When You Buy Something from an Artist …

When you buy from an independent artist, you are buying more than just a painting or a novel or a song.  You are buying hundreds of hours of experimentation and thousands of failures. You are buying days, weeks, months, years of frustration and moments of pure joy. […]  You aren’t just buying a thing. You are buying a piece of heart, part of a soul, a private moment in someone’s life. Most importantly, you are buying that artist more time to do something they are truly passionate about; something that makes all of the above worth the fear and the doubt; something that puts the life into the living.

—Rebekah Joy Plett

A few years ago, my husband and I did a little road trip, from southwest Florida to Texas, with stops all along the way. Our first stop was Gainesville where I was so excited to meet a fellow jewelry artist: She and I belong to the same online jewelry artists’ group, had become cyber-buddies, and it was so exciting to meet her in person! Our second stop was the Florida Panhandle, where one of my very favorite activities is browsing the fabulous boutiques and galleries. In the lovely town of Seaside, my husband patiently people-watched on a bench while I did a quick tour of the shops. It was in one of those shops that I saw the above quote. I took me aback.

I asked the salesperson if the shop owner had written the quote; he said he didn’t think so, and promptly found it on the Internet. When I got home, I did some research of my own and found the original author of the quote: Rebekah Joy Plett. I contacted her to ask permission to use the quote, and it is with her permission that I do so. (As an aside, I’m sorry to say the shop owner in Seaside didn’t attribute the quote to its author, and the quote is all over the Internet without attribution as well. Such a shame.)

“When you buy something from an artist….” If you’re an artist of any type, even if you don’t sell your work, you fully understand this quote. Perhaps you’re not an artist, but love to attend art shows and/or love to buy from an artist. Next time you do, I hope you’ll think about this quote.