Art Beginners and Life with Art

Decorating flowers, opening an art book, a moment of relaxation

Not long ago, I used to decorate my room with fresh flowers. I received a vase of flowers as a gift, which made me long to become a flower decorator, and I often bought flowers at a nearby flower store and arranged them.

However, ikebana was a time-consuming hobby that required daily cleaning of the vase and changing the water, as well as watering the flowers immediately after purchase, and staining the surroundings with petals and dead parts while they were being displayed.

I just wanted to spend time looking at beautiful things and relaxing, but it would be a real waste of time and effort.
Gradually, I only displayed fresh flowers on rare occasions.

I just couldn't give up the time to relieve myself, so the next thing I did was to get an art book and look at it.
This was a great idea. It is much less work than ikebana, and in my room, I can reach out from the sofa to the bookshelf and make a moment of relaxation relatively quickly.

However, after a while, there were a few things that bothered me, such as the creases and the weight of the book itself.
And above all, it was only a printed book, and I did not feel that I would be able to experience the excitement of seeing "real" art in a museum.

So why not just get the art for yourself?
If it is art, you can hang it on a wall or a shelf and look at it whenever you want. Moreover, you don't have to water it every day or even hold it in your hand.

The fantasy of having art in my usual living space excited me.
And before I knew it, I was on my way to realizing a "life with art.

A space with art makes you want to keep it clean.

First, I thought about where to put beautiful things and where they would be appropriate.
I realized that my room was a mess of books, hobbies, and clothes, and it was not a very suitable place to put art.

So I had no choice but to create a space.
I spent about five hours a day for ten days reducing things and wiping everything clean.
By the way, the only criteria for leaving things behind are "Is it irreplaceable and necessary?" and "Does it deserve something beautiful?

The work went smoothly.
I hadn't even decided whether it was a painting or a sculpture that I wanted to display, but I had no idea that the desire to place something beautiful in my living space would motivate me so much.

Fantasizing about the art I wanted to display
This decluttering was the right decision.
Not only did I get to create a place and space appropriate for art, which was my original goal, but I was also able to define the "direction of my aesthetic sense" of what kind of things I prefer.

There were conditions that I considered beautiful that I was not even aware of.

On the last day, when I had reached a certain goal, I saw a white wall after I had dusted it off. It was the wall of the kitchen, where there had been a desk of unknown use.

Where do you get your art?

After the decluttering, my room was reborn with a fresh look. However, there is something missing.
I compensate for this lack with beautiful things. No, I thought, it is lacking because beautiful things do not exist.

Then, after coming up with the plan to realize a life with art, the question of where to get art, which had been smoldering in the corner of my mind, suddenly became a realistic one.

The first thing that came to mind was to go to a gallery.
The Bunkamura Gallery in Shibuya was more crowded than I had expected, and it was easy to enter, so I inadvertently went there once myself.
At that gallery, A3 size paintings were sold for 100,000-200,000 yen, and I remember thinking, "That's not a price I can't afford.

Perhaps that original experience influenced my awareness of buying art.

However, unlike art museums, galleries are places where the ultimate goal is to purchase art. Moreover, the image of only expensive art makes the threshold high.
Despite my interest, I have never visited a gallery since then.
However, when I searched the Internet using search terms such as "gallery," "art space," and "art gallery," I was able to find several galleries that looked crowded and did not seem to have a high threshold.

If it is difficult to understand the inside of a gallery from its website, searching for the gallery's name on Twitter or instagram is a good way to get a feel for the atmosphere.

You can also check out some of the solo exhibitions on ARTiATE. Please take a look at EXHIBITON.

As I was researching, I realized once again that a gallery is a place where you can come into contact with cutting-edge contemporary art.
The atmosphere of the real thing can only be experienced there. I would like to visit a gallery in the near future.

Where to get art" Online shopping section

Internet shopping is also the main battleground for art sales these days.
Although there is a disadvantage of not being able to see the actual piece, it is a big advantage to be able to choose at your leisure without worrying about being seen.

I search for artworks on my tablet while looking at the white wall, and if I find one that looks good, I enlarge it and hang it on the wall with the tablet to expand my image.

This is a way of selecting art that I can only do from home.

I also viewed the artwork featured on ARTiATE on my tablet.
There are many artworks that are not too large, and they are all easy to image, so I was lost.

Among them, Kana Matsuno's "Fluctuation" was close to my ideal, including the framing. The price is also within our budget.
There are other candidates, so it was not an instant decision, but I think the good thing about Internet shopping is that you can fantasize about "a life with art" in a concrete way.

There are a wide variety of ways to acquire art.

There are other ways to obtain art, such as meeting the artist directly through social networking sites (private exhibitions are similar to this), or ordering made-to-order art instead of existing art.

In any case, "living with art" is not so far away, especially in today's society with the development of the Internet.
We can now choose art just as we can choose nice clothes or furniture.

It has been a month since I confronted the white wall. It is not something I am in a hurry to do, so I am going to find treasures that I want to look at forever at my own pace.