿Quíen tiro la tiza? El negro ese.

claro claro claro es el mejor * se repite*
el hijo del doctor john

( no se si diga john o namas yo!)

suerte!!

Tiene el leopardo un abrigo

To my dear friends and extended FB friends... thank you for all your kind words about my mother's passing... I leave you with a poem by Jose Marti:

Tiene el leopardo un abrigo
En su monte seco y pardo:
Yo tengo más que el leopardo,
Porque tengo un buen amigo.

Duerme, como en un juguete,
La mushma en su cojinete
De arce del Japón: yo digo:
"No hay cojín como un amigo".

Tiene el conde su abolengo:
Tiene la aurora el mendigo:
Tiene ala el ave: ¡yo tengo
Allá en México un amigo!

Tiene el señor presidente
Un jardín con una fuente,
Y un tesoro en oro y trigo:
Tengo más, tengo un amigo.

Another tree falls

When my father died last year, I began his eulogy by noting that another oak had fallen.

This morning, around 1:25AM, Ana Olivia Cruzata Marrero de Campello, his wife of over 60 years, and my beloved mother, passed on on the day of her 97th birthday.

If my father was an oak, then my mother was an equally strong, but also very pliable, and elegant tree.  When hurricanes attack the mainlands of the world, the strong tall trees often fall, but the pliable ones, like plantain trees, always give with the wind, and survive the storms, and thrive in the drenching rains.

My mother was like a an aged plantain tree, not only immensely strong and pliable, but also giving and nurturing.

Like many Cuban women of her generation and her social-economic background, she had never worked for a living in Cuba, and yet within a few days of our arrival in New York in the 1960s, she was working long hours in a sewing factory, putting her formidable seamstress skills, honed in the social sewing and embroidery gathering of young Cuban girls, to use in the "piece work" process of the New York sewing factories.

As soon as we saved the money, one of the first things that my mother bought was an electric sewing machine - a novelty to her, as she had always used one of the those ancient Singer machines with a foot pedal.

I remember as a child in Brooklyn, that women used to bring her fabric and a page from a magazine with a woman wearing a dress. Without the benefit of a sewing pattern, my mother would whip up a copy of the dress that was more often than not probably better made than the original. As the word of her skills spread, so did her customers and soon she was making more money working at home than at the factory - but she kept both jobs.

I once noted to her that I admired the courage that it must have taken her to leave her family and immigrate to the United States. "We didn't come here as immigrants," she corrected me. "We came as political refugees, and I initially thought that we'd be back in Cuba within a few years at the most."

When the brutal Castro dictatorship refused to loosen its stranglehold on her birth place, she became an immigrant, and from there on an American citizen from her white-streaked hair down to her heel bone (that's a Cuban saying). Like my father, she loved her adopted country with a ferocity, that I sometimes feel that only people who have been bloodied by Communism can feel for a new, free homeland.

As as I've noted before, Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

I remember as a teenager, once I started going out to parties and things at night on my own (around age 16 or so), that my mother would wait up for me, sitting by the third floor window of our Brooklyn apartment, where she could survey the whole neighborhood and see as far as the elevated LL subway station a few blocks away, to watch me descend the station stairs and trace my way home.

My mother was always fit and, as once described by my father, "flaca como un fusil" (as slim as a rifle). She was strong and fast. She was also quiet, but never silenced, and when needed, could and would command attention.

My mother was always well dressed and superbly coiffed. When we'd go to parties and events, women would always ask her where she'd gotten that dress! The answer was always the same: she'd made it!

At least once a week, to my father's dismay, and in spite of his demands that my mother stop it, she'd get her hair done at the nearby peluqueria (hair dresser).

My dad knew, and respected his limits with my mother. 

I remember one time that my father and I were returning from shopping at the supermarket, dragging one of those wheeled folding carts that could carry four full paper grocery bags. It had been snowing, so the Brooklyn streets were wet and muddy.

When we got to our apartment my father opened the door. He then stood there.

"Go in!" I demanded.

"We'll have to wait," he said gloomily, "Your mother mopped the floor and it's still wet." This giant, tough, street-brawling Galician then looked at me sheepishly, "I'd rather walk through a mine field than step on your mother's wet floor."

I learned a lesson there.

She used to delight in telling stories how, as a child, she would often win the horse races that kids staged around the small country towns where she was raised in Oriente province, where her father was a Mayoral.

"I almost always won," she'd say, and then would add: "Even though I was a skinny girl."

Once, in her seventies, back in the days where you could actually accompany people to the departing gates at airports, we were escorting my oldest daughter Vanessa, who had come to visit, and we were running late. As we got to the airport, we ran to the gate, and to everyone's surprise, Abuela got there first. I still remember how delighted my daughter was that her grandmother could still run like a gazelle.

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, and thus my parents decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

They spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

The mostly Cuban-American families that lived over the years in that apartment loved my mother, and would always tell me stories about my mother, ever the nurturer, bringing them food when she knew that they were going over tough times, or riding the buses with them, just to show them the routes.

This week, when I arrived in Miami, already somewhat knowing that this was approaching the end, I saw her with tubes coming out of her mouth and her eyes closed. When I spoke to her she opened her eyes, and in spite of the visuals that my eyes were seeing she somehow still managed to look strong. 

I showed her photos and movies of her grand children, and talked to her for a long time.

I thanked her for having the courage to leave her motherland and afford me the opportunity to grow as an American.

When she was being extubated, a young woman came into the room with a guitar and played and sang the haunting free prose of Guajira Guantanamera (The peasant girl from Guantanamo); a most fitting song, since my mother was from Guantanamo, and she came from strong Cuban peasant stock.

"Guajira pero fina (A peasant, but a very refined woman)", noted a neighbor and loving caretaker. 

The song, which can start with just about any prose, started with the Jose Marti poem:

 Yo quiero, cuando me muera, sin patria, pero sin amo, tener en mi tumba un ramo de flores y una bandera

I want to, when I die, without my motherland, but without a master, to have on my tomb a bunch of flowers and a flag.

She died without a master, a strong and pliable woman who not only gave me the gift of life, but also the gift of freedom.

And as my mother died in her sleep in the early hours of the morning, in the capital city of the bitter Cuban Diaspora, all that I could gather to say to her was mostly the same that I said to my father when he passed last year: "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Mami... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children, and happy birthday in Heaven!