If you Love it, Buy it (and it’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint)
One of the hardest things to do when we begin collecting art and decorating our houses, is to have patience. Blank walls can be tantalizing at first (so much potential!) but after awhile, they become oppressive.
Yet it’s widely agreed it’s better to build a collection over time, acquiring pieces that have meaning for us as we travel and navigate special moments in our lives. Add too much, too quickly, and you can’t bond sufficiently with each piece; it can wind up feeling like you’re living in a decorator’s catalog rather than a home.
It’s also important to resist the pressure for things to ‘go together’ too much. Most of us are very multifaceted people, and we will respond to a fairly wide variety of artworks. In time, this results in a wonderful diverse collection of pieces that form a composite portrait of who you are.
Original artworks displayed together in a lived-in home environment.
At the beginning, maybe you’ve acquired one new piece for a room. The other empty walls start howling for attention. But everything you look at seems like it will clash with Piece #1.
This is where a lot of people get stuck. It’s important to resist the feeling that Piece #1 and #2 have to work together. They don’t. In time, you will see they work. At the beginning, though, it can be hard to get used to living with rooms that may feel a bit incomplete.
I invite you to practice getting comfortable with that discomfort. Remember, you’re on a journey. The right pieces will come. And most importantly, when they do, if you love it, buy it. Don’t wait on a piece you really like simply because it wasn’t on the list.
Trust the process. Trust that, over time, these early pieces will be joined by #3 and 4 and beyond, and that they all will likely move around the home into different positions and combinations. In time, we’ll see they play just fine with others.
They Choose Us
Another challenging thing that happens is that we go out shopping intentionally for a piece for a specific spot - and find everything but. It’s like that old adage, Man plans and God laughs. We go to the Art Walk ready to find that over-the-mantle focal point piece - and wind up finding something that would be perfect for over the bed in the last room we had planned to shop for.
You’ve heard of the stray cat distribution system? Artwork is the same way sometimes. It finds us, often when we least expect it. Our job is to be open to it, to say yes, to let it choose us.
So when you find a piece you love, whether it’s at the top of your shopping list or not, whether it ‘goes with’ the other pieces you already have or not, be bold. Buy it, and trust that over time, it will find its rightful place in the collection. You won’t regret it. We’re only ever haunted by the ones that got away. (And those haunt us forever, but that’s a subject for another day.)
