COLLECTOR INTERVIEW - SLOAN SCHAFFER

COLLECT WHAT YOU LOVE

​AN INTERVIEW WITH COLLECTOR SLOAN SCHAFFER

By Clara Nartey
​Ghanian-born writer and figurative artist working with digital tools, threads, and textiles to celebrate Black hair in contemporary art.
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Architect, master jeweler, art dealer, and collector, Sloan Schaffer, started collecting art as a young boy at the age of 15 years. His emotional connection with objects first manifested itself in music. As a way to extend the memories and experiences he had at musical concerts, he started collecting music posters. Over the years, he’s come to center his love for collecting more around 3D objects rather than wall-hung art. He ONLY collects what he loves and loves what he collects. Art has always been a part of Sloan’s life. It’s influenced his life and career in many ways, taking him from Miami to New York, and to Los Angeles and now back to New York again.

I caught up with Sloan to learn more about his passion as an art collector.
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CN: Sloan, can you give us a little background about who you are and how you got started in collecting?
SS: I’m an architect by training. Before that I was a master jeweler. I’ve always been drawn to the arts in many different ways. My love for art and collecting began at a very early age with exposure to great collections that I was lucky enough to be around and to spend intimate time with. After graduating with my masters in Architecture, I practiced as an architect in Florida for about a dozen years and began to hone in on my love for ceramics, sculpture and design and more specifically figural and narrative painting. And that’s when I really started to collect extensively. 
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At the same time, I opened a commercial exhibition space in Miami that ended up becoming a significant passion project for me that carried me to NY and then Los Angeles, and to the Hudson Valley Area in New York. I’ve always been involved in the arts in various ways and collecting has been the common theme throughout all the different artful practices that I’ve endeavored throughout my professional career thus far.
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​"I am a very emotional based collector..."
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CN: So, was art something your parents encouraged growing up?
SS: Both of my parents were collectors. My stepfather was a significant collector in ceramics and had a pretty notable collection in the metro Detroit area. So, I was privileged enough to grow up living and surrounded by a world-class collection such as the one he had built.
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CN: How long then have you been building your own personal collection and what specifically do you collect?
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​"I'll never ever buy based on value or potential value ..."
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SS: I’ve been collecting since I was about 15 or 16 years old. I started collecting concert posters because it was the thing that was most accessible to me. It was the thing that had the most impactful touch point. Music has always been a big part of my life. That was sort of the obvious thing to start collecting. Because I’ll go to concerts, I’ll experience the music and I’ll  want to participate in extending those experiences and those memories. So that was sort of the entrance into collecting. 

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​In terms of what I collect now, I’m a very, very emotional-based collector and so I respond to things and when that happens that’s an indicator to me that this should be in my collection. I have a love of objects. So, I’ve always been drawn to things that are three dimensional. I think that probably explains my love for architecture and creating spaces. You know, three dimensional objects - they hold space and they carry volume, and they command presence in a way that something on the wall might not. So I love objects and I love all different mediums. It could be metal, clay, glass, porcelain. I’m a very broad collector. My collection is somewhat eccentric.

​At the end of the day, I’m drawn to work that makes me feel something. I need to have an emotional reaction. I need to feel something. To me, that’s the work that’s most exciting, most compelling, the work that I only want to be involved with at a personal level - a collecting level- but certainly the only criteria I’ll want to consider at a professional level. I would rather feel a strong emotion from a painting or piece of art than feel nothing at all. I never ever buy based on value or potential. Never is that a consideration. I buy what I love and what speaks to me and what makes me feel something from the artist or something within myself and really that’s the only thing that I pay attention to.
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​"Art is a soulful, intimate, special practice that allows people inside other people and inside their genius, and inside their gifts."

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CN: That’s really nice to hear. As an artist, I love to meet collectors who collect art based on the work itself and not simply on the perceived value of the art.
SS: Never have I done that. It’s not how I’m wired. It’s not how I want art to be in my life. We are stewards for these objects. We are the caretaker or the lucky person who gets to live with this thing and I think there’s a responsibility to connect to that object and connect to that thing in a really intimate way, same way we would form a bond or connection to another human being. I think that art is in a lot of ways synonymous with that kind of connection. At least for me it is. So, I’ve never been interested in something for its value, or for its potential for it to be some sort of commodity or in any form of speculation.

