I bought these two paintings for a client recently. I’m not going to tell you where; I have to have some proprietary fishing holes! But I have no idea who painted them or where they originally hung. Guess what? It doesn’t matter.

We had been talking about art, and what constitutes art, and what he prefers. The consensus between the two of us was that art made by a non-famous human hand is infinitely preferable to a print or poster of a painting done by a famous person. Why buy a Monet poster when you can buy a real painting made by a working artist?

Well, it got me thinking about starting painting again, of course, and those of you who follow me on instagram know about all that. But it also got me thinking about the art around my house, where it came from, what it is, and what it means to me. So let’s take a little tour and we’ll talk about it.

Art-wise, I mostly buy paintings. I am not doing it for investment value or prestige value. I think the most I’ve ever paid for a painting is $3500, and most of my pieces cost way less than that. I pick up paintings here and there at antique stores and flea markets, like the one above of a carousel, which I bought at Brimfield last year. And I bought this one at Brimfield the previous year.

And we also know that I am a bit of a nut about vegetable gardening, so I do end up with a lot of veggie paintings. Here are two I got from different antique dealers. One is from the 19th century, and the other is from the 1990s. Antique, right? Ha.

Most of them are by people I don’t know or have never heard of. Every now and then, I’ll find someone’s obituary or ArtNet listing, but often, I can’t read the signature.

As you may or may not know, I love tiny paintings. I have this little cluster of tiny paintings on the wall of my stairs, and most of them are originals rather than prints (with the exception of the three tiny 19^th-century prints of Venice, which I bought at Goodwill). For example, I got the pencil drawing of the horses from a print dealer about a million years ago. It’s by the cartoonist who did the original themes for The New Yorker magazine. See the style? Seems obvious once you know it.

These guys are an old form of calligraphy, called Spencerian Penmanship. The smaller one on the left is a calling card, which must have been a lot of work. I hope they didn’t go on too many visits.

Pen and ink was a big thing with young girls in the 19^th century. I love the idea of a little British girl dreaming of the tropics while painting this little parrot during a cold drafty winter.

I also buy art from my friends who are artists, and I’m shamelessly promoting them here. (Tag yourself in the comments on the Instagram post if you want to.)

This one I bought from my friend Edy Pickens, way back in 2001.

These two I bought from my friend Maremi Andreozzi, I think around the same time. 2002? Most of her paintings now are much bigger, and much more complex, but I like these, too.

This one came from Peter Waddell, the artist-in-residence at Tudor Place, where I worked in 2017. It’s of one of the house’s doorways. I love an architectural watercolor (surprise!).

I got this little guy from another Tudor Place friend, Kelli Cox, who is also a fellow horticulturist.

These two are by my friend Christine Lyons, and they are huge, and I get a lot of compliments on them. People love huge art. I do too.

This one is of me (!!) and my friend and fellow designer, Chantal Lamberto, painted it. She works mostly from old photographs and took this one on my birthday a couple of years ago, at the beach.

My mom did these two watercolors of barns, and I did the one of the violets way back in college. It hangs kind of high up over a doorway, which is why the angle is so bad.

But the rest of them are by artists I’ve never heard of, for the most part, and that’s fine by me. Here’s a quick primer on types of paintings:

This is a gouache, which is basically like a buildable gluey watercolor. Mid-20^th century. I got this one at Brimfield, too. (Sorry about the glare; these ones under glass were hard to photograph!)

This is a pastel. I think it’s of the Rockies, or Sierras, or someplace in the West. I bought it in California, at the Alameda flea market. It’s from about 1910.

These came from the Alameda flea market as well, and while they look like prints (prints like these are everywhere, for sure), these are the original watercolors from which the prints were made. You will get the hang of recognizing pixels vs. brushstrokes almost immediately. If you have to, get out your magnifying glass. No honest art dealer is going to be offended.

Some prints are artist prints—as in that’s all they do—make prints from painting a panel and pressing it. These two are original prints. You can tell because there is a number in the bottom left corner: 25/100, etc., meaning this was the 25^th printing of a series of 100.

And then there are watercolors. I got this large one at the flea market too. You can see that there are some bleeding errors but it doesn’t bother me at all. Errors show the human hand, right?

I can’t keep all the art I buy. This Victorian floral is probably going to go up on my Chairish store soon. I just don’t have a spot for it. And I have some other things kicking around my storage unit. So if you get the itch, go take a look, not just at mine; there are artists posting their own work on Chairish as well.

Anyway, the point is, there is so much art out there. Even if you don’t know who the artist is, it’s nice to see the human touch behind the work—and it’s called work for a reason—you hang in your home.

Art is so personal and I do think that while there are some rules and norms and means, just buy what you like. I love supporting artists I know, and I also love how inexpensive unknown artists’ work is. It’s like a treasure hunt at antique stores; don’t forget to look up at the walls! Happy hunting!