Roll Call VI: Ten Voices on Staying Power
Angela Simeone · Last updated: 12 October 2026
In short: Staying power is learned slowly. CULTURED art advisers describe a steep curve in finding your taste, a direction worth the time, and established work that anchors a collection; a Google real estate executive says a painting can shift a mood for a whole day; and Hippocrates, Cézanne, Shakespeare, Horace and Ecclesiastes agree that what lasts is made patiently and found by looking long. Choose the painting that keeps your attention after the first look.
Why does staying power take time to see?
A painting that lasts is rarely the one that announces itself in the first second. Hippocrates opened his Aphorisms with a line the Romans shortened into a proverb, ars longa, vita brevis: in my gloss, the craft is long and life is short. The craft of looking runs on the same clock.
Alex Glauber, an art adviser on CULTURED's 2026 Power Art Advisors List, says the delay is built into collecting: "When you start collecting, the learning curve is steep in terms of understanding your taste." Taste is not something a person arrives with. It forms in front of paintings.
Nancy Gamboa, also on the list, gives the remedy: "Taking the time to discover a direction that feels authentic is an invaluable part of building a focused collection." Both comments come from CULTURED's April 2026 roundup of advice for new collectors.
What do art advisers say lasts?
Work that has already put in the years. Beaumont Nathan, another adviser on the list, notes that collectors often begin with emerging artists, and says advisers also encourage them to look at overlooked work by more established ones, because these works "tend to hold their value over time" and can become anchors for the rest of a collection. No adviser can promise a market, and none quoted here does; the point is that a steady, decades-long practice gives the eye something to trust.
Philip Hoffman, on the same list, is known for the discipline that matches it: his firm steers clients away from nearly nine in ten of the works they are offered. Restraint is how a collection gets a spine.
That is also what twenty years in a studio looks like from the inside. The same questions are asked of a canvas across years, until the paintings accumulate anchors of their own.
Can a painting keep working after the first look?
Yes, and the best ones do their work quietly. Marcella Barrière, a real estate project executive at Google, said on a CoreNet panel about art and the workplace: "Sometimes the art is so powerful that it can shift your mood for the entire day." Her remark was reported by Work Design Magazine on Allwork.Space in June 2024. A mood that lasts a day is the shortest version of staying power.
Paul Cézanne wanted the longer version. As his contemporaries recorded it, he said he wanted to make of Impressionism "something solid and durable, like the art of the museums." He meant a painting that would still be looked at when the fashion around it had gone.
What do the poets say about things that outlast us?
That they are made on purpose. In Sonnet 55, Shakespeare bets his own lines against stone: "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments / Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme." Horace made the same boast two thousand years earlier in the last of his Odes (3.30): exegi monumentum aere perennius, which in my translation means I have built a monument more lasting than bronze.
Ecclesiastes keeps the claim humbler and more patient. In the King James Version, "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time." A painting can take its time, too.
How do you choose a painting for the long run?
Look until you know why it holds you, then ask whether you will want to look again in a year. If you want to start with a painter you can reach directly, this studio sells original work straight to collectors: ready-to-ship paintings, each with several videos of the finished surface sent before it leaves Nashville, and commissions made for one specific wall, in which I paint two options at once so you choose between two finished directions. Paintings travel rolled to a framer near you, who stretches them, and they arrive ready to hang.
Staying power is not something a painting announces. It is what remains when you have looked long enough to stop looking for it.
→ Browse the current work: Paintings available now · Start from a conversation: Commissions · For designers and art consultants: Trade Program · Meet the painter: About Angela
Frequently asked questions
What makes a painting last on a wall?
Looking long enough to know why it holds you. Art advisers quoted here describe a steep learning curve in finding your taste and say a direction that feels authentic is worth the time; a painting that keeps your attention after the first look is the one that lasts.
Do original paintings hold their value?
Some advisers say works by established artists tend to hold their value over time and can anchor a collection, but nothing is guaranteed. Buy a painting because you will want to live with it.
How long does it take to find your taste in art?
Longer than most people expect. CULTURED adviser Alex Glauber says the learning curve is steep when you start collecting, and Nancy Gamboa says taking the time to find an authentic direction is an invaluable part of building a collection.
Can you commission a painting for a specific wall?
Yes. This studio makes commissions for one specific wall and paints two options at once, so you choose between two finished directions.