CN: Since this is how you feel about art, will you ever consider exhibiting your collection?
SS: Absolutely. The mindset that I have as a collector is these things are meant to be seen, to be enjoyed, and to be experienced. It’ll be selfish for me to think that these things are just meant for me. Or are just meant for my eyes only.  I think that we are meant to hold on to these things for a moment. I’m all for showing the collection, letting people see the collection, bringing people into my home and showing folks work that they might not have seen or a side of me as a collector that they may not have seen.
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​"Everything I have is meaningful or significant in some way.."
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CN: Do you have any favorites in your collection?
SS: No. I don’t. Everything that I have is meaningful and significant in some way. And so the only thing that I could potentially say is what’s made it the newest thing that’s come into my collection. But even then, that is unfair. Because that will give priority or importance to something based on a timeline and that’s really not how it works.

​No. I don’t really have a favorite. Everything that I own or is exhibited in my home is done so because it has its own inherent qualities and special characteristics to me, that’s why it’s there. And I also move things around. I’m constantly changing paintings and bringing sculptures in and out. I want it to be fluid and dynamic. I don’t want things to be stiff and stale. So I’m always trying to adjust and modify my environment so I’m stimulated in new ways.
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CN: So, do you have room for all your collection to be on display in your home or do you store some of them and does that affect your purchase decisions?
SS: No. I don’t even have close to room for everything. I would say maybe 10% of my collection is currently on view and the remaining 90% is in a warehouse where I keep the rest of my collection.
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But that doesn’t affect my purchase decisions. I don’t buy works because I have a place to put them or because I’m decorating a room and something is going to go with something. I buy work based on … almost like a carnal desire to have something. 
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The only thing I can liken it to is … if you were hunting and you saw a prey and you had to have it. Whether you had a stockpile of meat in the freezer or your den was filled with food to get you through the winter, it’s a carnal desire, it’s instinctual. It can’t really be explained in practical terms. It’s just innate as to who we are. It’s this one-on-one interaction between me and that object. The only thing that I’m paying attention to is … what is this thing doing for me and simply can I afford it. That’s the only real criteria. If I can, then everything else will figure itself out.

CN: Do you then miss the works that you have in storage? Is that why you re-arrange or decorate?
SS: No. When I do miss them, then I go and get them and bring them into my home or go look at them. I make sure that dialogue is always available and present. When I feel like I want to see something or hey that sculpture I’ve been thinking about I just go and get it. And that’s sort of the beauty of having this additional space to keep things safe and protected but also have access in a relatively convenient way to my collection
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​"The relationship  of large scale objects to the human form and human body is so powerful..."
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​CN: Where do you see your collection in say 10 years from now.
SS: Lately, I’ve been focused on large-scale exterior work. It’s something that I’ve never had the room for in my life. I’ve always lived in places that were sort of cities or places that not a lot of land is available. So, one of the things I’ve loved about being where I am now is having land to not only experiment with sculpture and large-scale sculpture but simply have space for works that I never could have considered in my collection before. And so I’ve been focused on large-scale objects of all mediums that can live outside. So right now that’s where I’m focusing my energy and attention in terms of my collection.

Large scale objects command space, volume, and your attention in a different way than small scale objects in that their relationship to the human form and human body is so much more powerful and impactful. Because you can walk up to something and you experience not only  its presence and volume but your own. For me I’ve never experienced that in an intimate way and so that’s super exciting for me.

CN: What’s your advice to someone who’s starting or wanting to start their own art collection.
SS: Buy what you love. It’s as simple as that. Buy what makes you feel something. We’re emotional creatures and we’re on this planet to feel things. Art is a soulful, intimate, special practice that allows people inside other people and inside their genius, and inside their gifts. And that’s what makes it so special and makes it so powerful, and makes it a tool to do so many different things.
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