Some Unsolicited Advice for the General Art Buying Public

While at the Paradise City - Philadelphia show a couple of weeks ago I came to the conclusion that the general public is in need of some unsolicited advice about buying art. I have noticed that on occasion, people will get hung up on the colors in a work of art and they become concerned about how art will "go" with the colors in the room they envision it -- the rug, the curtains, the couch, etc. I realize that my advice will sound self-serving but, in being as objective as I can be, please believe me when I say:

DON'T WORRY ABOUT MATCHING COLORS OF A WORK OF ART WITH THE "DECOR" OF A ROOM!

Art does not have to "go" with your carpet, curtains, etc, unless you really aren't interested in looking at the art. If you want it to "match" you are creating a situation in which the work of art will just blend into the background and not be seen.

At the show, I, perhaps undiplomatically, mentioned to a neighboring artist, Jorge Caligiuri (an excellent contemporary fresco artist whose work you should check-out) my theory that interior designers sometimes impart these kind of ideas in order to confuse clients and make them dependent on their services, to which he told me that he was an interior designer and that he would never do that, but that he agreed with me on both points. In fact he said it was "crazy" to try and "match" your art with your room's decor. So there you have it, a certifiable interior designer also agrees, if you have any doubts please contact Jorge for his advice and services.

The bottom line is that people just confuse themselves in trying to envision what colors are in a room and whether they "go" with the art they are looking at and make their art buying decisions much harder than they need to be, and lord knows selling art is already hard enough without having to deal with misinformation and confused customers.

In reality, when you look at art, you aren't looking at the rest of the decor in a room. And further, if you are looking at a room as a whole from a distance, a work of art that doesn't match the rest of a room will stand out and be seen. Do you really want to buy art that you will never see or appreciate?

So when buying art, buy what you like, not what matches your decor. Just thought I needed to clarify this point. Hope it helps. Please let me know your thoughts and experiences on the subject.

Work in Progress

I have started painting the new work and polishing some of the work that I started a couple of months ago. I'm pretty happy with how the fault piece (below) is coming along although I'm probably going to tone down the colors a little more as I polish it (adding some brown tones).


And I really like how the circle pieces are looking. I'm going to keep the circle sections clear on both of them.

With this striped piece I'm experimenting with two black stripes. Not sure about it yet. There is a fine line between making it identifiably black and completely covering the grain. I want the viewer to still see the curls and grain pattern. It might work, not sure yet.

And I've painted the hole piece (cut from the one above) as I said earlier, with a gradation of color. I think it is coming along but could be darker red in the middle and a little more orange gradation needed. The figure in this wood is just spectacular.
I was struggling with this piece until I decided to add a red rectangle. I like it now.

And I like how these two "Mondrian-esque" pieces are evolving. I like the balance of beautiful with hideous colors. I'm finding that a good level of hideousness is good for a painting. A hideous color isn't really hideous next to a beautiful color, and a beautiful color becomes more interesting next to a hideous one. Together they are definitely better than on their own.

And even if people do mention Mondrian too much when seeing these pieces, at least they have different colors than he used and they include interesting grain patterns/coloration.


But these two I'm still struggling with. This small one has an imbalance of hideous colors but I'm not sure how to make it better yet.

And this one just isn't very interesting yet. There might just be too much color in both of them. I would consider adding a couple of black rectangles, but there are already a lot of black in them. I might remove color from some sections. Not sure yet.