Why We Believe Art Must Have Meaning

The true reason homeowners commonly choose bland, neutral, or sentimental wall décor—such as word or wire art—is not because they love it, but out of a psychological fear of commitment or judgment. Here’s your permission to abandon the pressure for “meaningful” art and instead prioritize beauty, and joy by embracing accessible pieces.

Canadians you asked, we listened! It’s been almost 7 years since I held a live True Colour Expert training event in Canada, it’s happening in Vancouver (well in Richmond close to the airport) February 19 & 20, 2026. And you can either pay in full or pay a deposit. We’ll also be in Chicago, May 14 & 15. Register here for either one.

I have lost count of how many Colour Rescue Styling Makeovers I have done in the past two years since I started doing them and there’s a pattern I see everywhere and it’s this:

Walk into almost any home and I’ll find a familiar scene: a living room with a giant blank wall—pristine, untouched (above), or maybe one bland, lonely, mushy, grey, black or white piece (below).

Or worse, a wall filled with something that isn’t actually art at all: wire words, metal squiggles, sometimes in the shape of an oversize clock, an oversized script, like Family, or Blessed, or a patchwork of family photos in wildly different frames and years.

To be clear, I’m not here to judge your art choices. My goal with this post is to convince us all to be a little less significant when it comes to adding some joy to our walls!

When I moved into this house, the previous owners left all their wire art behind. Why, you might be thinking? Well I can easily guess. Because not only is it completely meaningless, it adds no colour or beauty to the wall it’s hanging on. There are exceptions to this, but not in the ones I inherited (below):

Here’s the truth no one says out loud:

We aren’t choosing bland, mushy, oatmeal-coloured abstract art because we love it. We choose it because it’s emotionally risk-free.

It doesn’t clash.
It doesn’t commit.
It doesn’t say anything.
And most importantly—it can’t be wrong.

It’s the same reason so many default to wire art, word art, or signs that literally tell you to “Live Laugh Love.” None of these pieces challenge the space, but they also don’t elevate it. They’re the visual equivalent of beige carpeting—perfectly neutral, totally forgettable, and accidentally depressing.

But here’s the thing, isn’t it interesting that we seem to have no issue plastering an entire room in wallpaper that is mass-produced in factories by the mile.

Wallpaper proves the whole point.

The wallpaper in my home | My home tour

Because when you walk into a room with stunning wallpaper, no one clutches their pearls and says:

“But who is the artist? What deep personal significance does this mural hold for you?”

No one cares.
They just say:
“WOW. Where did you get that?”

Wallpaper is mass-produced art with a glue backing.
And we celebrate it.

But frame that exact same level of mass-produced beauty, hang it on the wall, and suddenly people think it needs a spiritual biography and a personal connection.

It’s absurd, but it’s also deeply human.

The Real Psychology Behind Safe, Bland, Forgettable Art

Here’s what’s really happening:

1. We mistake “neutral” for “safe.”

When someone doesn’t trust their eye, they cling to beige, grey, black or white like a life raft.
A mushy, foggy abstract? It won’t ruin anything. But it also won’t do anything.

Notice this also correlates to area rugs and paint colours.

2. There’s a fear of choosing something joyful.

Colourful art reveals personality.
Joy reveals personality.
And the moment you reveal personality, you risk someone seeing it—and maybe not liking it.

So we choose visual oatmeal. Oatmeal offends no one.

3. “Meaningful” feels virtuous, while “beautiful” feels indulgent.

We genuinely believe choosing art because we simply love how it looks is frivolous.
So we compensate by buying something neutral, or sentimental, or meaningful.

Because meaning feels responsible.
Beauty feels like a guilty pleasure.

Meanwhile wallpaper—100% decorative, 0% meaningful—gets a free pass.

What now????

4. We were never taught how to choose art.

When we feel uneducated, we default to the smallest possible risk and in the realm of art, this translates to purchases that look like:

Tiny prints.
Neutral abstracts.
Word art.
Wire art.
Signs with instructions on how to live our lives.

These pieces require no taste, no confidence, no point of view.
You could also call them the training wheels of wall décor.

5. Decorative (Big-box) art feels overwhelming to the untrained eye.

Homesense/HomeGoods is a candy store for designers. But for many? It feels like a test we didn’t study for.

