I recently took a walk through our local big box home dec store and I was just overwhelmed by the humongous selection of what I like to call “meaningless art”. Aisles and aisles of it. Ugh. Huge pictures of geographically ambiguous beaches, badly rendered close-ups of animals, overly sweet typographic art describing the meaning of “home”, “family”, etc. Yuck. It was exactly the kind of thing that home builders slap all over the walls in their model houses, and none of it makes you feel as though anyone actually lives there.
And then, there’s this.
What is this?? I like a good weiner dog as much as the next person, but between the kamikaze stripes and the look in that dog’s eye, I’m at a loss. Really. Who has this in their home? If you do, I want to see the rest of the room. I have to know what other decor stands up to this. Woof.
I think artwork is both a very personal and a very important aspect of decorating. It should help give your home atmosphere and personality, and it should tell your guests something about the people living there. It’s not about filling wall space. It’s about surrounding yourself with the things you love.
True, your choices should support the color scheme and degree of formality you’ve chosen for each room. But I don’t believe in putting a picture of flowers on your wall because they’re blue and your room is done in blue and grey. No. You miss your opportunity to add an element of personal style if you go the “safe”, matchy-matchy method of home builder decorating. (No offense to builders or the people who decorate for them. I’m sure they are lovely, hard-working people. But I’d be surprised if they decorate their own homes the way they do houses nobody lives in. Just saying.)
One of my favorite things on our wall is a torn paper collage my daughter made at preschool when she was two. They were learning about the ocean that week. I loved it, I framed it, it’s known in our house as The Baby’s Ocean.
Yes, it does happen to support the color scheme I’d chosen for the room, but it means something to us. And it strikes me as just a little bit funny, which is very much who we are. A lot of the art in our house is like that. It has a bit of a sense of humor.
I appreciate great fine art, of course, but I don’t have old masters hanging on our walls. It’s not us. I consider our family style “Fancy Casual”. Nice, but not formal. We have a little kid running around, after all. I don’t have any areas that are “off-limits” to her, or rooms that only get used when company comes over.
Do you know who I love? Janet Hill. She’s an amazing Canadian artist. Her work is beautiful, and much of it has that bit of humor that I love. I have a lot of Janet Hill prints in the house. A lot. I am also lucky enough to have one of her original oil paintings, which my dear husband gave me as a gift when we bought this house. If you are a fan of Janet Hill, then you know how hard it is to get an original! If you don’t know her work, you need to check it out. She has a great shop on Etsy. Her blog is also hilarious.
Here are some examples of Janet Hill’s work.
Gorgeous, right? So glamorous. Such striking contrast in the lights and darks here. Mysterious. Is she a bit of a bad girl? Is that a persona, when in fact she’s desperately sad? I don’t know. It speaks to me in a way that even I don’t really understand, and that is how you know you’ve found art that you like. It’s a visceral thing. Go with your gut.
Here’s more:
Janet Hill does the most fun interiors. They are whimsical and colorful, and playful and fun. I wish I had the courage to decorate the way she does in her paintings, even a little bit. I wonder what the inside of her own house looks like? If this were your bathroom, could you go into it and fail to be happy? I doubt it.
This is one of her smaller works, and it is just silly and sweet. Unexpected. I put it in a room that tends to take itself rather seriously.
This is The Houseguest. Hang it in your guest bedroom. Who hasn’t felt this way, at some point?
Some are more “serious”, more traditional and less tongue-in-cheek. I love them, too.
And that’s the thing about art, and about decorating on the whole. Don’t settle for what you don’t love. If it’s going to surround you all the time, it should make you happy. It doesn’t matter if other people don’t like it or understand it. If you have a personal reaction to it, happy, or sad, calm, excited, whatever you might feel, it’s good.
We had friends a long time ago who had several prints of audacious, surreal art on their walls. (Think Salvador Dali, but with more exposed nipples.) Truthfully, it weirded me out. But it spoke to them in some way, and it went with the rest of their style, which was contemporary and completely unapologetic. So that was right for them. I can’t say I appreciated it, exactly, the way they did, but it worked there.
They had solid white carpet, too. White. See? Unapologetic.
Go out and look for something that speaks to you. Unapologetically. You’ll know when you find it. You just have to listen.
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