WHAT'S ON OUR WALLS

When I go to someone's home for the first time, I love looking at what they've chosen to hang on the walls. I wanna know why they chose that, where it came from, what's the story. Our little apartment doesn't have so much wall space, but we've figured out how to cover our walls well enough. So the glittery magenta skeleton from above came to us via a Halloween package from my mom. We immediately hung it up and will immediately never take it down. Here's what else is on our walls:

I always loved this watercolor painting done by my grandfather on my dad's side. I love the simple geometry and colors, and I always love a good use of the primary colors. I also really liked that it feels so isolated and in the middle of nothing. It wasn't my mom's favorite though, so she happily let me take it here with me to decorate our walls.

This is actually a tote bag from the Wellcome Collection  in London. I picked it up when my dad and I visited about three years ago. It was one of my favorite places we went there (so much to see that you would never expect), and I loved the art on this bag. It easily fit into the frame with no cutting, and now I can look at it easily. You can make art out of anything.

The next three pictures are all from my first and second year of college, when I took printmaking classes. This first one is hands down my favorite though. I've always loved celebrity mugshots, and Johnny Cash's might be my favorite. The process is called monotyping. It involves putting a layer of ink onto plexiglass, taking away the ink you don't want, then layering ink from plexiglass onto your paper. This was one of the first ones I did, and for someone the pink just called to me.

This picture was made with etching metal plates, then making a print from those. I definitely got to experiment with different textures and materials for this one.  The little pink guy trying to get home is colored with tissue paper. And the rock under the house was textured by crumpled paper. I miss doing all this!

I used this etching as my final for the last printmaking class I took. We were supposed to do three different layers - one is the paper circle and texture in the background, another is the bird, flower, and bee, the third is the banner at the bottom in turquoise. My favorite part about etchings is the indention around the edges of the picture, where the plate pressed into the paper.

I love having things around me that remind me of travel, of other places in the world. I've had this poster of a Paris metro stop since I was in high school. Same goes for this reprint of a vintage New York transit guide. It's nice to look back at a time when I hadn't been anywhere, and all I had were these pictures to look at.

And the last thing I wanted to share from our walls is this. Before we went to Venice last year, it was one of the places I dreamed of going to most. I read this book called The Thief Lord when I was in middle school, and fell in love with the idea of the city. The main character wore a mask like this, like the old plague doctors. When we visited, I had my heart set on finding a little mask just like his. The last day, I wandered into a mask shop, and they had a perfect little version. It felt like magic. Now he lives on our walls and looks over me.

 What's on your walls?