Cappy Price Guest Speaker at Congressman Danny Davis' 28th Annual High School Art Competition

I was honored to be the guest speaker at Congressman Danny K. Davis' 28th Annual High School Art Competition on May 2nd at Chicago's United Center. 78 students from High Schools in the 7th Congressional District submitted artwork in the competition and six won prizes ranging from computer systems to summer scholarships to attend The Art Institute of Chicago. Excerpts of my remarks follow:

Before Robert and I founded CapucinesBoulevard, I spent my career investing in small and micro cap value stocks which basically means the smallest and least expensive 5% of all public companies - and even though they were well-run, most investors didn't pay much attention to them --- so, when I went to visit companies to learn more about their operations they were very happy that someone was actually interested. 

And so by spending the time to get information that other investors were ignoring, I was able to find opportunities that others missed.

What does this have to do with you? Well, I believe that like small and micro cap value stocks, Emerging Artists are the greatest investment opportunities that no one has ever heard of...

Many people make the mistake of looking at art as something that's nice to have but certainly not a necessity -- I obviously don't agree:

Art happens to be the biggest unregulated, legal economy in the world to the tune of $64B worldwide, in fact, it grew 95% between 2002 and 2006 and, the truth is, as Robert Redford has said, "culture is a solid investment"

Make no mistake, art isn' fluff -- you know, we live in an abundant country, and have pretty much taken care of all of our basic needs, and our culture places increasing value on creativity and innovation: the ideas that catch on today are the ones like iPods, they're ideas that represent conceptual leaps/ they give us things that we didn't know we were missing, not things we necessarily needed, but ideas that appeal to our creative natures - the right sides of our brains --  It's the same reason that we buy designer toilet brush cleaners that could pass as sculpture at Target. 

The same reason that students at New York's Mt Sinai Medical School are required to tour art museums in order to become better diagnosticians by improving their ability to discern aesthetics, to see things more holistically...

So, as artists, you begin with an innate advantage in this new economy by your very ability to see and to think differently...

The other side of this new economy other than the art itself centers around the value of it -- art should always be purchased for the joy it brings, but art is also an asset and when it comes to art, it's your art, contemporary art that's in demand. Contemporary Art is so hot because even though people admire the Old Masters, what they want to own are representations of their own culture and time; contemporary art is more topical and often more interesting and now, it's becoming more valuable.

There's truly never been a better time to be an emerging artist...you have the power to inspire, and yes, to prosper -- the record is clear -- the value is in work of the emerging artist.