Bang on a budget
Bang on a Budget
As a student and then a young wife, then mother of three there was rarely leftover money for original works of art – aside from those I was gifted by my grandmother.
Bills must be paid, after all. But in those early years of collecting, I did find prints and small paintings at yard sales that with a bit of help did elevate my home.
When my husband and I were first married we visited the Art Gallery of Ontario for an exhibit and I found a beautiful print of a Vincent Van Gogh painting – Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-le-Mer, 1888. (It is now on exhibit at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and was valued several years ago at $5 to $7 million.) A lone sailboat is tossed about in the Mediterranean’s blue and green sea.
Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-le-Mer, 1888.
It didn’t matter to me that it was a print. I got it framed as a Christmas gift to us that year. It was large enough to position over our chesterfield in the living room and remained the focal point there for a few years.
Another time my cousin Sarah gave me a big gorgeous Canadian Opera Company poster framed in matching burgundy (it was the ‘80s). That followed me from house to house to house, usually gracing my washroom next to the shower for inspiration for singing.
I then went through a phase of taking pictures from calendars I was given (my other cousin gave me a calendar for Christmas one year of pre-Raphaelite paintings) which I in turn framed in antique frames.
Those experiences of using prints, calendars and so on helped me understand what I liked, and what I didn’t like so that when I did have a bit more money to spend on original pieces, I knew exactly where it would go in the house and if it cost a bit more, I had to weigh if it was a keeper or would move on to the next yard sale.
It also spread to an appreciation and understanding of other art – pottery, photography, sculpture and so on. After picking up the Van Gogh print, I read about Van Gogh and other masters which led to more reading and more visits to art galleries and museums – usually on free admission days. Then I started heading out on local studio tours and seeing the myriad of incredibly talented people in our own neck of the woods.
There is in fact a great deal of very accessibly priced art – whether original work by local artists or prints by masters.
The point of this blog, and in fact of this site, is to open up our idea of art. It doesn’t have to be worth a ton of money to make your home your home. My goal is to go hunting for pieces of art and discover a new artist, an art form or an artistic exploration of colour and shape in everyday objects (hello carnival glass and porcelain) and turn it over to you to take a look at. Enjoy.
