I like having art on my walls. I’m just really bad at picking art that I can commit to.
In every house or apartment I’ve occupied, there has been at least one, big, glaringly empty wall that I would always glance at and think, “I should put something there.” My eyes would fill with the sparkle of possibility, and I’d think of some great ideas: maybe a piece by a local painter, maybe a childhood photo blown up to the point of abstraction, maybe an art project involving resin.
And then I’d stop thinking about it. Until the next time.
In my present house, things are made a bit more complicated by the conflicting aesthetic preferences between me and my wife; she leans towards the abstract, I lean towards the representational. (Side note: I have always been surprised by my reluctance to put abstract art on my walls, since I generally like the style. I think it traces back to the 6-foot-by-4-foot map of Canada that was on my bedroom wall as a kid. Maps are, obviously, about as representational as you can get.)
But as this summer winds down, my wife and I are solving the problem of our big blank wall with the art solution that has taken my demographic by storm: the gallery wall.
It’s the cure-all for anyone who can’t decide on any single piece of art. There’s room for everything, and you can swap things out if any one piece starts to fall out of favour. In this age of playlists and Pinterest, a gallery wall is like a real-life Instagram feed of things that are important to you.
As of this writing, our gallery wall is still in progress, but when finished it will include (among other things) photos of our kids, art by Tycho, a plant, our daughter’s first watercolour, and a pineapple cross-stitched by my wife.
And, if I can decide on one, we might pick up a piece of art by Mtendere Mandowa, who makes music under the name Teebs.
In 2014, he put together a visual art collection called “Ante Vos,” which he describes as, “a collection of 400 remarqued record sleeve paintings and drawings made between the years 2012 – 2014. Each sleeve was found as trash or throw away and re-purposed.”
The original LP art is sometimes visible, but mostly obscured by paint, or images of flowers, or abstract designs. Browsing the hundreds of covers is a bit like wandering through a disused factory, where plants have started to sprout up from the floor and birds have started nesting in the rafters.
His music has a collage feel to it as well. This track is from his 2011 album, “Collections 01,” and if I could hang it on my wall, I would.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The lo-fi production, like an old, worn canvas.
2. The glittering harp, like flecks of paint.
3. The syncopated rim hits in the percussion, a small but strong hook upon which the whole piece hangs.
Recommended listening activity:
Shopping for picture frames.