Make your own kind of music

What’s a redecorating project without art? The only bad thing about working with  me is that I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to art. I like it to be custom. I don’t want someone to walk in my house and say, “Oh, I have that same print!” or “Oh, you got that at IKEA!”

So, when Anil and I were at World Market last week and we found some really cool canvas prints for sale, I told him he was not allowed to buy those but what we could do is make him prints with the same look but something custom.  

One of the prints said something like “Times Square, 42nd Street” on it. So I made him a print in the same vein that looks like this:

That was his address growing up. No one else will have that address on the wall, yet it gives such an urban feel that it works. He’s lucky he grew up on Long Island. I think if I made one that said “Fort Mill, South Carolina” I’m not sure it was have quite the same feel!

I also made him this one. If you’re a Mets fan, you get it:

The other print at World Market that he liked had a martini on it, and a recipe for a cosmo, among other drinking-related things. We discussed how cool that would look over his new bar (which we hadn’t even bought yet.) But of course, why have a recipe for cosmos when he doesn’t drink cosmos? Why not make it bar-related items that Anil himself actually enjoys? So, I made this for him (and let me say just for a moment how utterly stupid it was for me to take on that canvas amid everything else I was doing. You don’t know what a sigh of relief it was to get that done! It took hours every day of work for this one.)

So, there you have it! Custom art. The prints will be mounted on 1.5-inch canvas stretchers (which we will do ourselves to save money, gulp) and I plan to take a little paint and play with the address one (we just ordered Deer Park; will order Citi Field later – again, to save a little money) and try to create some brush strokes with it.

So, there you have it! Art, custom-style.