Karen Schiff Word Snake

Karen Schiff is an artist and wordsmith based in New York. She has always been a reader as well as a visual artist. Her drawings, paintings, installations, and performances combine these pursuits by wondering about our conceptual frameworks for linguistic and physical experience. Schiff’s work has been shown at galleries such as BravinLee Programs and Danese Gallery, both in New York City and Fred Giampietro Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. Her artwork (and writing) was part of “Art = Text = Art” at museums, including the Zimmerli Museum of Art at Rutgers University and the Hafnarborg Art Museum in Iceland. Schiff is a Lecturer in Graduate Studies at the Rhode Island School of Design. She holds an MFA in Studio Art (School of the Museum of Fine Arts / Boston, 2006), and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory (University of Pennsylvania, 1998). Recently, Schiff has published in Art in America and Hyperallergic Weekend, as well as for the blog she co-edits with an artist she met at a Yaddo studio residency, Wallscrawler. Her writings tend toward issues of art and language, artist Agnes Martin, and complexities of identity. Schiff's artworks are held in public, private and corporate collections, such as the Kramarsky Collection (NYC), the Colby College Museum of Art (Maine), and the MCS Collection of Contemporary Drawing (Portugal).

Revitalize your interiors — introduce drawings and watercolor paintings to your home to evoke emotions, stir conversation and show off your personality and elevated taste.

Drawing is often considered one of the world’s oldest art forms, with historians pointing to cave art as evidence. In fact, a cave in South Africa, home to Stone Age–era artists, houses artwork that is believed to be around 73,000 years old. It has indeed been argued that cave walls were the canvases for early watercolorists as well as for landscape painters in general, who endeavor to depict and elevate natural scenery through their works of art. The supplies and methods used by artists and illustrators to create drawings and paintings have evolved over the years, and so too have the intentions. Artists can use their drawing and painting talents to observe and capture a moment, to explore or communicate ideas and convey or evoke emotion. No matter if an artist is working in charcoal or in watercolor and has chosen to portray the marvels of the pure human form, to create realistic depictions of animals in their natural habitats or perhaps to forge a new path that references the long history of abstract visual art, adding a drawing or watercolor painting to your living room or dining room that speaks to you will in turn speak to your guests and conjure stimulating energy in your space.

When you introduce a new piece of art into a common area of your home — a figurative painting by Italian watercolorist Mino Maccari or a colorful still life, such as a detailed botanical work by Deborah Eddy — you’re bringing in textures that can add visual weight to your interior design. You’ll also be creating a much-needed focal point that can instantly guide an eye toward a designated space, particularly in a room that sees a lot of foot traffic.

When you’re shopping for new visual art, whether it’s for your apartment or weekend house, remember to choose something that resonates. It doesn’t always need to make you happy, but you should at least enjoy its energy. On 1stDibs, browse a wide-ranging collection of drawings and watercolor paintings and find out how to arrange wall art when you’re ready to hang your new works.