Heart is Where the Home is.
A task of the artist is to find a suitable place or locale for one's finished artwork post-completion (if completion even exists). Art can seem most at home in the artist's studio where it was made. Yet most artists make work with the intention of bringing it somewhere else to dwell, even if it's only for the length of an exhibition. Interestingly, a descriptive word which stops artists dead in their tracks is the word “decorative.” A word can be no greater abhorred by a majority of visual artists. If a critic or peer describes your work as “decorative,” most of the time this adjective is not happily received. Curiously, artists who make work to sell in commercial galleries intend for their work to be bought by collectors, which generally means the work will end up “decorating” a wall. What a paradoxical predicament. Exploring this notion further, I am now led to think of the physical wall in which the art piece is installed. What else will be hanging on tha