This is the second of two posts on how I fill my space with art. Here’s Part 1, in case you missed it.
Yesterday I shared parts of our art studio/collective living space, and today we’ll wander into the kitchen and my bedroom. We just took my almost-2-year-old’s crib apart, which feels like a huge milestone and a bit of a sad departure from the baby years, so I’ll spare you the chaos of the kids’ room for now.
Where do YOU find your home’s art?
Etsy? Art fairs? Friends? Family? Art websites? Your prolific kids? Mine is a combination of the above, and I’ve always got my eye open for things that delight me or make me think hard. But mostly, the art on my walls has to make me happy since I spend so much time looking at it. It impacts my mood, changes the direction of my thoughts, and allows me to contemplate the things I care the most about.
Okay, starting with the kitchen…
The lighting in my kitchen is terrible, and my photos of it always look yellow. Something to work on.
Above the store are four kid-made pieces above the stove: a straw-blown painting, an early watercolor painting, an early scribble, and handprints. They e are all framed in inexpensive IKEA frames. My initial thought was that I’d swap the art out occasionally but that has never happened. Who has the time?
By the way, if you hang art above the store, be sure that it sits behind glass to protect it from grease and smoke.
Next to the four small kid frames is an old canvas that I covered with a few layers of chalkboard paint. This image is mostly made by me, and baby R added some scratches in on the rop right. I love that this can change with the mood or season, and we take it down frequently to write messages to visiting relatives, notes to each other, inspirational quotes, and images.
It’s nothing special, but it’s become a conversation piece and my kids love changing it up. Which reminds me of another benefit: it’s ephemeral and my children are learning that art doesn’t have to be precious and preserved for eternity. When we tire of the image, we erase it, and they’ve never been bothered by that. Yet.
Okay, moving on to the bedroom…
Across from our bed is one of my favorite paintings by Gwen Mercado-Reyes. It’s graffiti marks and loopy swirls of paint remind me of my hometown, Los Angeles, and I never tire of its energy. We’ve been home from our trip for six days, and it appears that the suitcase is not budging! Actually, since taking this photo, it’s been buried by a mountain of laundry. Sigh.
On the other side of the bedroom is a little hodge podge gallery of some of our family favorites: a collaborative piece that Scott and I created for a group show at the San Jose Museum of Art, drippy painting on cardboard by my then 2-year old, Scott’s photo of a back-lit orange, Scott’s burnt- paper portrait (he made it with a creme brulee blow torch), and a tiny and hilarious painting by SF artists Crockett Bodelson and Sandra Wang.
I have more to share and look forward to showing you my girls’ room once it resembles more of a room than a thrift store.
What do you have on the walls of your home? What’s your criteria for selecting art?
If you have a link, feel free to add it in a comment.
thanks.
We have some kids artwork, black-and-white family photos, some of our artwork (both my husband and I are artists), and the artwork of my friends artists. Having my friends artwork around is very important to me.
You sounds a lot like me! We live far from so many of our friends, and having their art on my walls really helps keep them close by.
Excellent ideas! I love art works especially paintings. I have brother that past away almost 10 years ago, he is really good in paintings and canvassing. We still have few of his paintings. I think we need a little of creativity to make it look new. thanks for the ideas.
Am loving these posts!
Our house is bereft of most of it’s art at the moment since we are renovating but I am finally beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel and the possibility of loads of blank walls to fill with art!
Thanks so much Kate! Renovating is a great opportunity to start fresh and rethink how you’d like to make your walls welcoming and inspiring. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!