Home is where the art is

Tallahassee and Tampa recently made the top of a national survey — but it's not related to any Florida State-USF rivalry.

This report, from online art community artfinder.com, ranks people's art buying habits. And somewhat surprisingly, Tallahassee took the No. 1 spot, with 1,303 artworks bought per million inhabitants in 2016, while Tampa ranked No. 4, with 789 artworks bought per million inhabitants in 2016. New Haven, Conn. ranked No. 2 and Anaheim, Calif. ranked No. 3. Raleigh, N.C., rounded out the top five.

Artfinder, with a global network of 10,000 artists, theorizes that a place like Tampa did well on the survey because homes there have something normally not found in big city homes: space. “People in smaller cities and more rural areas are more likely to buy art than New Yorkers,” states a blog post with the survey.

The survey also points to a burgeoning trend in how hospitality and retail companies target millennials for market share, in that whatever is being sold, it needs to be authentic and handcrafted. If it works for beer, hotels, food trucks and work shirts, then it might as well be good for art.

“We are now seeing a new generation and a new kind of art buyer emerging, our audience are typically younger than those who buy from galleries, and they don't necessarily classify themselves as 'collectors,'” Artfinder writes in the blog post. “They're not buying for investment, they're buying because they want something handmade by a real person on their wall, something no one else has.”

Top 10 arts purchasing cities purchases per 1 million inhabitants

Tallahassee 1,303
New Haven, Conn. 953
Anaheim, Calif. 842
Tampa 789
Raleigh, N. C. 770
San Francisco 726
Miami 620
Austin 592
Santa Monica, Calif. 578
Boston 572
Source: Artfinder.com