How to Choose Art

I get asked about how to find art a lot and it’s such a tricky & personal question! My art style has definitely evolved over time—I’m starting to move away from graphic art and am now more drawn more to drawings & prints, photography and vintage pieces. Our pieces have been collected over time from our travels & through artists whose work we admire. My biggest advice is to not rush it! Take your time and only purchase things you truly love. We have so many pieces (more than we had wall space for in NYC) and I love that so many of them tell a story or bring up a memory.

vintage

I love looking for art in vintage shops, at auctions & on LiveAuctioneers and Etsy. A lot of our vintage pieces are drawings that either myself or my dad has found for us at auctions. I spend far too much time looking on auction sites like LiveAuctioneers and Everything But The House. It definitely takes a lot more effort to find vintage art online—I far prefer being able to look in person. I also come across pieces of art through various home shops I follow on Instagram. A favorite source for vintage art is Counter-Space. They are based in LA and have a really amazing collection of vintage pieces. You can also buy vintage books and tear out pages you love & frame those.

travel

I love to look for unique pieces when we are traveling—it’s so nice to have artwork that reminds you of a special place or memory. I often look for textiles, small prints and vintage art while traveling. Local markets, antique shops or local artisans are the best places to look. I also think outside the box and frame random things from trips. I haven’t framed them yet, but I have a piece of embroidered fabric from our trip to Mexico City and a cool receipt from a meal in France.

ARTISTS

I find a lot of art through artists that I follow. Some of my favorites are: Caitlin McGauley, Wayne Pate, The Cartorialist, Mary Matson and Hugo Guinness (dreaming of owning one of his pieces!). We recently had a photo from our honeymoon painted by Alexandra Catherine—I love her watercolor work and she accepts commissions too! I love to browse on Tappan Collective and Uprise Art to find new artists and I also find pieces randomly through Pinterest and home tours.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I follow a lot of amazing photographers and many of them sell prints of their work. Some of my favorites are: Lucy Laucht, David Kitz, Max Wanger (we have one of his large ocean prints) and Carley Rudd. Also, if you see a photo on their instagram that you love but it isn’t in their print shop, reach out and ask! Most photographers will do custom prints for you.

CREATE YOUR OWN

I’m a big fan of creating your own artwork! We have a few pieces that are actually just magazine pages and postcards that I framed myself. I also save a TON of paper goods & ephemera from all over the place and will pop them into frames. For example, I’ve been saving pens from some favorite NYC restaurants to eventually frame. Get creative!

TEXTILES

I loooove textiles—I took floor loom weaving in college and became obsessed with the medium. I love to look for interesting pieces of fabric to frame or wall hangings. Right now we don’t have any hung in our NYC apartment, but I’m planning on framing a weaving I completed last fall at Textile Arts Center.

FRAMING

When it comes to framing, I love the look of vintage frames (read more on the topic in this post) or I’ll buy new frames from Framebridge or Simply Framed. And my favorite place to get photo prints made is Artifact Uprising—their quality is so nice!