Reason #3129 to love Brasil: Affordable Artwork

As if I need another reason to love Brasil, I am now totally infatuated with the art here! Eric and I have been keeping an eye on all the artists' stuff down at the Alfonso Pena Feira de Artesanato in Belo Horizonte. All along one side of the feira, artists set up every Sunday morning to display and sell their work. Our biggest problem while furniture shopping (and now accessorizing) has been trying to figure out something of a theme/color scheme for our different rooms and sticking with it. We have very similar taste, but we can both go from modern to country-chic to traditional to kind of artsy. I am not nearly good enough at this to try and figure out a way to combine all the different styles, so I am just trying to keep a somewhat similar theme going in each different area at least.

On Sunday we were determined to be decisive and find a couple pieces of art for the apartment. Our adventures were quite successful, as we came home with 2 very large pieces that just barely fit in the back of the Punto with the back seats folded down! And maybe the best part of it all was how easy the trip was on our pocketbook (or um, I mean, Eric's wallet.)


I discovered that artwork is exceptionally difficult to photograph with a point and shoot, so I am not really doing this stuff much justice, but I try!

We found this really interesting piece for the dining area in the great room. We wanted something with some black and silver to pick up from the marble table and the chairs and then red seemed like a good little something to add (given my awesome red and black china I found here!)

After we got it hung up, it really highlighted the fact that the wall still needs painted...

But meanwhile, since that desperately-in-need-of-painting-wall is the first thing you see when walking in the front door, the art really helps give it some interest!

Oh, and since I was telling you how inexpensive it was, I suppose I could reveal the price to prove my point: R$220 or US$133!

Back in November, Eric and I both totally fell in love with this next artist's work. At the time, we weren't sure where we could use it in our apartment, but we did buy this painting for my parents. (My very talented brother, Justin, made the frame from a cherry tree (I think it is cherry, I am not the wood ID expert in the family) he cut down himself.) It also proves that you can take paintings home with you if you come to visit us! The artist's husband was happy to sell us the canvas only. He took it out of the frame, off the canvas frame, and rolled it so we could easily transport it back to the US. It took a little work to re-stretch it back over a canvas frame, but it is totally doable!

So we knew we wanted some of her work for ourselves and when we saw this next piece, we decided to get it for our bedroom.

And to give you an idea of just how big this sucker is, well, here is our queen bed as a scale.

We haven't found a headboard we like, and so the big empty wall behind our bed was really needing something and this was just the thing! And wow, I am just realizing that I made the bed all messy and stuff this morning . . . sorry about that. (I am going to blame it on having to teach an English class at 7:30 this morning. No time for careful bed making and the such!) Oh yeah, and so this quite large painting with a nicely constructed wooden frame: R$180 or US$109! It would be nearly impossible to frame something this size back in the US for that price, much less buy a painting too. There will be several more art excursions before we leave this place: we still have lots of empty walls.