Patchwork Collecting

A Guest Essay on The Secret Door

Texas Home, image courtesy of Judy Aldridge, @atlantishome, vintage artwork acquired through Curio Atelier

Some ideas arrive quietly, over years, and only later do you realise they’ve been shaping everything you do.

“Patchwork collecting” is one of those for me.

When I look at many of the homes I love most, they’re almost never built around a single art movement, period, or style. Instead, they’re stitched together: a contemporary piece by an emerging artist beside a vintage harbour scene; an anonymous folk painting near a family heirloom; something found at a flea market hanging next to a work that came through Curio.

It’s not chaotic. It’s coherent in a different way, anchored in the life of the person who lives there, not in a single trend.

Recently I had the chance to write about this for The Secret Door, a beautiful online space for thoughtful, critical writing about art, inner life, and culture. The piece is called: Patchwork Collecting: BIPOC, Outsider, and Vintage Art for Real Homes

In it, I talk about why I’m drawn to emerging BIPOC, self-taught and outsider artists, why vintage art keeps slipping into the mix, and how “serious” collecting can absolutely happen in small spaces, on real budgets, with lives that are full and messy.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your art has to “match,” or worried that your walls are too eclectic to count as a “collection,” this one is for you.

👉 You can read the full essay on The Secret Door here:
Patchwork Collecting: BIPOC, Outsider, and Vintage Art for Real Homes

I’m so glad this idea is out in the world in a more tangible way now. And I hope, in some small way, it gives you permission to keep building your own patchwork - one thoughtful piece at a time.