art in your home

[puppydavies]

does anyone buy art? commission paintings? collect sculpture? i'm curious who - if anyone - buys art for their home, and what draws them to choose what they do.

i just ordered some photographic prints from an online contact i've long admired. i have very little money and even less space so it's not something i do often but sometimes i can't help myself. you can pick up prints (photographic or screen) for just a few £ from someone just starting out and i like the idea that i'm giving more than just verbal appreciation and support for people's work.

tell me what's on your walls (or plinths ) and how it came to be there.

good luck nightynight..... Do send me a photo and I'll find out what I can about it.

I\be just thought we have a weird driftwood seagull we bought from a gallery in Sennen Cove as well.

i just love 'things'
It is a costly love but every year we will buy a couple of bits particularly when on holiday
i love art and my favourite thing is an oil by a Cornish artist
i love modern 'giddy' stuff
silly people - colours fabrics - things that make me smile
i love arty things ...
i went to an art restoreres workshop last week - had to get a piece repaired- and i was in awe

We - or rather dh, as it isn't me, I do books - have a good deal - ds & I were having a chat about dh today & we decided together that "the only thing daddy takes seriously is art galleries".

We have various prints from various series - eg the fund-raising one from the Scottish Paintings in Hospitals charity. And loads of others, varying between the effulgently lovely (a dusk landscape of St Just in Cornwall with a whole story it it - you can just make out the tracks of the tractor on its way home across the field) to the, er, not quite sure what's that's about (an orange collage that looks like one of those messageboards with criss-crossed elastic to hold your stuff - apparently that's by an important mid-20th c. female conceptual artist). Some are family things, some are fruit of dh's pottering about on ebay.

The children each have an Elisabeth Frink in their bedrooms - an owl for ds and a hawky thing (harrier?) for dd.

I remember very clearly as I was growing up the family in the street which Had Art On Their Walls, and I was jealous. It's sort of nice to have children who recognise not just Picassos and Mondrians, but Yves Klein & Donald Judd too.

We have more artwork than wallspace in our house. DH and I love photography (but he's the big collector, not me), and he buys paintings and sculpture.

The photography we have ranges from original vintage prints from known past masters (eg, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Man Ray, Cartier-Bresson) to absolutely unknown contemporary photographers. DH likes sculpture (I'm indifferent), and he has several by Boucher (a contemporary of Rodin, and Camille Claudel's teacher).

We started collecting stuff over ten years, and have been shocked by the astronomical increase in value of photography. In fact, the photography portfolio has done better than our stocks!

Bink - I love it that your children have an Elizabeth Frink each !!

lol mg @ "the photography portfolio has done better than our stocks" - i think that's the kind of talk that scares people off tbh. art as an investment makes people nervous (not suggesting that you don't buy primarily for aesthetic reasons) it just sounds intimidating and risky.

am curious whether i might have heard of any of your "absolutely unkown contemporary photographers"?

On walls - generally paintings. We've collected them over the years from various places, frequently going without stuff most normal people have in order to "invest" in another painting. I say invest in the loosest possible sense of the word.

There is a pretty horrible print in the spare bedroom - but it's only there on sufference and because it sort of matches the colour scheme.

The idea I am toying with is a portrait of my children. There is a portrait painter I've been loosely following for years without actually buying anything, and I think he'd be perfect ....

Except I was wondering whether I really should sell a kidney to have it done

What if I don't like the end result?

If it was me, I'd get out my paints and alter it!

how many children have you got, and will they have to take scissors to it when they come to inherit one day?

Well I can't paint. Got two children. Never thought about the longer term consequences ... Oh it sounds a bit difficult, doesn't it?

Get one done now, and another in 10 years time?

I must admit, I would love a painting of my children. might get round to painting my grandchildren. That would be cool, wouldnt it.

I would pay someone to paint my 3.

answering to the op...

Although I went to art school, I have always being a bit reluctanct to spend loads of money in these things (probably because the other thing that I learned from art school was that starving to afford your dreams may cause some health damages .

Anyways, there are several things hanging on my walls but not a lot of them (I'm anti decluttering fan). I have a litograph by Anita Klein, a couple of contemporary paintings by an art student from Bali ( my favourites), 4 big paintings I did long time ago, an intaglio by best friend at uni, several photographs of the family (Venture and mine) and a huge painting my MIL did (the most expensive of them all, probably £2000 during the exhibition, hanging above my toilet and patiently waiting for soon to be ex husband to take it to his new home).

Oh, and I have a persiam miniature that is quite rare as very sexual in nature (removed from the walls until DS is older)

puppydavies: I agree with you. We started collecting photography when we sere students, and it was so affordable. It actually upsets us that some names which were affordable are no longer so. HOWEVER, it just means that photography collecting has become much more of a treasure hunt for us. Finding great pieces cheaply (can still do this by trawling the small, local photo fairs), and discovering new photographers...even vitage prints, which are stunning, just not the established names.

What the increase in value has done is just boost my confidence in my eye. We do buy just what we like, some of it from stalls on the street, some from the big auction houses. To discover that a piece I liked years ago "just because" had enough artistic value that others think that it has value just makes me trust my instinct more.

quest for our day

cover one wall
with my prints
ds abstract paintings well he is three
and convince dd to get up to join in with us

it is so cold here and snowing so maybe it will brighten up the house

at you divorcing from MIL's painting, MMSAI

I am surprised at the rise in price of photography! I have never been able to get worked up about it, and own very few photos. I guess it is the uniqueness that is missing, although I can appreciate the quality of photos like MoM's.

where are you Alice, it was snowing here yesterday (bavaria), but has all melted now.

near vienna

ah, so not far away then. Cold, isnt it!

very and very dark

im going to remove the few dreary pictures we do have on the wall and try and brighten the room

In answer to the OP:

we have an old watercolour that used to belong to my grandparents

a watercolour by a friend of ours ( a gift when DS was born)

a small etching that I saw at a car boot sale and bought (framed) for £1

and... my favourite ....a long narrow, framed collection of 7 prints, etchings, photos and paintings of trees by one artist. We bought it from a gallery in Cirencester when we went away for my birthday earlier this year. It was expensive but it was one of those rare " I have GOT to have it" moments.

there are also (stashed away somewhere , waiting for a suitable space) some of my photos from my student days

oh gosh - "I have GOT to have it" I have too many of those. The last one cost me 110 euros

but it is an early 19th century view of an Alpine village and is completely gorgeous.