I've wanted to cover this topic for a while but it's a slippery little sucker of a topic to pin down.
I don't want to talk about taste and why people buy particular art, I want to talk about the basics.
I think at the bare bones of it - people buy things they can't make themselves.
I'll tell you a little story to illustrate this and at the same moment be the barer of bad news - cupcake sales are drastically dropping. This is because they went from being a fabulous little cake you buy as a beautiful treat to a normal little cake you learn to make yourself instead.
Cupcakes became too accessible and people became too wise at their easy-to-bake ways.
The same is said for almost all other products. Can't grow food yourself? Buy it. Can't knit yourself a scarf? Buy it.
It even applies to things that you do actually kind of do make yourself, if you can knit yourself a scarf, you still need to buy the wool. And even if you have your own sheep farm - where you harvest the wool and make your own yarn you still need food for the sheep, and you need to buy that from someone. No one is fully self sufficient.
Someone will buy your work if they honestly feel they couldn't make it themselves.
They buy it because you have a particular viewpoint that they relate to but can't emulate. This could be your materials, or the message you portray through your art. Whatever it is, people buy it because you are passionate and talented - and I think that is a very important thing to remember.
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