Things you can use to Decorate your Walls!

"Symphony in Red" by Catherine Kleeman

From Home and Garden, Home Decor:

A painting or print isn't the only thing you can use to decorate your walls. The next time you try to fill some wall space, consider a few of these ideas to help ...

Rugs: Some rugs can be amazing works of art. Look for longer pile rugs without bound edges. You can even hook your own rug -- there a hundreds of patterns available and you can pick your own colors. Either way, don't overlook a rug as a potential focal point in your room.

Quilts: aren't only for keeping us warm at night. Quilts can also be amazing works of art and they can also be a good investment.

Mounted Cut Outs: Letters, cartoon figures, theme objects -- whatever you like -- carefully and neatly cut out the shapes, mount them to a board and then raise them off the wall with a few pieces of cut wood behind them. Quick, easy wall hangings.

Clustered Baskets: come in all shapes, sizes, colors -- or your can paint and stain them to coordinate with your room. You can arrange a cluster of baskets with endless possibility and it's an inexpensive way to create a wall hanging.

Broken Ceramic Mosaic: If you're a little more on the creative side, try your hand at a broken ceramic mosaic for your walls. Build a simple wood frame on a piece of wall board as your base. Then use broken tile, dishware, buttons, notions -- whatever you fancy to create a one-of-a-kind wall hanging for your room.

For the full article, please visit:  http://www.listmyfive.com/ab6e2fa2/The-Top-Five-Things-You-Can-Turn-into-a-Wall-Hanging

If you'd like information on art rentals, an art lease or purchasing art for your office, please call us at (888) 440-9260 - we feature paintings, sculpture and wall hangings as shown above.

M&M's Ad Campaign - Blue M&M's Rock!

Shawn McNulty's painting titled "Shiver" is being used in a 2011 national ad campaign for blue m&ms. Look for it in Entertainment Weekly (Issue: March 11th), TV Guide (Issue: March 14th), People Magazine, and Us Weekly (Issue: March 28th).

Way to go Shawn!  If you'd like more information on renting or leasing Shawn's art from Art Rent and Lease, (photo shoot, movie, staging, event, to hang in your office or waiting area) please give us a call at (888) 440-9260.  We place art throughout the US on-time and within budget!

Designing in the Feel of a Brand

From ASID and Hospitality.net

What is it that stimulates the sensation, "It feels good in here," when you walk into a room? Why and how can interior design support the activities that take place in a room and bring about such effects as an increase in communicativeness, greater appetite or improved brainpower…or stimulate relaxation, well-being or other moods? Hospitality expert Ines Klemm, whose work examines the ways that space, light and color are tied to a guest’s emotion and memory, offers some insights.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/154000320/4050443.html

Personalized Office Envoronments Can Increase Employee Satisfaction

From a study by informed design, offices that were personalized linked increased satisfaction, productivity and happiness on the job.  For the complete article, please visit: http://www.informedesign.org/Rs_detail.aspx?rsId=3524

This photograph is a dental office reception area in Portland, Oregon with original artwork from Art Rent & Lease.  For information on artwork for your office, please call us at (888) 440-9260 - the first visit is always FREE!

"Situationist" iPhone App an Art Collective

Turns your social network into an art collective.  From Fastcodesign.com

 

The way it works is simple: Situationist's location-aware design lets it scan your area for other Situationist-ists nearby, then zaps you a photo of them paired with a little "challenge" for the two of you to enact. Then you have five minutes to find the person, do the deed (which can be anything from "hug for 5 seconds exactly" to the more 1960s-ish "storm a local TV station") and then walk away. Think of it as a fusion of Foursquare and Improv Everywhere, but without the exhibitionism: instead of "creating a scene" for everyone around to gawk at and post on YouTube, Situationist is meant to provoke small-scale shared encounters.

 

For the complete article, please visit:  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663417/situationist-iphone-app-turns-your-social-network-into-an-art-collective?partner=co_newsletter

 

Lisa Powell at Art Rent and Lease thought this was a cool app relating to artwork and wanted to share with you!

Breathtaking Sculptures Depict Infinite Forests

By artist Anthony James

Utilizing two-way mirrors, chopped birch trees and fluorescent or LEDS to create sculptures that look like infinite forests trapped in a light box.  Beautiful and unique!

For the complete article from fastcodesign, please visit:  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663412/breathtaking-sculptures-depict-infinite-forests?partner=co_newsletter

Typographic Map of the World

From Fastcodesign.com by Chicago designer nancy McCabe, who creates gorgeous maps of the world using (almost) nothing but words:


For the complete article, please visit: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663407/wanted-a-typographic-map-of-the-world?partner=co_newsletter

If your business or practice is interested in maps for your lobby, offices or conference/patient rooms, we can help!  We can sell, rent art or lease art to you....just give us a call for a complimentary visit at (888) 440-9260.

My Child Could Have Painted That!

From Psychology Today by Matthew Hutson

People occasionally look at paint splattered on a canvas in a gallery and say, "My child could have painted that." (Or, among eccentric pet-owners, "My monkey could have painted that.") How much better is abstract art than work by kids and monkeys? New research reveals the answer.

Take a look at the two images in this post. Which do you prefer? Which do you think is by a professional artist? (See the answer below.) For a paper in press at Psychological Science, Angelina Hawley-Dolan and Ellen Winner of Boston College collected 72 undergrads, 32 of which were studio-art majors, and showed them 30 paintings by abstract expressionists. Each painting was paired with a painting by a child, a monkey, a chimpanzee, a gorilla, or an elephant. The images were matched on superficial attributes such as color, line quality, and brushstroke, and subjects were asked which piece they personally liked more, and which they thought was a better work of art.

ANSWER: The painting on the left was by a 4-year-old named Jack Pezanosky. The one on the right is Laburnum Hans Hoffman.


For the complete article, please visit:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psyched/201103/my-monkey-could-have-painted-really

Today is International Women's Day

International Women's Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is a national holiday.

Enjoy artwork created by women, visit www.artrentandlease.com including the above mixed media pieces by Connie Noyes.

Street Art of the Day

From thedailywhat, Street Art of the Day:
Last month, children’s author Aaron Zenz sat down to watch Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop with his kids.

10-year-old Gracie was so inspired by the film, that she immediately declared her determination to become a street artist when she grew up. Her dad explained to her that “while the art was fun and the story was great, vandalism isn’t a good thing.” So all together they came up with a project that was artsy, stealthy, public, “and in no way damaging”.
I bought a big sack of rocks, washed them, and painted the base colors. Then Isaac, Gracie, Lily, and I each claimed a color and decorated them with as many faces and expressions as we could thing of. 48 rocks in all. […]

Hopefully we were able to spread a little happiness to anyone who stumbled across these little guys.

Art Rent and Lease loves to share interesting information on artwork, design, etc. - visit our FB fan page, linkin with Lisa Colombo Powell and enjoy! Don't forget to call us if you need art in your space - we rent art, lease art and sell artwork from emerging and established artists in the US.

Art So Good You Could Eat It!

From Fastcodesign.com

Here's a brilliant way to get kids excited about art museums: Turn all the boring stuff -- the exhibit catalogs and the signage and the like -- into 55 pounds of mouth-watering, teeth-rotting, brain-addling candy.

Apparently, it works for adults, too, because Andreas Pohancenik's graphics for the exhibition Design Criminals -- made entirely, fantastically out sugar pastillage -- were a smash, earning the UK-based Austrian designer a nomination for the prestigious Brit Insurance Design Awards recently.

For the complete story, visit:  http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663326/an-edible-art-book-made-from-sugar-paste?partner=co_newsletter