A Second Opinion is Essential
In both life and art collecting there is no substitute for having a levelheaded friend who knows you well and is truthful enough to tell you when you're going to buy junk.
The art world at its best is a social environment. Art social spaces that can give collectors a chance to meet other collectors, and artists. They aren’t all exclusive money oriented spaces as there are quite a few non-profit art spaces and university art galleries. If you are lucky enough to live any major international city or even a midsized city there are usually local community collectors often sponsored by major museums from Young Patrons’ Circle and Young Patrons Council. Its worth a look on your local museums website or checking with their information desk. Those groups may have fees but could offer exclusive access to programing and visits to local private collections.
We regularly have conversations and seek collecting advise with a local conceptual artist friend Xavier Lopez Jr. Xavier regularly lets the air out of our balloon. We are also lucky enough to have our friend Aaron, a fellow art management major. We met in an undergrad in art history classes and have a mutual love a fine art, and unquestionably defined taste. Like us, his taste in artwork has matured and changed, he's no longer the strict modernist and abstract loving 20 year old. We were actually polar opposites in our artwork taste for years, we could meet in the middle at the Renaissance but there was not much overlap for more contemporary artwork tastes. Overtime he moved towards appreciating the baroque and I have begun to like more modernism. We realized that good art is when two very different people in taste and preferences are looking at the same work and can both admit that it's good.
It just hits when it's right.
A few local area Seattle Arts resources:
Public Display Art - Non-profit Seattle based arts publication; Art love Salon features local free admission are events calendar