Vermeer’s  Girl with a Pearl Earring is one of the most recognizable paintings from the 17th century. As with his other works, it employs the lavish use of exorbitantly expensive pigments like lapis lazuli and natural ultramarine. Vermeer wouldn’t be Vermeer without the warm interior light achieved with umber and ochre. And this cash-strapped painter, rumoured to have died in a frenzy caused by financial anxiety, couldn’t have afforded to buy these pigments.

There is much speculation over who paid for the paint. Many think it was a patron, a collector, possibly Pieter Claesz van Ruijven.

Michelangelo wouldn’t have created David but for the request by the Operai and it certainly wasn’t his idea to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Pope Julius II forced him to divert his hand from sculpting to work on the masterpiece. Church and state have historically been great patrons, providing the money and sometimes the muscle to motivate artists.

Today’s collectors and patrons come in many different guises. Corporate sponsors can make an artist’s life much more comfortable, government commissions bring money and prestige and individual collectors are the bread and butter of the art community.

The uncomfortable relationship between art and money is the stuff of legend. Think Van Gogh in Antwerp: living on coffee, bread and cigarettes so he could spend what little money he had on paint. No one in their right mind gets into art for the money and most either struggle to get by or work a day job.

The phrase “commission work accepted” is peppered throughout local artist collective Muskoka Arts and Crafts’ 2009 guide. Artists beckon from the pages, inviting us to visit their websites to view their work in the hopes of enticing us to support their endeavors.

For the artist, commissioned work makes good financial sense. And for the patron it can mean both supporting a favourite artist and attaining work tailor-made to your tastes.

We asked Lake Rosseau cottager Bryon Patton if he considers himself a patron. An art collector whose interior design firm often chooses pieces for clients, Patton has purchased 11 paintings from Beverley Hawksley for his home collection and several more for clients.

“(Patronage) makes me think of the renaissance when the nobility and wealthy supported artists, so no, I don’t. But Beverley is an exceptional artist and my wife Sabine and I want to promote her work. Artists are often challenged in the marketing of their work and Sabine and I want to be helpful in getting Beverley exposure and sales. She should be famous.

“We love the energy and passion in her work. Beverley also works large and she isn’t pigeon-holed into any theme. We are always amazed at the variety of work and the originality. We love the nudes but we have a wonderful painting of an urn as well as a painting of sheep in a field and another of a scary crow. How varied is that?”

The Pattons feel a special connection to Hawksley’s work and vividly recall their first experience of her.

 “On a rainy day in October we dropped into a gallery in Huntsville just to browse. As we were leaving we were told to look at the paintings in a special show in another area. We walked into the space and were hit by Beverley’s huge canvases of sumptuous nudes. We were totally knocked out. We were transported to Soho in New York. We bought five paintings that afternoon – and then thought where the heck are we hanging them because one of them is 20 feet long.”

Kareen Burns, president of the Huntsville Festival of the Arts does see herself as a patron, but not in the traditional sense.

“Patrons were usually very rich people who had palaces and so I would love to be a total patron but I do it in a different way. I try to promote the artists I like as much as possible. Of course there are things that I cannot resist. I like something eclectic and Beverley is never the same; she tries her hand at a number of things, she’s an evolving artist,” says Burns. “I’ve got some things she’s done for me that are commissioned – she wrote in gold leaf on my wall, ‘I am a gracefully evolving woman of eclectic good cheer.’ This is something I say about myself. The gold looks really cool on the wall, like a cave painting.”

Burns currently has six canvases and a variety of works like the wall writing by Hawksley. Her relationship with the artist is an important part of the process.

“I know her and I love to just listen to her talking about the way her mind is going and moving forward. I feed off that; as patrons used to do when they surrounded themselves with artists. She surprises me and that to me is the best part – it’s not the same-old same-old churning out stuff – she’s always changing and I find that exciting.”

“I never thought of them in terms of patronage,” says Hawksley of Burns and the Pattons. “They are patrons just in their way of being in the world. It’s not just the buying of art but their understanding of what brings beauty and what contributes to the world in a positive way; it’s their way of being.

“I see both the Pattons and Kareen creating their own beauty in the world – not only in art but in their involvement and understanding of humanity. Their approach to the world is one that makes everything an art in a way: the way they deal with people, conversations they have, their priorities are defined by their way of being.”

Bruce Burgess’ family cottage has been on an island in Lake Jo since 1899. Burgess was never terribly interested in art but his life was forever changed when he saw the paintings of Robert Vanderhorst on a bio about musician Nash the Slash in February of ’78. His overwhelming thought after seeing the surrealist’s work: “I gotta meet that guy.”

Over the next decade they became fast friends and Burgess has seen every piece of Vanderhorst’s work while it was on the easel since the mid-1980s.

He now owns one of the paintings exhibited on that television show. Classic Decadence is part of his 15-piece collection and Burgess has also commissioned a work that hangs in Crescent School. But more than that, he has become the executive producer of a multi-media movement called Two Artists with Vanderhorst and Nash the Slash. He has negotiated art shows, videos, the website twoartists.ca and a book with the artists.

It’s his relationship with Vanderhorst that is most important to the collector now.

“When I retired, I started coming up to the old cottage through the whole summer and Rob would come out and spend time here. He’s my best friend almost and we discuss everything. From September to June, every Monday it’s ‘come over for coffee,’ and we talk and I get a look at what he’s doing.”

“He’s a unique artist and I get it. I got it over 30 years ago.”

Another type of patronage is less about personal relationships but can be very lucrative for the artist. Corporate sponsors and commissions can keep an artist in paint for years.

For Leonard Lake cottager Patti Walker public art and work for the likes of corporate giant Microsoft have kept her busy doing the glass work she loves.

Her glass work is anything but traditional and fits well with modern corporate décor.

“I do public art and commissioned pieces, residential work and liturgical work. I’m doing a job right now for Microsoft – that’s site specific work,” explains Walker. “I make other pieces that I display and they are bought by corporations and sometimes individuals. I have a few people who have bought multiple pieces – both by commission and exhibition pieces. It’s a bit unusual because a lot of glass artists who do commissions don’t do exhibition work.”

The public work usually comes by way of a call for artists. There is a process whereby the artist submits work and if they make it to the short list, they are paid to create a vision of the art they hope to do. Then they have to detail how the job will get done.

“You have to show that you are capable to work on that scale and able to co-ordinate with the other trades that may be involved – you’re not just describing the guts of the project but the physical job of getting it done,” she says.

Designers and art consultants are important to Walker’s success. They work with large corporations and in situations where a painting or a sculpture won’t fit due to space or design; a window may be just the thing. She has done The Toronto Stock Exchange and a prominent law office in this type of situation.

“I don’t have a great year every year, but there are certainly times when I have a lot of work,” says Walker.

In the art world, that’s the best you can hope for.