Where is the Art?

We used to commission artists to work for months. They would create beautiful images of us, our family, and precious moments. We would hang them in homes for generations. In the modern world where do we hang our art?

I think that while we still commission artists to paint portraits, photography has replaced that market to a large extent. Humans still want to remember their family as they were when they began, grew, and flourished in all the different ways. We cover our walls and fill our wallets with photographs. We have whole albums with moments as important as your graduation or wedding day and as mundane as baking with your grandmother and your 5th grade science project. This doesn’t really cover all of art though, does it? In our day and age we have photos of ourselves coming out of our ears. We take selfies, our friends take our photo, our mom posts that old photo from middle school to facebook that you hate… Doesn’t that mean we have too many photos than we can handle? Why are we paying people to take even more photos?

I think we still want art. We want something that someone has spent time, skill, and love to create. I love to talk to clients and hear them say, “I didn’t know that we looked like that” or when they apologize for their lack of photogenic-ness and I get to show them just how gorgeous their lives and relationships truly are! A big reason for that is the prolific amount of photos on Pinterest and Instagram that are custom photographed and tailored to those with the means and the time to create those moments for themselves. I love that I get to show people they really can have art of themselves on their walls. They can have photos that could go viral on instagram, VSCO, or Pinterest for how “vibey” and “aesthetic” they are.

The art is alive and well, and we are creating it.