Forget Black Friday: Support Art Instead

1. Support Independent Art Journalism

Independent arts publications rarely operate with the financial security of major media organizations. Donations can help support writers, editors, photographers, artists, and the infrastructure required to keep an independent publication alive.

If you regularly discover exhibitions, artists, or ideas through independent art criticism, consider supporting the publication that introduced you to them.

It may not come wrapped in shiny paper, but funding art journalism is one of the most direct ways to keep cultural conversations happening.

2. Put Money Behind Independent Galleries

Independent galleries are often the places where artists can take risks that larger institutions aren't willing to take.

In Philadelphia, spaces such as Vox Populi have historically played an important role in the city's independent arts ecosystem. Supporting these organizations can mean making a donation, buying an edition, purchasing merchandise, or simply becoming a member.

And if you're already showing up for openings and First Fridays, consider doing more than drinking the free beer.

Give something back to the space that keeps giving you exhibitions.

3. Buy Art Instead of Generic Gifts

You don't need to be wealthy to buy art.

That's one of the more persistent misconceptions surrounding collecting. Small editions, prints, photographs, artist books, drawings, multiples, and other affordable works can make much more interesting gifts than something selected from a department-store shelf.

Buying directly from an artist or a small gallery can also mean that more of your money reaches the person who actually made the work.

The result is a gift with a story attached to it rather than another object manufactured specifically to survive three months of seasonal advertising.

4. Look for Artist Editions

An artist edition is another excellent middle ground between collecting original artwork and buying mass-produced merchandise.

Prints, publications, small multiples, and limited editions can make contemporary art considerably more accessible.

They also have one major advantage over a novelty holiday gift: someone actually thought about making them.

Look at independent galleries, artist-run spaces, museum shops, and artists' own websites for editions that fit your budget.

5. Buy an Art Publication

Books and magazines are easy to underestimate as gifts. A good art publication can, however, become something someone keeps for years.

Exhibition catalogs, artist monographs, independent magazines, and experimental publishing projects offer another way to support the cultural ecosystem without buying a piece of furniture you don't have room for.

Art books make particularly good gifts for people who already have enough stuff.

6. Support Your Local Library

Sometimes the best possible use of your holiday budget is almost aggressively unglamorous.

Libraries provide access to books, information, education, technology, community programs, and public space. Supporting a library is an investment in something that belongs to everyone.

If your local library accepts donations or has a specific fundraising campaign, consider contributing. You can also donate books, volunteer, or simply become a more active user of the institution.

Not everything valuable needs to be purchased for yourself.

7. Help an Artist Finish a Project

Crowdfunding has become an important way for artists and filmmakers to turn ambitious ideas into actual projects.

Instead of buying a novelty item that will probably end up in a drawer, consider putting that money toward a creative project you genuinely want to see exist.

A small contribution can help pay for production, equipment, printing, exhibition costs, editing, distribution, or other expenses that are invisible once the finished work appears.

8. Support Independent Film

Philadelphia has a long history of independent filmmaking and experimental cinema. Small productions often depend on a strange combination of enthusiasm, volunteer labor, favors, and whatever money the filmmakers can scrape together.

Supporting an independent film project is therefore more than buying entertainment. It can help give a filmmaker the resources to finish something that otherwise might never exist.

Buy a ticket. Back a campaign. Attend a screening. Tell someone about the film.

9. Give Yourself a Better Kind of Souvenir

There is a particular pleasure in owning something that reminds you of a person, place, exhibition, or moment rather than simply reminding you that it was on sale.

An artist's print from an exhibition, a small publication from an independent press, or an edition from a local gallery can become a physical record of a cultural experience.

Years later, you may not remember what you bought during a Black-Friday promotion.

You might remember the artist.

10. Skip the Purchase Entirely

Here's the radical option: don't buy anything.

Go to an exhibition. Visit a museum. Attend an artist talk. Spend an afternoon in a gallery. Read something written by an artist. Watch an independent film. Talk to someone about the work.

Cultural participation doesn't always require a transaction.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can give an artist is your attention.

Black Friday Doesn't Have to Define Your Holiday Spending

The problem with the Black Friday mentality isn't simply the discounts, the crowds, or the increasingly absurd advertising. It's the assumption that holiday generosity has to take the form of buying more things.

There are other possibilities.

You can support an independent gallery. Buy a print from an artist. Subscribe to an arts publication. Contribute to a film. Donate to a library. Help a community organization. Or simply spend an afternoon paying attention to the cultural life of your city.

Those choices may not produce the biggest receipt, but they can produce something considerably more useful: a healthier creative community.

So forget the shopping frenzy for a minute.

Spend less on things you don't need and more on the people and ideas you don't want to disappear.

Ideas for an Alternative Black Friday