Choosing Art for Your Home can be challenging, but no need to stress.
Do you have a big blank wall staring back at you and it needs……something? Or maybe you just like having a piece of wall art in each room. Or perhaps you are an avid collector and are suffering from a bout of indecision or analysis paralysis? No matter what your motivation is for wanting a piece of art for a space, figuring out WHAT piece and how and why can sometimes be daunting. Especially if you are looking for something original or significant in size since it will be an investment.
Luckily, there are no hard and fast rules about your choices in art. Well, some people might claim there are, but we don’t need their snobbery right now. Choosing art for your home can be fairly simple with a few guidelines.
How to Choose Art for Your Home
Here’s what to keep in mind:
Decor style
What is the theme you already gravitate toward? If you already have a style you stick to throughout the decades, go with it. You are who you are. No need to reinvent your preferences. Of that means minimal line drawing abstracts no one understands or dogs playing poker, it’s cool. You be you.
Color tones: warm or cool?
Is your home in warm earth tones or cools blues and grays? Check out: Color: Choosing Warm Tones Or Cool Tones For Your Home
House style
Is your literal house a modern marvel or traditional? While you can go with whatever mix you want, an ornate Victorian gilded frame might look out of place in that modern co-op loft space. Take a look around you and be honest. Will you really be happy with super mod abstracts if your home is super country or traditional with heavy draperies and floral print sofas? Of course not. Stay away from trends and work with the style you already live in. Unless of course collecting Victorian portraits is your thing and you WANT to display them over a modular black leather sectional. This goes back to number one above, you be you.
Personal style
Are you a basic beige wardrobe of slacks and turtlenecks or a wild array of vibrant colors and prints? Do you wear understated earrings or piles of turquoise with jangling bangles? Stay true to your style if it is who you are and you’ve always been this person. A vibrant desert-scape will look great with those loud turquoise earrings.
Lifestyle
How do you live? Do you want serene seascapes because you love spending time on a boat or the beach? Are you a little bit hippie and want to add colorful paintings of mandalas to your walls? Are you overwhelmed by chaos and want your home to be a calm minimalist sanctuary? For some of us, our home is often in transition and we are stuck on it reflecting who we WERE versus who we WANT to be.
Goals
What is the goal in collecting art? Why? What is your end game?
Why exactly are you looking for a painting or print anyway? Certainly there are nifty tapestries or plates or some unique menagerie of items you could use to create a vignette. Whittle your way down to the true reason you want a print or canvas in that spot. It can be as practical as wanting something easy to dust. Or as fanciful as wanting to be different and eclectic.
In the end it is of course important to just pick out something that speaks to you. Which is why you can’t really hunt for art. You can make yourself available and open to it by attending shows, galleries, and following artists. But finding art that speaks to you won’t happen while browsing Etsy or flipping through prints in a vendor stall. Sometimes it finds you. Or you lock eyes on the perfect one without even looking. It could be clandestine.
Or by all means find an unknown artist and commission a painting. You’ll make his or her day. The choice is yours and remember not to get hung up on rules.