Consulting the VURD: Office Art
Jan. 26th, 2007 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
featherynscaleWhen I got this job, the office was "decorated" with little Jesus things, the Footprints thing, "A Special Prayer For The Parents Of Handicapped Children", and similar dreck, which all went away as soon as I moved in. (Well, almost all. Someone had taped a Bible verse to the inside of the desk cubby, which reads "Therefore encourage each other, and build up each other, as indeed you are doing", and which is apparently from the epistle to the Thessalonians. Out of context like that, I think it's fine advice for people of any faith, so it stayed. But the rest of it? Gone!)
And since I moved in, the office has been pretty sparse, except for the flat surfaces, which are covered in paperwork. The walls are a crappy sort of putty color. I had intended to paint over that, but due to a miscommunication about when the carpet was coming in, that didn't happen. It's probably just as well, because the sage green color I had chosen to go on the walls would have been really awful with the navy blue baseboards they put in without telling us about. Of course, they look pretty bad with the putty color, too, but I digress.
The point is, my office needs a little love of the artistic variety. I'd like to buy some prints to hang about. I'm sort of at a sticking point, though, because the sort of thing that I like (which tends to include weapons, nudity, wierd machinery, wierd machinery fused to more-or-less human bodies, monsters, robots, and deities of cultures I don't technically belong to) is not the sort of thing that will go over well at the office. (When you come right down to it anyway, I'm not much for art. The one "piece of art" that I have ever actually owned is a colored pencil and perhaps watercolor of a little red-haired angel with gears and struts in her wings.) And I'd really rather not own the sorts of pictures of cats, flowers, serene seaside scenes, sailboats, and little children kissing that seem to be in vogue in office art.
So, surely, some of you lot are more up on art than my humble self. Can anyone point me to an artist who makes things that are office-acceptable and yet still interesting? Or a site that sells prints of same?
EDIT: I could probably get away with something like this, don't you think?
And since I moved in, the office has been pretty sparse, except for the flat surfaces, which are covered in paperwork. The walls are a crappy sort of putty color. I had intended to paint over that, but due to a miscommunication about when the carpet was coming in, that didn't happen. It's probably just as well, because the sage green color I had chosen to go on the walls would have been really awful with the navy blue baseboards they put in without telling us about. Of course, they look pretty bad with the putty color, too, but I digress.
The point is, my office needs a little love of the artistic variety. I'd like to buy some prints to hang about. I'm sort of at a sticking point, though, because the sort of thing that I like (which tends to include weapons, nudity, wierd machinery, wierd machinery fused to more-or-less human bodies, monsters, robots, and deities of cultures I don't technically belong to) is not the sort of thing that will go over well at the office. (When you come right down to it anyway, I'm not much for art. The one "piece of art" that I have ever actually owned is a colored pencil and perhaps watercolor of a little red-haired angel with gears and struts in her wings.) And I'd really rather not own the sorts of pictures of cats, flowers, serene seaside scenes, sailboats, and little children kissing that seem to be in vogue in office art.
So, surely, some of you lot are more up on art than my humble self. Can anyone point me to an artist who makes things that are office-acceptable and yet still interesting? Or a site that sells prints of same?
EDIT: I could probably get away with something like this, don't you think?
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 06:11 pm (UTC)art
Date: 2007-01-26 06:16 pm (UTC)art.com is the most obvious place to start, but there will be a lot of the "status quo" there. Somebody that you might find interesting and yet is office acceptable is Romare Bearden. African American artist in the 60s did a ton of stuff with collage (edgy collage, story telling collage - not so much mattisse collage)... i will continue to brainstorm... a lot of things in abstract expressionism might float your boat too... not so much pollock but maybe de kooning, etc. colorful and often disturbing if you look really close... which most of your office mates probably won't...anyway... my initial 2 cents...
Re: art
Date: 2007-01-26 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 06:55 pm (UTC)Hmm. I could certainly second the Nene Thomas.
I might also recommend the work of Frank Cadogan Cowper or Herbert Draper or Wiliiam Adolphe-Bouguereau, especially this one, which sort of reminds of a younger version of Star with a very Thelemic look about her.
artmagick is a good reference too.
In all seriousness, I find that Maxfield Parrish's work is inoffensive to many, fun to look at and easily makes the day go by faster.
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Date: 2007-01-26 06:57 pm (UTC)Drat.
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Date: 2007-01-26 07:35 pm (UTC)As much as I am generally blah'ed out by Parrish, his stuff is the right colors to go in the awful office, so he may win. It's better than the blank walls, anyway.
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Date: 2007-01-26 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-27 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 07:53 pm (UTC)Although I have a couple prints by Sue Van Camp hanging on my own wall. I've even got a full-size print of the art from the Hymn to Tourach card from Magic: the Gathering's Fallen Empires expansion set, with a signed copy of the card matted with it, hanging on my own wall.
(This is probably my favorite card art from M:tG, and possibly one of my favorite paintings overall. I loved the Fallen Empires series for the art, even everyone else hated the actual card gameplay from that expansion.)
Sue cruises the furry cons as well as the fantasy cons. I've commissioned her once or twice, but when I said "hamster," she drew "otter," for some reason. I may re-commission her next time, bringing along some reference photos, since an associate of hers who was also a friend of mine said she's very cool about fixing minor misunderstandings like that, so long as I'm willing to commission a new sketch from her. (Artists are often VERY understanding about that sort of thing, when there's an extra twenty or thirty bucks included to soften the blow to the ego, for some reason...)
If'n you're feeling frisky, Diana Harlan Stein does commissions for very reasonable prices. The full print of my main hamster icon that is ALSO hanging on my wall cost me twenty, twenty-five bucks a few years ago.
(Incidentally, I met Diana last year, she still remembered painting my little hamster. Evidently a hamster is not the most common commission for an artist, so it stuck out in her memory.)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-26 08:16 pm (UTC)That reminds me -- I got a transfer of Ursula's "Troll Martinis" the other month, with intent to put it on a shirt. I must find someone with a heat press. (And, you know, a shirt.)
Anyway. I appreciate the suggestions. Both Van Camp and Stein are a little too cute for my tastes, though. I don't run to cute, unless it's horrible monsters (see above re: Troll Martinis). :)
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Date: 2007-01-27 06:25 am (UTC)cats maybe? that's pretty neutral..
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Date: 2007-01-27 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 09:53 pm (UTC)