2024 Mastermind Retreat Recap & Lessons Learned

The price of art is definitely not entirely subjective. There are eight key cost drivers. We look at these constantly when assessing value and supporting our clients in making wise acquisitions. Here's exactly what we look at, plus a basic rule about the photography pricing. 

A big part of our practice as art advisors is always looking for artists to recommend to our clients. Here’s just a sample of three exciting discoveries, all based in Los Angeles!

Our recent post about artist price increases was a popular one, addressing increases that feel appropriate, along with those that do not. These changes definitely impact what we recommend to our clients, and how we speak about price adjustments with them.

This year marks one full decade for Mason Lane, and we're proud to be the only art advisory firm in multiple markets. This gives our clients access to more art and the best support in building meaningful art collections.  Walking around this year's Armory Show was also a humbling reminder of how different the firm is from the original vision, and what business accomplishment fuels the most pride from our first decade.

This year, we’ve been producing the same amount of content on social media and in our monthly email than we have previously. The type of content we’ve created, however, has changed and gotten a ton more engagement.

A few weeks back, we asked our followers for their thoughts on the difference between art buying and art collecting. The answers were quite diverse, and sometimes entirely contradictory (for example, “art buying is about investment and art collecting is about pleasure” along with “art buying is for pleasure and art collecting involves focusing on investment.”.  There’s no right or wrong definition, but here’s how we think about it: 

The art advisory industry is a niche one. It’s also an industry that will likely grow over the following years. Here are our thoughts on the few factors that will drive growth, and how the structure works.

Our art advisory firm is uniquely structured with 4 offices around North America, and this is truly our biggest advantage in 1) supporting our clients’ interest in building dynamic art collections, and 2) helping us stay engaged, positive, and goal-oriented.

We’re grateful to work with interior designers from around North America. They often refer their clients to us, and the art sourcing and acquisition process is collaborative with incredible results. Many designers also prefer handling art sourcing on their own, and for those designers, we share our recommended strategies because selling art is different from selling design.

Artist pricing increases are common, but they are not necessarily correlated with an artist’s increased success, or demand for that artist’s work. In some cases, they do signal the strength of an artist’s market, and in others, they are a red flag. Here, we’re sharing four price change scenarios that we’ve recently observed, and our opinions behind them.  

We’re lucky to have clients who refer their friends to us, and referrals account for more than 80% of our business. We’re also open about what we do internally to fuel that level of client satisfaction, and we’re sharing it here for two reasons…

The window into our database that we’ve been sharing on Instagram has been generating a ton of interest. What we haven’t shared is how this database works, optimizes our time, and can be used as inspiration for entrepreneurs across the art and design fields, and beyond. This database is crucial in ensuring all of our clients - past, present and future - benefit from the NY Spring art fairs and sales happening right now.

One thing we regularly do as art advisors is think about taste. We’re constantly looking at art and design and assessing it in many ways, most of which relate to taste. But what exactly is “good taste”? How do you know whether you have it, and can you get it if you don’t?

I’ve heard about SXSW in Austin, Texas for years and had a number of clients, friends, and role models speak or attend with rave reviews. Although “art advisor” is not part of the overall description, I’ve committed to continuing to invest in myself this year. When reviewing ways to do this, I zeroed in on SXSW, bought myself a ticket, and carved out 4 weekdays of my life to attend.

We shifted our social media strategy in January, somewhat by accident, and the results have been eye opening. Here’s a summary of what motivated the shift, how we execute, and the impact this has had on our business.

As an art advisor, I clearly buy art for myself sometimes. I’ve bought art at different stages of my life, at wildly different price points, and that I am drawn to for extremely different reasons. Without naming names, I’m happy to share details on the art I regret buying, which has certainly created a few learning moments that have fueled how I best support our clients’ collecting strategies.

A large part of our practice as art advisors is going to art fairs to discover new artists and galleries, keep a pulse on art market activity, pricing and quality, and build relationships with galleries from around the world. Throughout February and March, our first focus for this type of diligence is on Southern California, where a range of fairs and associated art market activities are happening.

This year, I’m continuing to practice a few simple habits that delivered results in 2023. Today, I’m sharing three more. All of them relate to motivation. Why? Because motivation drives change.

Business Development is something we think about strategically and often in our small business. There are some key philosophies we have in this type of work, along with a single piece of advice I learned when working in business development at Christie’s years ago.