Burning Bright, Tangled

Last week I had an idea to search Etsy for "vintage paint by number" and look what that got me:

(I'll tell Toby it's a portrait of one of his ancestors.)

And my friend Kara pointed me to the work of Stasia Burrington, where I found this print called "Tangled." I had to buy it--it has Japanese kites and the artist described it as "about relationships and sticking out your neck."


So, despite thinking I needed to branch out, I have two more Asian-influenced things to frame now. I might as well embrace it and just call my decorating style "chinoiserie," I guess.

Crossing A Line?

I'm almost ready to hang art on the walls in the house, but I have one problem: Ninety-nine percent of my art is prints of Japanese woodblocks. I don't want the place to start looking like the Asian Art Museum of San Fransicso, so I'm considering an abstract painting for above the fireplace. Or more accurately, I'm considering plagiarizing someone else's art and making my own abstract painting for above the fireplace.

I am in love with a couple of sold paintings from Michelle Armas--I think her use of color is right up my alley and if I had a couple of thousand dollars to spend on art, I totally would spend it on her art. But I could also buy a canvas and some acrylics and not exactly COPY her, but maybe make my own abstract painting in the style of Michelle Armas.

The sold one that I love, "Rosalia."

Another sold one, "Wise Math."

What do you think? Do I enter a gray area of taking someone's intellectual property? Would mine just look amateurish, because there's a reason hers cost so much? I have her 2011 calendar, so I could always just wait for the year to be over and frame that. But prints of paintings just aren't as shiny as real paintings, with their real brushstrokes and gobs of paint.

(It's a first-world dilemma, that's for sure.)