No doubt wealthy people hire interior decorators to decide which wall hangings and paintings should be on the walls of the rooms in their homes.
If you can afford it, I suppose that’s an easy way out of indecisiveness, but it would not be very satisfying for me.
I suspect that each era has its own special trends in decorating, and so history has something to do with decorative art, since many people follow trends.
My Wendish grandparents decorated the walls of their living room and bedrooms with framed photographs of family members. Being surrounded by photos of family, from great grandparents to great grandchildren , enabled them to “live” with their family whose photo-presence was uplifting.
Throughout the house, the only hanging art was a framed print of Jesus praying in the Garden.
The walls of my parents’ home were more sparsely decorated. A few framed photographs of family members were mounted on the walls of the living room. The only other framed decor was a piece of my mother’s crocheted work, mounted and framed.
There were little or no decorative hangings in their bedroom except for almanac-type of calendars with dates given for good planting and good fishing.
My parents were very utilitarian. My bedroom walls, on the other hand, were covered with cartoons and sketches.
My wife and I have always decorated our home with what would give us visual pleasure as well as comfort. Quite some time ago we repainted our three bedrooms.
Our two daughters, being grown and having their own homes, were not interested in telling us how to decorate the walls of their childhood bedrooms.
So, not too long after the rooms were repainted, we decorated the walls with meaningful pictures and art.
I was very pleased with the results. I can’t imagine hiring someone else to decide what I should see on my walls.
But we stalled out with our own bedroom, postponing again and again the need to convert blank walls into something cheerful, restful, and meaningful to us,
Finally, several weeks ago, we decided to do something besides just letting the moonlight cast shadows on the empty walls at night. We began to plan a new look for our bedroom.
The best way to begin is to decide what you don’t want to do. So we ruled out using any of the vast numbers of art woks from Peggy’s parents and her aunt. Using those would be like sleeping in their bedrooms.
Our bedroom had to be “us.” So my wife suggested putting up paintings and other art works that I, “the family artist,” had created.
At first I was OK with that idea, but then I decided I wanted to see something other than my own stuff (no doubt I would begin to see all the mistakes I made in painting them).
Nope! Cancel that idea!
But we came back to it with a compromise. We would include a few of my small sketches and the large painting I did of my wife when I first met her.
Today, people look at that painting and think it is a recent painting of my granddaughter Lauren. It was a must include!
The other objects of art we have decided to put on the walls include prints of famous paintings we enjoy looking at, some by famous artists and some by little known artists. They include two cats (one by Picasso). A seagull (bursting with memories). A rooster (reminds us of Mama’s rooster, Smarty Pants). A young girl (also by Picasso). Simple. Meaningful. Minimalist. We have confidence these will work to replace the shadows made by the moon.
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.