So after a very rough week last week, I needed some fun and something new to do on a Saturday morning. I had the opportunity to attend a very popular Art Fair/Exhibit in Maastricht. It is one of the World's largest art and antique shows and is very popular amongst a variety of wealthy people from around the world. So obviously I am not one of the world's wealthy people, well at least financially wealthy hat is.(I do consider myself wealthy in many other facets of life but that is a different topic all together) but nevertheless I had the great opportunity to attend this event.
I took the train and arrived there around 11am. I was amazed at how many different languages I was hearing all at once. It was great! The exhibit was beautiful. They had art and antiques from all over the world and all sorts of styles. It took me 4 hours to get through the entire place and that was only once through. I met people from Italy, USA, Spain, Paraguay, Russia, France, Zimbabwe, Fiji and many more countries as I paraded through the exhibit. I often thought these high end art exhibits were filled with people that patiently and quietly looked around contemplating whether they wanted to spend 100,000 Euros on just one or buy 4 for each floor of their house! I also thought it would be really quiet as people observed and studied the art. But it was quite contrary, it may have been the champagne stands that they had set up in each part of the exhibit. Ok sure there were the quiet contemplators, but I had a differnet experience of the event. I ended up socializing with alot more people than I thought I would and listened to interesting stories of how these people became collectors and what they found most interesting about particular pieces.I even met a son and father from Portugal, the father was there to teach his son what to look for in the artwork. It was a lot of fun to see their buying techniques and I understood something about the more well off in this world, they really have a passion for what they are going after. I admired seeing that sparkle in their eyes as they purchased their piece of art for the discounted rate of 42,000 Euros a piece( roughly $65,000)
I certainly can appreciate good art, but have never had the desire to become a collector and I think that is a good idea for me at this point in my life to hold off a while longer. Everything that I really liked and asked the price of just happened to be 85,000 Euros!(that is about $140,000) It was quite funny to see that literally every piece I asked about was 85,000 Euros, I think there was one piece that was 200,000 Euros, so a bit more! I did have a variety of pieces that I liked, it ranged from a beautiful world globe stand, to paintings, to oriental screens, to even a few sculptures. I don't foresee any collecting for me for a while, but it was really nice to experience this event and step out of my world for a day. It was also very educational for my future purchases!
If you care to look at the website here it is www.tefaf.com It is an annual event and I recommend attending if you have the opportunity.
Till next time.
In love and gratitude
Asha
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