Artists today have more places to sell their work than ever before. The traditional options of galleries and art festivals remain effective sales channels, but each comes with its own barriers to entry. The Internet has both leveled the playing field and flooded the market with junk. While marketplaces like Etsy, Fine Art America, Art.com, Artsy, Artspace, Singulart, and the list goes on… have made acquiring art in some ways easier for the art buyer, they have also made it difficult for new artists to get noticed in such a crowded space that is often controlled by opaque algorithms. Also, in many cases what is being sold are prints produced by production houses that have automated print-on-demand technology to enable high quantity, low touch, and low-cost production. Some artists favor this approach because once they load images of their artwork into the system, they don’t have to do anything. The whole order processing and fulfillment are done for them, and they simply get paid for each order.

So why purchase prints directly from the artist’s website? First, you are likely going to be getting prints made by the artist themselves and more of your purchase dollars go to the artist rather than the marketplace and production house. You also will likely have the opportunity to engage directly with the artist. It has been my experience as both an artist and an art buyer that the personal value of the art increases when artist and buyer have a relationship.

So, if you have an option to buy directly from the artist, I strongly recommend it.