As I settle in to my new place, I don’t feel as though the moving-in is done until I have hung the pictures. Well, most of them, anyway.

I have lots of family photos. I also have paintings that were created by my late husband, paintings that my Dad enjoyed working on during his retirement, and some of my own paintings. I quickly decided that my own paintings were not for hanging but for gifting or donating, so they are stashed away, waiting for Christmas. Then I was left with family photos, family paintings, an embroidery made by my late mother-in-law, and a Georgia O’Keefe print to rehome. I have blurred the faces of family members in photos here, but the paintings are as they were painted.

For the last couple of days I have gone from feeling overwhelmed by the number of pictures I want to hang to looking at the problem from the wall’s perspective.  Each wall has different picture-hanging possibilities, and the possibilities are limited by the dimensions of the available wall spaces. The numerical problem of too many images was reduced considerably by the walls’ limitations.

I also decided to sort the problem into parts in order to make it manageable and I chose to begin with the photos of my family. Those are the pictures I enjoy looking at the most. Then I sorted those images by the kinds of frames they were in. Some were in wooden frames, some in black or dark blue frames, and some were in a variety of other types of frame. The wooden frames were situated first.

The layout was imagined by using templates. If I had had any packing paper left, I would have used that, but I gave that away with my moving boxes. Instead, I used some bubble wrap that I still had laying about. I was feeling pretty smug about how clever I had been in this, until I realized that I had assumed the two smallest images were in a portrait orientation when one was landscape. So, I moved the portrait one to the top of a dresser instead.

Then I chose a space for the black and blue frames. No, they haven’t been beaten up, but they aren’t as pretty as they used to be because I have moved them so often. After that I created a montage of a few miscellaneous photos and frames on a narrow wall space.

The paintings proved to be a bigger problem because they are bigger pieces. I have temporarily put one on an easel, two are sitting beside a wall waiting for me to get new hooks, one is under a wall sconce, the biggest one is still in bubble wrap, and the embroidery is in a bathroom. I don’t think my mother-in-law would mind its location. She would probably be surprised that I still enjoy looking at it occasionally and remembering her fondly. She might also appreciate the blue background blending with her embroidery silks.

If I were a more logical person I would probably have situated the largest pieces first, but my association with my pictures is primarily sentimental. The logic only kicks in after I’ve made emotional choices. As the picture-hanging process nears its end, I am struck by how significant the wall is when choosing placements for images. I’m glad that my choice of wall colour lends itself to a variety of images and hues, but I am also pleased to realize that I now appreciate the wall’s framing of my collages. Like distance, it lends enchantment to the view.

There is probably a deeply philosophical analogy to life to be made here, but I have no idea what that might be. If you can think of it, please share it in the comments!