You are unique. There is only one of you and there will never be anyone else like you. Why dilute your uniqueness by hanging mass produced art on your walls? In this day and age everyone tries to be special, but in the same way. We all want flat screen TV’s and smart phones. Here in Sweden many of us buy our furniture and even our art at IKEA. You don’t have to strive towards being unique to be annoyed when someone you visit have the same painting in their home as you do.

[quote]Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
Oscar Wilde[/quote]

When I was younger there simply wasn’t a budget for real art. I could hang anything on my wall just to fill the space. I guess I could even have kept the white walls as they were, but it wouldn’t quite have been my own place then. Later on I moved up to expensive framed mass produced art. We’re talking 100USD, it was an arm and a leg for a poster behind glass I thought. Of course I liked the motives that I selected (there were many similar ones to choose from) but there was no story behind it, I didn’t know anything about the artist and didn’t have any personal attachments to it, it was cheap, looked cheap up close, mass produced and worst of all – I knew about all this. Why did I buy it then? Obviously not for me. Maybe to fill a space with something slightly better than a poster so that others could see that I had something that at least remotely resembled art in my home. Perhaps it was just the color that I needed at the time.

These days my walls are filled with things that mean something to me, that can tell a story. It doesn’t have to be expensive. In my living room for example I have three black and white framed photographs. Two of those were taken by my father. He developed them in the dark room by hand 20 or so years ago. Due to the quality of that process they will last for the rest of my life. People often ask about them and I actually have a story to tell about each one of those photographs. I also like the fact that I didn’t make them myself. Besides these, I also have the the first “expensive” mass produced painting that me and my wife bought together. No one has ever asked anything about that…

I believe everyone can and should make their home personal. I won’t happen with mass produced art. People will somehow pick up on that and you will know this too. Get something special and your home will feel more sincere.