This simple explanation may help as you consider whether to splash the cash on buying art:

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 are buying night of worry about paying the rent, having enough money to eat, having enough money to feed the children, the birds, the dog.  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 wroth the fear and the doubt; something that puts the life into the living.

by Rebekah Joy Plett