Empty Wall

how to find the perfect piece of art for your space

There’s an empty space on my wall that I’m desperately looking to fill. In an age of endless access, you’d think this task would be quite trivial.

Not really, IMO. 

As a 22-year-old, I’m too old to put up my dorm room Playboi Carti poster back up, but too young to waltz into Pottery Barn and pick a piece off their display. The internet must have a solution… let’s try Etsy! I type ‘wall art’ into their search box and am shown this clusterfuck of useless inventory.

I don’t want 40,000 PDFs for 12 dollars, I'm just looking for one cool poster to put up. Perseverance is key, so I try Amazon next; it was slightly better, but far too NPC for my taste. In desperation, I type ‘art for purchase’ into Google. Their SEO hellscape serves me options decent enough that I waste 45 minutes browsing through generic movie posters and abstract shape prints.

Frustrated, I slam my laptop shut and frantically dig through my closet to find the Playboi Carti poster. I put it up on my wall and stare at it, with a feeling of defeat taking over me. “ Maybe I just don’t have good taste”, I think to myself.

A few weeks pass and I take a trip to NYC to visit Ajay (the Co-Author of this Blog). He lives in Manhattan, where we spend our first few days; Ajay’s friend Svap invites us to a Persian tea mixer in the back room of a vintage film store in Brooklyn. We force ourselves out of bed early Saturday morning (noon) hop on the subway and get off at our stop in Bushwick. Less than a minute later I turn to Ajay and tell him, “This kinda gives me Oakland vibes”. To which he nods in agreement. A few more blocks in the sun and I’m sweating through my shirt, but luckily we get the Google Maps notification that we’ve reached our destination. 

We walk into a quintessential Brooklyn establishment, a film store complete with Fujifilm cameras on display, prints of Charlie Chaplin on the walls, and a white guy with a mustache behind the counter. “Tea mixer is in the back”, he tells us; we consequently walk through a narrow hallway into a spacious yard. It felt like every single one of the 15 hipsters at the event turned and stared as we walked in, and the worst part was that Svap wasn’t there.

 While much more kind than the average fraternity bouncer, someone came up to us shortly after and asked who invited us to this event. “Our friend invited us, but he’s not here yet”, Ajay tells the guy. I look at Ajay and ask him, “Dude this is awkward, when is Svap gonna be here?”. “His location shows that he hasn’t left his house yet”, replies Ajay. The same thought pops into both of our heads, we should go to Svap’s and just come back to the mixer with him. Ajay and I scurry out of the backyard, not unlike two freshmen who just got turned away from a Sigma Pi party. 

We walk a few blocks along the Brooklyn side streets with the Sun beating down on us even harder than before. Finally, we arrive at Svap’s Brooklyn townhome which four tech bros, all of who moved here from San Francisco, call home. As soon as I walk into the place I am taken aback. I’ve come to expect to dogshit college apartments from all people my age (especially men), so when I step on a runner and see houseplants I  realize that these guys roll differently. I waltz into the living room and see a minimal bookshelf,  a leather couch, an espresso machine, and sticker magnets on the fridge– signs of life that are few and far between in the average tech-bro crib. 

Svap makes me an espresso as we chat about the differences between San Francisco and New York–it’s mostly women, there are an infinite amount of beautiful women in New York compared to the 45 single girls in San Francisco– but I digress. 

The conversation steered into technology, urbanism, and making the most of your twenties. I tell Svap how much I like his place, specifically the furniture and decorations. “My favorite thing is that map of San Francisco you have on your wall” I added. Sandwiched between two windows and inside of a light-colored wooden frame, it just looked awesome. 

“Thanks man”, he replies. “I’d advise you to furnish your place with a sense of urgency because most leases are 12 months long, and if you don’t do it at the start then you probably never will”. 

Back in the Bay Area, I return to my Playboy Carti poster with a new sense of enthusiasm, I move it to a different spot on my wall and open up my laptop again. I type “Vintage Maps” into Google and stumble onto this artist who prints historic maps out of his workshop in San Diego. A few scrolls in and I find the perfect piece: a map of San Francisco from the gold rush, similar to the one at Svap's. The vintage feel, the colors, and the pen strokes are all perfect. I add to cart and quickly purchase an accompanying frame on Amazon. I wait eagerly for my items to arrive. 

This journey has taught me something valuable; searching the internet for art is like drinking water from puddles around a well. You’d rather dip your bucket into the well instead. In my case the puddles are Etsy and the well is Svap’s living room. Going to people’s homes, watching movies, reading books, and visiting art galleries spark all types of ideas in my head. These ideas are vital in developing a sense of taste. The lesson learned from all this has been to leave the house more, because then, when an empty wall is burning a hole in my soul, I may just be able to fill it more tastefully.

-Raj

P.S : Here is what the map looks like on my wall. (I kinda miss the Playboi Carti poster)