Artful Surroundings II

In my last post (Artful Surroundings), I was about halfway through my quest to find art for my home.

I had collected a number of web sites for me to browse through which took time. After I had finished, I had to make a decision on where I was willing to commit the most money because art can be costly. Many of the sites were looking for bids, which wasn’t for me. I am comfortable with the decision to pay for art (of any medium) if there is some personal contact to be made with the artist. All of this is bound by finances, of course. There were a number of artists whose art I would have loved to buy but they were just too expensive, including some that I’d been admiring for some time.

There was one photographer whose work I’d seen before in an article on the BBC several years ago. At the time, I’d noted down his name (David Derueda) thinking that one day I’d be in a situation to get some of his prints. I had some correspondence with him via email and I ended up choosing 2 prints to be framed and sent to me (from Europe).

After this, the rest of my purchasing was of a more generic variety, as I needed to bring the cost down. During my search, I concentrated the most on what would influence my own creativity and/or reflect something about me or just what I like. I found this reflection changing the more art I browsed, at one point wondering if maybe the art was just a reflection of where I wanted to visit in the world (duly noted, need to plan a trip next year). I also found out something about my tastes, after viewing hundreds of prints.

As of now, the majority of the art is at my house and in frames. I’m still waiting on a few more frames/prints to arrive, and I also have one print being custom framed. After all this, there will be the process of finding where the best location in my house is for everything. I think overall, the hunt for the art (including that which I cannot have) was the most fulfilling part of the whole process.