Stop putting up your weird store-bought art

There’s a very weird tradition in America that has been going on for something like 50 years. People go to chain stores and buy art.

Now, I love art. And I don’t have anything against commercial art. The majority of art is commercial, after all. But it is insane to me that when you walk into a lot of people’s homes you’ll see completely impersonal art pieces. The art might be nice, but there really isn’t anything about it that speaks to who you are. You just saw it at Target and thought it looked cool.

There isn’t anything wrong with that.

But I was looking at one of the pieces my Mother has hanging on her wall. Its nice. Beautiful, even. But what does it really say about her? What does it accomplish? Nothing.

I mentioned in a pervious blog post that I started taking down some of my posters from my walls. These were all commercial art pieces, but they did in fact mean something to me. Even so, I replaced many of them with photographs. Almost all of them are photographs that I took. But more importantly, almost all of them are of people I love.

Photograph of my brother holding his son. 2022

The odds are that everyone reading this has a smartphone. On that smart phone are probably 2000 photos you’ve taken over the last decade. You don’t look at them, even though you thought they were important enough to keep. But you might look at a reprinted painting of a duck you bought at Walmart every day because you thought that was worth hanging on your wall.

Did you know that most smart phones made in the last 3 or 4 years can produce large prints? I have a photo on my wall that I took with my old Pixel 3 XL. I printed at 16 by 20 inches. It looks great.

Amazon photos prints high quality images. You can get an 11x14 for like 8 bucks. You can get the same size frame for as low as 10. That is $18. For 18 dollars, you can have a photo of your kids, your father, your best friend or your dog. That says a lot more about you than that reprinted painting of the beach you put up.

The photographs don’t need to be taken by a professional photographer (though I am available if you want to go that way). The subject is what is important.

Get rid of your weird chachkies and print out some photographs.

And for the record, if you want to buy art, there are plenty of local artists out there putting their blood, sweat and tears into their art. And at least then it won’t be mass-produced and impersonal.