By sharing their personal art collection, Karl and Christy Tennant Krispin hope to encourage more thoughtful art patronage among people of modest means and help connect aspiring and emerging artists with people eager to fill their homes with art. The Krispins displayed their collection at  Dubsea Coffee, located in the heart of the White Center area of Seattle, calling it “Close to Home.”

As reported by Christianity Today, the proposal to Dubsea for using the Krispin art collection to adorn its walls was as follows:

Christy would give a short gallery talk about the project and her thoughts on collecting, and provide a full-color “gallery guide” outlining the history of each work in the show—how each came to have a place in the Krispins’ home. Though none of the works would be for sale, Christy would include contact information for the artists in a small booklet she produced and online at her website. All in all, the aim would be to show that collecting art need not be about prestige and high price tags. Instead, it can and should be about the ordinary spaces where we live our lives and the relationships we nurture there.

The article by CT also described Christy’s gallery talk:

Christy stressed that the primary benefit of starting an art collection—for both artist and buyer—is the ensuing friendship between artists and those who value their work. Artists, like the rest of us, want to be woven into a broader community (beyond other artists), and art collecting is as much about friendship as it is an economic transaction, not limited to (sometimes) arranging creative financing for paintings or other works. In a culture that stresses the commodity value of nearly everything, connecting with artists as human beings first and foremost is, itself, a refreshing and countercultural act—one that artists deeply appreciate.

To read more, click here.