Relax, it’s just art
YOU’LL GET THE HANG OF IT.
There’s a hilarious scene in the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters. Frederick, a brooding artist, tours a customer around his studio to look at oil canvases. Suddenly, there’s a fracas. “You don’t buy paintings to blend in with the sofa!” Frederick blasts at the bewildered, slimeball buyer, before tossing him out.
In Frederick’s estimation, art is the sole purview of the aesthete; meant to be studied and savoured by an elite group. Art, that snobby sport, is to be valued for its emotional connection to the viewer. And, as he notes, an interior decorator has no business meddling with making art choices for you.
In the real world, those are tough rules to follow. Some of us don’t have art degrees, or even know what we like for that matter. But a good guideline is to go with your gut and always — always — support an artist by buying real art.
Toronto- based Ali Budd, a designer with Ali Budd Interiors, is a proponent of incorporating artwork into the spaces she designs. Like Frederick, she highly values creative works, only she’s less stuffy about it.
“People underestimate what a piece of art will do to a space,” Budd says. “It finishes it.”
Which means that, yes, the paint colours, the tiles and the sofa come before any nails sully the walls to prep for a canvas ( sorry, Frederick).
“We usually choose artwork last,” Budd says. “We design the space and then play around with several pieces ( on the wall and the floor) to see what works best and how to frame them.”
Budd stresses the perimeter is as important as the picture. “Framing is key,” she says. “Art never dates, but the frame does.” If that illustration you bought in the ’ 90s is looking tired, head to a local framing shop to “add a crisp white mat and a thin black frame to instantly make it feel fresher and more current.”
Another tip: don’t limit yourself to the size of the artwork. A framer can rework the dinkiest digital. “A great way to make a piece that you love the right size is by tweaking the mat,” Budd says. “Often, we’ ll take a smaller print and double or triple it by using a large mat.”
And please bring that piece down to earth. Artwork that forces you to crane your neck is a rookie move. “People always hang art too high,” Budd says. “The height, typically, is where your eye should be centred on the picture — and they pick the wrong scale.” This gives the effect the piece is floating on a wall and there’s no relationship to the hallway table it’s above, for example.
But Budd’s biggest bugbear is when clients have an irrational fidelity to a painting. “Who cares if it was gifted to you and it’s $ 10,000?” she says, relaying a story about a client who felt guilty that she hated a pricey, handed- down heirloom, but felt forced to live with it. “If you don’t like it, don’t hang it.”
Bored of your artwork? Switch it to a different room to rediscover it, Budd says. We appreciate things less ( and that goes for people, too) when they’re in our faces all of the time.
Still not feeling it? Budd is biased, but she believes an interior designer “can offer a fresh set of eyes if it’s not innate for you to think visually.”
Or you could visit Minted, a San Francisco- based onl i ne design marketplace, and drive a virtual stylist crazy with endless questions (more on that in a minute).
Brimming with modern artwork and stationary by independent artists, as well as home goods from cake plates to curtains, Minted, which was founded in 2007, connects artists worldwide with consumers via a crowds ourcing model. People blind-vote on who gets to sell their wares ( last year, a Torontonian won the competitive Christmas card contest and with it $10,000).
“A typical competition receives 2,000 to 10,000 entries,” says Minted founder and CEO Mariam Naficy. “And then normally we’ll receive like 500,000 to three million votes from consumers to tell us what to sell.”
As for those virtual arts t yl i ng s er vices, Naficy launched them last year. It’s a simple process: people upload a photo of their awkward wall, or room, along with a scope of what they’re after. A Minted member then offers solutions on how to arrange the whole shebang. “There are no limits to the number of rounds a stylist will do with you,” Naficy says. “We’ll just keep going until you’re happy.”
The cost to do a room is $99 while a wall is $79, with no obligation to buy any art.
But let’s be real here, why wouldn’t you? The site is packed, so surf away until you’ve hit a favourite.
“Our community is about 10,000 artists and our products have reached about 70 million homes in terms of where the product has been sent to,” Naficy notes of art ranging from foil- pressed pieces to typography and acrylic paintings.
Naficy has seen several trends, she says. “I’m noticing a lot of oversized blackand- white photos of an animal, but cropped in an interesting way where the subject matter might be off centre.”
This is the case with Staredown, a best- selling photograph of a bull. However, because the site sells limitededition art, the pieces aren’t always available.
Another trend guaranteed to make a bold statement is when you tastefully clog a section of your house with art. “We’ve seen rooms where you’re taking a wall and literally filling it almost completely with art, where the frame hits the edge of the wall on all sides,” says Naficy.
To that end, Minted has been printing massive pieces of art. They sell pieces that are 44- by- 60 i nches, but Naficy wants to bump that up if she can figure out how to keep shipping costs down.
And don’ t even t hink of foregoing the frame. As Naficy and Budd note, it’s an essential finisher for a piece of artwork. “White, soft dove grey, black and bronze frames are really popular,” Naficy says. “And hyper-thin frames as well. People don’t want a thick profile anymore.”
Whichever way you go, real art should always be incorporated into an interior. And, hey, if you’re lucky you might be able to find something to match your sofa.
WE USUALLY CHOOSE ARTWORK LAST. WE DESIGN THE SPACE AND THEN PLAY AROUND WITH SEVERAL PIECES (ON THE WALL AND THE FLOOR) TO SEE WHAT WORKS BEST AND HOW TO FRAME THEM. — ALI BUDD, A DESIGNER WITH ALI BUDD INTERIORS