Living with Art
- hilarytolman
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- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
I grew up in a home where art was the main part of everyday life. My parents were museum goers, gallery visitors, and avid print collectors long before they became dealers and, in many ways, The Tolman Collection grew out of that way of living. My parents acquired things because they loved them, or because they couldn’t imagine not living with a particular piece of art. They became friends with the artists and bought more to support them. Only later did all of that turn into a profession.
I therefore originally became a collector by family circumstance. Some of the works I acquired early on were gifts from the artists, some were pieces my parents gifted to me and, certainly, my esthetic tastes as an adult were formed by these pieces. Art was never something too la-di-da or beyond reach in our house. It was just always there, on the walls, in the rooms, what we talked about, part of the atmosphere. Growing up that way made it impossible for me to imagine a home where the walls were empty or filled with things that didn’t mean anything, that were just there to fill a space. Art feels as necessary to me in a home as furniture, food in the fridge, and books. An art collection is not something you add at the end of an interior design project. It’s something you develop personally, with which you live and breathe, a living organism that mutates as you grow as a person and as your taste evolves. And sometimes, your personal taste for a specific piece, or the positive memory associated with it, stays with you and you keep that work of art forever.
I can easily recall the first piece of art that I acquired; it has hung in every bedroom I have had since my 10th birthday. My family was living in Hong Kong at the time, and my birthday outing was a day trip to Macau. Upon our return home, my parents handed me an intriguing square package and announced that, at the age of ten, I was old enough to begin my own art collection. In the package was the painting shown above: a cheerful, brightly colored painting of a woman floating in the air, holding an umbrella, next to a leafless tree. A large green and blue-spotted butterfly hovers in the scene, the dots repeating those of the umbrella in a different color, while a slow green, tortoise-shell spiraled snail moves calmly near the tree. I learned that it had been made by sculptor and painter Jo SHODA. My parents later told me that they chose it for its general mood of joy and adventure, qualities already important to me at the age of ten. I still love it.
Obviously, my own situation is a little different from most people’s, not only in terms of starting a personal collection age ten, but also since my home serves as a private, by-appointment-only gallery. A lot of what is on the walls is for sale, which means things are always changing. As soon as one work goes to a new home, another takes its place. But because I don’t represent any artists whose work I don’t genuinely love, I still get to live with pieces that I appreciate in the same way that any collector does.
Here are a few works with which I am currently communing until they go to their next home:
Yuichi HASEGAWA — Waiting for Evening
There are works that quietly set the tone of a room, and Hasegawa-san’s prints often do that for me. Their calm geometry and spaciousness have a way of making a space feel more breathable. This is the kind of work you pass in the morning and notice again at dusk, always slightly differently. It’s a good reminder that living with art is about time and texture as much as it is about subject matter and composition.
Sayaka KAWAMURA — I Dreamt of Floating II
There is something dreamlike and weightless in Kawamura-san’s imagery. Her prints feel less like images on a wall and more like windows into another state of mind. These are the kinds of works that invite lingering, that reward quiet attention, that make you want to stay with them a little longer. They calm you.
Seiko KAWACHI — Zipangu XIII
Kawachi-san’s prints have a strong physical presence in a room, full of tension and energy. His bold lines and vivid colors often suggest structures under strain, as if beams and cables were being pulled just to their limits. The woodgrain is visible, reminding one of the material and the process behind the image. Sometimes unexpected elements appear, adding a note of imagination or quiet surprise. They are works that combine great technical control with a powerful emotional charge.
Yoshio IMAMURA — Autumn Grasses in the Mist
Imamura-san’s lyrical work feels like a pause in the conversation in order to take a quiet, reflective moment. His subtle horizons, depictions of natural elements, delicate surfaces, muted tones, and restrained imagery invite a slower kind of looking. These are prints that don’t announce themselves; they reveal themselves over time and, in doing so, become deeply companionable works with which to live.
Because the walls in my home are always changing, I’m constantly reminded that living with art isn’t really about owning things in a fixed way. It’s about paying attention, staying curious, letting each work be part of your life for as long as it resonates with you and then making room for the next one. These changes don’t feel sad to me. It feels like personal evolution, and each work of art contributes to a really genial internal conversation that never ends.
When collecting for myself, my first response to any work is always emotional. Only after that do I start thinking about how it was made, or how difficult it must have been to make it, or the edition size, or the price. If a piece doesn’t move me in some way at first glance, the technical skill alone is never enough.
And, when a room feels right to me, it’s because the art on its walls creates a certain feeling: calm, happiness, inspiration, mental recharge, even sometimes something quieter and harder to name. Each work I collect opens onto another way of my seeing something, or feeling something, or understanding something that I can’t always put into words. To quote James Baldwin, "The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers." Collecting art puts the questions right there on the walls.
When people come to visit, what I hope for is quite simple: that they feel a sense of wonder, and that they want to look at some piece more closely. The moment when someone stops, leans in a little, and really starts to see a specific work of art beyond the immediate visual surface of it, that’s when their conversation with a work begins.
In the end, collecting art isn’t about filling blank walls to match your furniture or moving money into an alternative investment stream. It’s about creating a reflective personal space that makes you want to look, and think, and feel every day. And really, that joy and awe is probably why I do what I do and help people build their collections.
The works above, except for the Jo SHODA piece, are all available for purchase. Please email me at allisontolman@gmail.com for prices.
