Farm shares we’re familiar with: you pay in advance and get a portion of your farmer’s crops all season. More novel is the idea of marketing art that way—in prepaid shares. That’s the mission of Spark! Art Share, the Valley’s art share sales program, now beginning its second year and inviting purchasers of arts and crafts to sign up (for full information, check www.sparkartshare.com).
For $250, $500, $1,000 or $2,000 a year, depending on how much you want to go in for, you get credits (worth roughly $30 each) toward arts or crafts that you choose and then pick up or have delivered four times a year, while the prepayments support artists as they do their work.
Example: two credits might be worth a small painting, wood-turned bowl or woven scarf; more credits get you a sculpture, a painting, perhaps a set of plates from a ceramic artist.
All products are locally made; no mass-produced kitsch here.
The “parties” at which you choose and take your art shares happen at Food For Thought Books in Amherst on the dates of the Amherst Art Walk: May 2, August 1, November 7 and February 6 (2014), from 5 to 8 p.m.•
