Don't tell the bank manager, but today's Independent offers yet more temptation for those of us floundering in deepening personal debt. Forget the interest-free loan for that 98" TV or the buy-now-pay-later on that Multiyork sofa: there is now a nobler reason to force your parents from retirement and into Kwik Save so they can bail you out. It's art. What else?
An Arts Council-sponsored scheme, Own Art, has been running since April 2004 and over that period has loaned more than £2.8m to people who want to possess a sliver of original, contemporary art. 250 galleries around England are involved so far, and another 36 in London are being added to the roster this month.
The deal is that anyone can apply for an interest-free loan of up to £2,000, which is then paid back in 10 monthly instalments. As little as £100 can be borrowed; 10 quid a month for 10 months and you'll have a piece of your very own to treasure. It might even soar wildly in value. And, er, need to be insured. At massive expense.
But it's near-impossible (even for me) to be cynical about a scheme whose ambitions are so triumphantly modest: one of the people interviewed by the paper, Hannah Fenton from Cambridge, bought an eight-inch ceramic sculpture by Eoghan Bridge back in October. "I can't afford £175," she said, "but I can afford £15 a month". Which beats Affordable Art into an unmade bed.
And could Frieze Art Fair - whose walloping £33m of sales last year generated slack-jawed headlines all over the shop - boast anything so quietly satisfying as that? Go on: get a piece of something unique for less than the price of your mobile phone bill.
Included in the scheme are paintings, sculpture, glassware, ceramics, photography, jewellery, furniture and textiles - indeed anything that's produced by a living artist. Galleries are spread across England, from Falmouth in Cornwall all the way up to Warworth in Northumberland, so it's also a pleasing way to support art venues and artists in your area.
They even tell you how to go about buying art (PDF), so you're not flummoxed when you're asked about stretchers or mixed media. (Scotland has its own scheme, and the canny Welsh have been doing something similar for over 70 years.)
There don't appear to be any catches whatsoever, in fact, unless, who knows, it all turns out to be underwritten by child slavery or petrochemicals or something. Let's just hope that, in 30 years' time, we still have homes in which to do the exhibiting.
