Interior Decorating

I've looked at petroglyphs for many years. At one point in
my painting I was imagining living near them. Perhaps I had
these thoughts because I had begun framing and hanging
my paintings of the wonderful and sometimes mysterious
designs. I've been places with hundreds of these designs are
amassed and imagine Ute families spreading their mats on the floors
of wikiups right next to several such pieces of art.
"Hunting Shaman" Mixed media painting by Phillip Hoyle

Last week I went to a friend’s condo to help her ready it for sale. She had already got rid of quite a bit of her furniture and didn’t know to arrange what she had left in order to make the place presentable and appealing to potential buyers. We dust mopped, rearranged furniture, moved it again and again seeking for that combination of placement, lighting, color, and so forth that would seem balanced and inviting. We moved paintings from here to there and even used marker to cover up dings in one frame. I refolded the sheets in her closet and suggested if she were to leave clothes in the closet, she should hang them in a particular way, emphasizing color, etc. I wanted her to put a rug at the side of her bed. On and on, we pushed, considered, moved, removed, and finally were satisfied. My friend Jan was happy and thanked me over and over. She introduced me to her daughter as a friend who knew a lot about art. That was okay (I do know a little about art), but what about interior decorating? Where did all this “know-how” and “opinion” come from? I had to think about that.

My influences were a teenage interest in such things paired with my watching HGTV shows over the past few years since I can no longer stand to watch the news. My old interest has seemed to regenerate although I mostly use what I learn for art projects rather than the arrangement of furniture! And thinking about this I recall a story I wrote about my long-time relationship with interior design! Here is an excerpt: something about its origins. Enjoy.

The House

We moved up to Clay Center, Kansas, on my fifteenth birthday, two counties away from my hometown Junction City. I was born in that Army town with population of around 20,000, adjoining Fort Riley, an Army post with a similar population, that sat next to another small city, Manhattan, with 20,000 population, home of a state university with about the same number of students. Although we weren’t leaving a metropolitan center, compared with the county seat town where we were headed, with its 5,000 population and one stop light, I felt like I was giving up civilization and moving to the center of nowhere.

At least we were moving into an interesting house. We’d looked at several, each with strong points that appealed to me. Finally Dad and Mom purchased a roomy place with four bedrooms and a bath upstairs; parlor, family, dining, and utility rooms, entry hall with an exposed staircase that my sisters fantasized walking down in formals or wedding gowns, plus a kitchen on the main level; full, though rough, basement below and unfinished attic above; and an unattached garage, all sitting on three lots on the corner of Crawford and US 24, just one block east of Highway 15. It was a beautiful old place, built sixty years before for a local banker and his family. As the only boy, I got my own room but also a power mower so I could tend the huge yard. Around the same time as our move I dropped my long-standing subscription to The American Indian Hobbyist and began reading House Beautiful.

Decorating became my theme. Mom was into the house project ordering drapes for the front rooms, buying an extra couch and slipper chairs for the parlor, shopping for a proper dining room set, bringing home fabrics, pillows, and endless ideas for making this house our home. I, too, started thinking about furniture, fabric, and fancy dishes. So immediately after the move, my next older sister Holly and I began haunting Mrs. Stedman’s antique store. We read House Beautiful and discussed our likes and dislikes. Then we shopped to see what we could find to realize our ideas. For months we saved our change and bought a Victorian marble-top coffee table as a gift for Mom. At the end of that first year my sister went off to college in another town. I still pored over the magazine to find ideas for my room.

One day I noticed an ad for an art print company in New York City and sent off a letter requesting their catalogue. In a couple of weeks I received the illustrated listing and found myself entranced by a print of a painting depicting the torso of a young man wearing no shirt and the top button of his Levi’s open. I wanted that print but couldn’t imagine how anyone would hang such a picture in their house or room. But there it was in a nationally-advertised magazine in full color like an invitation into another world.

I ordered several prints although not the one I most wanted. In figuring out what to do with them, I realized I needed frames and returned to the antique store we now called the junk shop. For years I had hung prints on my bedroom walls with straight pins. Now I needed to frame them, a need that has persisted throughout my adult life. I enjoyed my years in that beautiful old house with its fancy woodwork, neat window treatments, and the pictures I’d framed.