Your House Or Mine?

I think everyone one needs a piece for there collection that evokes emotional or intellectual contemplation. For decor purpose yes the colors and design needs to suit my personal taste for the comfort of the space I will spend my time

My personal preference is to keep everything in my home neutral. I like oak...so warm neutrals. All my color comes from the art work...on my walls anything goes. My only rules there are I have to love it and never hang anything together that clashes. That said I find most want work that goes with their décor.

Intellectually challenging piece please! :) Our home is eclectic, like the island of misfit toys. There is a cohesiveness to the randomness of everything.

I like that Diana!

Love that! "There is a cohesiveness to the randomness of everything". Diana I fall into that same school of thought, but could have never phrased it that well!

Diana, the cohesiveness happens because YOU have chosen each item..

Thank you Val, Ronald and Marlene.
Exactly Marlene, the real dinger is implementing my husband's sweet little finds into the mix. He's so mindful of my preferences always that I receive his contributions with enthusiasm, especially when they are not something I would bring home but they really scream all him. :)

Ronald: I can tell by your work. :)

I have to love the piece, and want to look at it and share space with it for the foreseeable future; notwithstanding decor harmony and/or intellectual challenge.

Take one of my black and white photos! Black and white fits always! ;-)

I don't paint to match the furniture or drapes . . . I don't buy prints for that reason either. The artwork in my home is as eclectic as my personality.

None of my paintings I have bought, or painted, fit my decor so I painted my walls white

Diana,
Honey and I had complete homes of furniture when we met 14 years ago....combining could have been a nightmare, but we have the SAME sense of style ....it was just adding more of what we love into the mix and dumping a few less loved pieces. All we fight over now is who can adjust a crooked canvas faster....
I've heard of couples breaking up over this!! lol

I keep my decor neutral because it's the art that counts. :)

Marlene,

That is fabulous!
Yes, the struggle can be pretty real. lol

For 40 years we have used neutral colors on walls and our furniture. Must highlight the art, and no not all of it mine.

Hands down..."one that does not go with anything but challenges you intellectually" and emotionally. I've never been a fan of decorative wall hanging. Also, the days of white, beige or neutral painted walls are over...I paint with banana yellow, rusty orange, permanent green light, and chocolate brown walls--paintings and drawings are sparked with life when all coloring opens the volume!

One that goes with the decor - it's a house - not a museum (although I wonder sometimes). It doesn't mean that the work doesn't "evoke emotional or intellectual contemplation", or stimulation - it just needs to fit - and perhaps the problem isn't the art - it's your furnishings and the color of your walls, rugs, etc. are you living in a fake world that's not you?

I do both....my home is my gallery and I sell authentic abstract expressionist work and decorative art...it sells off my walls, which are white and/or black

Ronald, I want the painting that challenges me intellectually.

I would have to say that a lot of art does both. Goes well in one's home and stimulates thought. I don't care a bit if something goes with the home decor but I care a lot about the artwork's quality of communication. For me art must be a form of communication from the artist to the viewer. If the artist is just making a picture to fit in with decor I don't even consider it art. That is why despite the seemingly crazy ideas presented at times' I find it easier to accept conceptual art than just a pretty picture. As I said at the start of this comment I think a lot of art does both and perhaps that is the idea for most people, don't know!

I have in my living room a Lautrec poster, and Escher print, an original "Bedy" oil painting, two large antique photos in ornate oval frames of my great grandmother and my dad and his brother, and an original Saulnier - oh, yeah, and a poster of some adobe buildings by an artists who's name I can't remember now. I love all of them dearly and they are all different. Go with the decor? Well, I don't know about that. I hang what I love.

Even my decor doesn't go with my decor! It doesn't have to . . . I just have to want to live with it.

Same with art.

I'm an eclectic collector of 'art' - most of it purely decorative - some original paintings - even a few of mine hang about (the wife likes them), some by artist friends - perhaps none by 'famous' artists - There are flowers, birds, landscapes, abstracts (one by a girlfriend from way back - my wife still likes it - and s it hangs), whatever catches my fancy - in the 'spare room' where all my oriental art is kept - behind the door is a blue dragon - painted on bamboo strips that were woven together - looks almost like it was painted on gold.

Ron,

Back at age 40 I met a young 20 something young woman locally. We were never involved, but I became
her muse. She was doodling. She was taking clay pots and doodling in oils all over them. She did not like
the term doodle, but here 11 years later, well it was what it was.

She made one circular canvas piece for me that I have over my fire place. A photo of my dad's Steinway is painted
into that circular piece with a candelabra on top. The rim is beveled and painted black. Much of the painting
is bold doodles of raging music in abstracts, often triangles.....

I hated this piece when I first saw it. Then the next morning when it was in my possession I fell for it.

As the muse I asked for murals. She gifted her first one to me. I have it now for some 10 years hanging on
one side of my living room. It is a swan in an abstract blue lake. The name of this painting is "The Ugly Duckling".

I have more of her work. The best piece I have of her work is a jazz band with animal faces and a woman dancing
in the background. There is a super structure to this work of white touches of paint. The hair of the dancer, the touches
on some of the jazz players, the abstracts small touches of white paint that are very organized for that patch of the painting.
Rhythmic.

Unfortunately my friend and I drifted as each of us went through busy periods and she moved 15 miles down the road.

We still see each other and are friends on FB.

She has tried to transition from more abstract work to more figurative work and that has not gone as well. But she has
gone back at times to abstract work that is not doodling and that has succeeded extremely well.

I have asked her to join us, but she likes the hands on with the clients. She just does not see her self marketing her art. Not
in this way at least.

We had a lot of fun for a while there.

Intellectual or emotional? Fits in or stands out? None of the above. I just like what I like. Yes I will give it the old
college review/analysis first, but if I like I like it I hang it.

There is a lot to be said for an artist's good name. Whether that artist is known famously or infamously worldwide
or just down the street.

Dave

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1080218805097&set=t.759693909&type=3&theater

This piece is life sized. A friend of my artist friend is a sculpture. He made a cast of her back. She
painted it. In person it is a masterpiece.

Dave