Create a glorious gallery in your home
Some people go to the spa for rejuvenation, finding new energy in mud baths and seaweed wraps. I go to home furnishings markets. As I cruise each aisle, checking out what’s new and hot in home interior design, my step gets a little lighter and my outlook a little brighter.
But nothing gets my spirits soaring more than the Big Daddy of them all, the huge home furnishings market in High Point, N.C. High Point is aptly named, because it is always the high point of my year as a retail buyer. It’s at this huge market that you see design trends being born and spot the up-and-coming colors and styles.
Each year, I walk away from High Point with at least one leading-edge look I can’t wait to show off in the display rooms of my stores and in of my own home. This year, I was knocked off my feet by the gorgeous art galleries created by some ingenious designers.
If you’ve got bare walls to fill in your home, try these two gallery treatments I fell in love with at High Point this year.
Grand Grids
This new approach to creating a grid of prints was so simple and stunning, it was brilliant. The designers created a neat and orderly horizontal or vertical grid by combining two different sets of prints, hung alternately. The overall effect was strong and bold, visually exciting, yet balanced and symmetrical.
Here’s how it worked. First the designers selected a set of four vertical botanicals and a set of four horizontal landscapes. The set of botanicals and the set of landscapes were framed exactly the same and measured the same height. To create the horizontal grid, the designers hung two rows of four prints each. The top row consisted of a landscape, a botanical, a landscape and a botanical. The second row was just the opposite. The end result was a massive rectangle of art that would hold its own on any large, blank wall in your home.
The vertical treatment was similar, but consisted of four rows of two prints each, with the landscape and botanical switching positions with each new row until the entire wall was covered in art. For added fun, the designers hung a set of family crests framed in bold, black square frames on either side of the grid, suggesting you could keep adding to your montage of artwork if you wanted to.
Luscious Layers
I was captivated by one gallery in which the designers covered every inch of the wall with two layers of monochromatic artwork featuring works in every size and shape imaginable.
Here’s how the display was set up. The designers pulled together a collection of different sized photographs, pen and ink sketches, botanical engravings and architectural drawings, all of which had a black and white color scheme. Each piece was generously matted in cream and framed in black.
The designers hung the artwork in a tight, linier and balanced grouping, mixing the sizes randomly but ensuring enough of the picture edges were lined up with each other to create a feeling of order and purpose. Then, they inserted nails between a few of the pieces of artwork in order to hang a second layer right on top of the first. The top layer, which consisted of just two pieces of art, covered a few corners of the artwork below, but did not conceal the subject matter.
My heart jumped out of my chest when I saw this amazing treatment. It was provocative and fresh, full of movement and energy. But thanks to the monochromatic palette and consistency of the frame styles, it was also peaceful and harmonious.
I’m all about layering my linens, tabletop tableaus and dishes. But I’ve never tried to layer my art. After seeing this gallery, I can’t wait to grab my hammer and nails and re-create the look in my home.
Mary Carol Garrity is the proprietor of three successful home furnishings stores in Atchison, Kan., and the author of several best-selling books on home decorating. Write to Mary Carol at nellhills(at)mail.lvnworth.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
source: http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/22927
