Tuesday, September 18, 2012

art possibilities from the consignment store

Last week I went to the home consignment store to peruse the art selection.  The consignment store is not really a "thrift" store--its more of a used furniture store, and the prices are cheaper than retail but way more expensive than a thrift store.  However, this store gets a huge selection of furniture from model homes in addition to estate sales, so there's usually a large selection of items that are currently trendy and fun.

The art selection is sometimes fabulous, sometimes terrible.


Because much of the art is from model homes they seem to have lots of enormous, oversize paintings of generic, dentist's office type art.  And then sometimes there is this kind of stuff.


As I was perusing the art selection, this jumped out at me.


I love this!  Sadly, it was really expensive.  Supposedly, according to the info on the back, its a Jean Pierre Cassignuel painting named Femme au Chapeau. I have no problem just ordering a print that I like off art.com, but internet research did not turn up this particular painting, and Cassignuel seems to have painted nothing but women in hats, and it appears that every single one of his paintings is named Femme au Chapeau.  Sad, sad.

There was another painting around the way that caught my eye, called Snapdragons.



I love the orange frame and the gold trimmed mat, but again, this art was alot more than I wanted spend, and the frame was in poor condition for the price they were asking.

I would love to put these two paintings over the shoe cubbies in our foyer.  I think I could accomplish something similar by spraypainting an Ikea Ribba frame red, using a gold-trimmed mat, and finding a similar floral print and a print of a lady.

How about this floral?


And this lady?  (I know, she is the antithesis of Cassigneul's lady, but I like her.)


I am in a "lets go buy awesome art!" mood lately, but am trying to control myself. No new art until I buy a house.  Unfortunately there is some fabulous stuff on etsy calling my name.  Help me resist.

What's your favorite art source?  Have any etsy favorites? 

4 comments:

  1. Oh I am doing several days this week on my blog about art. Boston's South End just had an open studios event with about 300 artists. I wanted almost all of it!! I have no more real wall space, but I was visually moving things to find a home for some new Art!! I love the Floral by Laurel Trevey!! xo

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  2. These are great, but you're smart to wait until you get to a new home. I bought some things prematurely and since then I've changed my mind about some of it and am now stuck with it.

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  3. I remember going to a similar model home/consignment place in OC years ago...is it just off the 405 Frwy?

    I really like both the Etsy pieces best -- seems like most of the art in my house is from Etsy! Although just last week, I bought the "Bird of Paradise" print from Cozamia.

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  4. Seems like I have to wait for art to find me. I have probably found my favorite pieces (other than Cane's paintings) in thrift stores--but those are rare finds.

    I do think if you come across such a rare find, you should get it even if you aren't in your next place. If it's a piece you really love, you'll find a place for it.

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