Art in Everything

I have this theory about art.

I think that art is all around us if we just have the eyes to recognize it. I also believe that you have to be creative about your selection of art for your home. Especially if you do not have a decorating budget to match the rocketing world art prices.

If you want framed art on your wall, make it an original.

A painting/drawing/sketch by a local art school student (that you love) is better than opting for fine art reproductions. Unless you are uber-wealthy, no one is going to believe that you actually have an original Monet or Renoir hanging in your living room, so choose something interesting, albeit less famous than the selection in The Louvre. Alternatively, if you have travelled to Monet’s garden in Giverny, enlarge and frame a photograph you took there, rather than a print of the famous painting itself. Now you are the artist, you clever-with-a-camera world-traveller.

I have found fabulous art in unlikely places including the side of the road; been given a large modern painting by an artist whose work I admired and who was moving across country and desperate not to incur the shipping cost of too-many-to-move canvases.

I found the vintage brass printing plate, as shown in the photo above, in a crammed to the rafters teeny tiny junk shop. It was used for advertising in the old days when type was set by hand, and images were actual things. Those three fashionistas were created for Gibson Girls Fashions.

Now that, is art.