The Real Estate Company Redfin published an article on their blog this week titled 13 Ways to Refresh Your Home for Summer featuring a bit of advice from yours truly. My advice basically boils down to “buy some more art,” but being asked for a contribution did get me thinking about how much I value my own art collection and how wonderful and rewarding collecting art can be.
Specifically, in the article I suggest that you have enough of an art collection that you can rotate the work that you have up on your walls so that you have the ability to change things up periodically. Putting up a painting that you haven’t seen in a while really can invigorate a space and if it is a piece that you have spent a lot of time with it can feel like coming back to an old friend.
We have a decent amount of artwork up in our house. We could have more. We moved from cosy one bedroom apartment to a bigger house in the exurbs last year just before Tally was born, and have not grown our art collection much in the time since we moved. To be honest we’ve been a bit strapped for cash and the new house came with a bunch of work that needs to be done on it—it needs a new roof, the deck is falling down, kitchen and bathrooms are 40 years old and the cabinets are starting to disintegrate, you get the picture. So I’m not saying that you must buy art in order to like be a good person, but when you do have a bit of spending money, buying art is a great thing to do.
You might be surprised to know that we only have one of my paintings hung up in our house, currently it’s Old Tricks and Big Fun from 2020. There are a couple more on rotation in our own permanent collection, but I actually very much like to collect work by other artists
Old Tricks and Big Fun currently lives in our library / guest bedroom
We’ve got Historical and Systematic Perspectives, a big beautiful painting by L. Nichols up in our living room and another more abstract painting by him in our bedroom. We’ve got a handful of smaller framed paintings by Wendy McWilliams up around the house, and #1, a beautiful red abstract painting by Louise Brooks up above our fireplace.
We’ve also got a pretty good collection of smaller pieces that are in storage, ready to be deployed when we need to change things up. With very few exceptions these are all pieces of art that we paid for with real money and at or near the asking price. I’ll share a little hint here, this deep in the post: if you ask for a discount on the price of an artwork you will almost always get it. Most artists, myself included, will always want to help a collector acquire a new work, and if it’s a slight price reduction that is going to make the difference between being able to buy the work and not that’s usually a hit we are willing to take. However, I’ve only asked for discounts when I really really loved the work and just didn’t have the ability to pay the full price. If you are able, you should happily pay full price. Not only will it help the artist but you’ll feel better about it too, and if you do care about buying art as an investment, the amount you pay for it is the base price of that artwork. Paying the full amount will also help the artist build a stronger sales record which will allow them to command higher prices in the future, which will effectively increase the value of the work you have purchased.
I understand that it can be intimidating to buy a piece of artwork and then doubly so to put it up in your house where people will see it. It makes a statement, and that statement is, I like this art. It can feel like picking out a bottle of wine at the store for a dinner party when you don't know a thing about wine. Luckily, the solution to this problem is actually pretty simple and fun: go look at a lot of art. Go to galleries. Look at artist websites. Go to museums! The more you see, the better you’ll understand what you like. Then just bite the bullet and buy something! You don’t have any obligation to keep it up on your wall forever! You can take it down and put something new up at any time!
I’d love to hear about what you all think about collecting art and displaying it in your homes and workplaces. How do you like to find new art? Do you put a painting on a wall and leave it there forever or do you like to switch things up now and then? Let me know in the comments below!