An Evolving Gallery Wall

The gallery wall in our living room is changing. It’s been evolving over the last few months that we’ve lived here, and it’s finally starting to look more like the inspiration image.

Source: Curbly via Pinterest, of course. In September, a few months after moving in, I wrote about hanging art and starting the gallery wall. At that time, the living room wall looked like this:

It was pretty skimpy to say the least. But now that we’ve seen the Before, I can show you the After and tell you more about the details! Here’s how our art wall looks now!

Now that’s more like it. I love the way it’s really a statement in the room now. I liked the mix of frame shapes and sizes. That’s what’s so awesome about a gallery wall is you don’t have to have everything match, and you don’t have to measure and hang precisely. In fact, I think it looks better if it’s more organic! Let’s break down the anatomy of this wall, i.e. what’s the art and where did it come from.

This is one of my new favorites. I found it at a church garage sale about two weeks ago for $4. The entire “painting” is stitched with yarn. I love the texture. I didn’t love the dreary brown mat, so I just carefully removed the picture, spray-painted the mat and put it all back together. Boom. Love.

Clockwise, from the top, starting with our yarn painted friend, we also have: (1) my favorite square “instagram” style picture of Jaye and I (in shadow form!); (2) the blank black canvas is waiting for a similar square photo to be found/taken, printed, and glued to canvas; (3) I just took an empty frame from Goodwill, painted it orange and hung it around the thermostat control. Now it’s art, not an eyesore! (4) a little iron monkey hangs from a nail. I bought the monkey at the Canton flea market when I went with my mom last month; (5) Phil’s maternal grandparents, Mick and Doris. They’ve both passed away, but they are pretty much our role models.

Again, clockwise from the picture in the very top left corner: (1) the top left corner is a map of the Mississippi River. The map was a decoration at Jaye’s first birthday party, which had a Mississippi River party theme. After the party, I put the map in an Ikea frame and love that it’s connected both to memories of the party and Jaye’s middle name!; (2) the little brown-framed landscape came from the Salvation Army last week. It’s a painting of the Cotopaxi volcano in the Andes Mountains; on the back it says “Cotopaxi (still active)”; (3) the big picture of Jaye with her arms up is from a recent photo shoot at the Picture People. It’s her “touchdown” pose, and I love it. The picture itself is printed on metal which makes it cool and modern; I used a Groupon to get it from Image on Metal; (4) the little wooden carving next to Jaye’s picture was also from Canton. It’s dated April 7, 1942 and looks like it was maybe carved/burned by a kid or teenager; (5) the drawing with the green mat is of Nafplio, Greece. Phil and I got it when I was studying in Greece during college, and he came to visit for a week. We love collecting art to remind us of our travels; (6) the orange quote is one of my favorite prints ever. Jaye has a little version on her nursery gallery wall. It was from Studio Mela, a local Minneapolis artist (well, it was local when I bought it…).

Continuing on: (1) this awesome gazelle (antelope?) head I bought at Canton. I love adding a 3D dimension to an art wall every now and then. I love the wooden tone in the mix as well; (2) the small picture at the bottom is a sweet picture of Phil as a newborn being held by his mother, who has the happiest look on her face. She passed away suddenly last August, so I wanted to make sure we remember her in a happy way in our home; (3) at the bottom of this image, you can see part of another painting we bought on our travels. This one is from our awesome week in Cozumel, Mexico. (4) Finally, the masterpiece on the top left was painted by non other than yours truly. That’s why it’s mostly hiding in this picture and mostly hiding in the room behind the lamp. It’s from the first Texas Blogger event I ever attended.

On to the bottom half of the wall, from left to right: (1) a watercolor of a tango dance from our honeymoon in Argentina; (2) a print of a sculpture at the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis with the skyline in the background, done by a college friend; (3) one of my favorite pieces of art ever, a painting from the island of Solentiname in Nicaragua, bought (of course) during a trip Phil and I went on there; (4) the photo strips are from a friend’s wedding, when Jaye was just a few days old, one side has Phil, Jaye, me and the other has all of use plus our friends Chris and Laura. In that one, we’re mimicking Jaye’s crying face; (5) the next painting is of people picking coffee, I got it while on a trip to Guatemala with two friends in college; (6) this modern and whimsical pastoral scene is from a thrift shop. I bought it about a week ago and also painted the mat, which used to be pink and green. Jaye likes it; she noticed it one day and said, “Moo.”

Okay, there are a few more in that bottom left corner: (1) Jaye’s fingerpainted canvas art; (2) a newborn picture of Jaye in our arms; (3) a family photo from when Jaye was 3 months old. Whew. That post ended up being a doozy–way longer than I expected. But I think it will be fun to look back on, and hopefully it was at least vaguely interesting for you to read skim.

Linking up with Young House Love’s Spring Pinterest Challenge!