Join the Collectors Club and make participation in the arts more fun!

Who are we? We are art lovers beginning to collect and art collectors ready to hone our skills. We feel joy being around creative, vibrant, engaged human beings. We feel joy around art.

Our meetings occur quarterly the University Club atop Symphony Towers downtown - where nonmembers are welcome to join us - and monthly meetings at locations of interest to the group that are for members only.

Members network, socialize, and engage in intelligent discussion with eachother and with San Diego's artists, dealers, and arts scholars.

Community involvement: Help uncover artists in your area and bring them to the attention of your fellow art lovers; attend gallery and museums opennings with club members, and enjoy stimulating conversation and exchange of ideas relating to art, artists, and the art market.

Each week, a new topic will be addressed. Topics include:

• Falling in love: Finding and pursuing your passion
• Elements of Value: Tips from the American Association of Appraisers
• Determining Value with New Media
• What is Connoisseurship?
• Culture and Subculture in Contemporary Art
• Understanding the Primary Market
• Understanding Auctions
• What's a giclee anyway? Understanding developments in printmaking
• Insurance
• Art Market Players: Who they are and what they do
• Preserving Paper: proper care of prints and drawings
• San Diego Style

Art "Appreciation"

The purpose of the group is not to learn how to make financial gains from collecting art. An investment for financial gain is only as viable as the resale market is liquid. Emerging artists typically don't have much of a secondary market - many are fortunate to have a primary market. The point is to understanding that buying art with faith that the value of the work will grow and that our demand and support are part of that growth. Your "return" on investment in art is manifold: satisfaction, the joy of using your own creativity and expressing your intellectual interests in putting together your collection, the richness of living with things of beautiful things, emotional stimulation, and the communication between the artist's subconscious and yours.

As demand grows for an artists work, and as their career grows and accellorates, so will their prices. As such, financial gain through building a collection may happen, but that is not our purpose. We come together to share knowledge, create community, and help each other to acquire art with intelligence and confidence - and have a great time in the process!