Too much colour. Too much scale. Too many options. So, we grab the oatmeal piece because it asks nothing of us.

 

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By the way if you’d love to have a wall that speaks to you but feel overwhelmed, my Styling School for Gallery Walls for you. I’ll show you how to do this yourself, and figure out where to hang it in advance before you install nails in the wall, no designer required and how to take that one (or more) piece/s that you love and add the rest to create the drama everyone needs You can get it here.

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Design isn’t about finding your soulmate art.
It’s about choosing something that makes your room—and your life—feel better.

And here’s the thing: we aren’t doing this because we don’t care about design. We’re doing it because of psychology.

Somewhere along the line, we culturally absorbed the idea that art must be meaningful.

Deep.

Sentimental.

Personal.

If the piece doesn’t connect back to a moment, a memory, or a person, and if we don’t have that—if we don’t stumble across a painting of Tuscany that reminds us of that one trip in 1998—then we freeze. We wait. We live with blank walls. For years. We feel wrong buying it—almost like we’re cheating on authenticity.

But when you create a room in your house that feels like home, your house will suddenly feel alive! When your house is alive, you will feel it smiling and laughing and then it will make YOU feel more alive. you will feel the vibrance coming out of the space. 

And that IS meaningful. That’s impact, because suddenly everyone who walks in the door and lives in your home can feel the difference.

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You deserve a well decorated room

I had just wrapped another Colour Rescue Styling Makeover this weekend. We’d finished fluffing the pillows, tweaking the vignettes, stepping back to admire the transformation—you know the moment—when a friend of the homeowners walked in with her nine-year-old daughter. She’d never seen the house before. See the transformation here.

The little girl took one step into the living room, gasped, and said, “Wow… it’s so beautiful.”

Her mother, on the other hand, frowned, scanned the room, and turned to me with a suspicious squint:
“Okay… what did it look like before?”

Before I could answer, she fired off her next question:
“How much of their old art is even on this wall?”

And then, the inevitable declaration so many people leap to:
“Oh, I could never have a room like this. My kids play hockey in the kitchen.”

Later, as we drove away, my assistant just shook her head and said, “It’s fascinating how fast people jump to explain why they can’t have a room that looks this good.”

By the way if you’d like to see the before and afters and get the insider scoop on this very special Colour Rescue, join my community here. And, one of my community members just did a one day makeover for her sister! Woo hoo, it’s catching on! This makes me so happy, I just want you all to live in a home that you love!

Mass-Produced Art Is Not “Less Than” — It’s Your Freedom Pass

I’m here to remind you that we are living in the golden age of accessible, beautifully framed, ready-to-hang art.

See this full makeover here | If you’re local to me and have a space that need a styling makeover, apply here. It’s for my YouTube channel and the amount of money you would normally invest in my services you get to spend it on your house instead.

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For under a few hundred dollars you can get oversized, dramatic, elegant, modern prints that used to be available only through designers ordering from catalogs. You know—the kind where everything magically “worked” in designer rooms?

Those catalogs? Now they’re just… online. At every retailer. In every price point.

This is a gift.

It means you can experiment, play and stop treating your walls like a permanent decision and start treating them like a design opportunity.

Watch the full makeover here

Art doesn’t have to be expensive

When people say, “Art is expensive,” what they mean is original (fine) art is expensive. But decorative art? It’s fabulous. It gives you scale, colour, personality, drama, texture—everything a room needs—without requiring a degree in art history.

And you can swap it out later.
No guilt. No therapy.

Just design. Because most people need a lot more than they think.

Watch this makeover 

My Invitation to you is, Give Up Your Significance About It

You don’t need all art to be meaningful. You need decorative, art. 

Good scale.
Good colour.
Good proportions.
Good composition.

The meaning is optional.
The beauty is the point.

Let your walls be beautiful. You have permission to add it to that one piece of fine art that you love and now you have a statement.

And let yourself play with the all the incredible, affordable, mass-produced art that exists right now—because it has never been easier or more accessible to create a stylish home.

Related posts:

Colour Rescue: Got a High Wall? Think of Art as Wallpaper

Colour Rescue: Create Styling Magic

Transform your Room with One Trip to the Store