Ep. 432: How to Approach Wall Art with Mary Elizabeth Ellenburg

0:01Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer. I'm Liz. I head up the creative team. We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode. We love answering your questions, so don't forget to email us at podcast at ballardesigns.net. Now on with the show.

0:55element brand. Stock up on ollie.com today. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Today, we're thrilled to welcome one of our own exclusive artists, Mary Elizabeth Ellenberg, inspired by Monet and growing up in a creatively enriched family. She's been painting for over 25 years. Her work is characterized by bold brushstrokes and large-scale statement pieces that tell compelling stories. You can see a collection of her paintings on her website, and we are one of your exclusive prints.

1:29Like we sell exclusive prints of your pieces. Absolutely. I always think that's so fun. Many people don't realize that we offer prints with real artists in our collection. It's so cool. It's so fun. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I grew up here in Atlanta. I've been a big fan of Ballard for years. So to be able to have a collaboration with Ballard Designs is really exciting for me and it gets real original artwork reproduced into the hands of my neighbors, hopefully. But it's been a great experience so far. So thank you for having me. Yes, and you were so kind to bring a few of your paintings, the originals, to the podcast room today.

2:14So we're recording here in our studio in Atlanta, and we've got one of your big chandeliers behind you. and then a little mini over here. Yeah, so behind me, this is what's called spring ball. And it is sort of a throwback to when we were growing up, we would go to our grandparents' home and there'd be these really great crystal chandeliers and old homes, big chandeliers, really fun, super fancy. And grandparents would have parties and lots of guests and lots of fun. So this is sort of a throwback to that era. what you see here this is all crystal if minus the colors this will just be an empty room just with a chandelier but the colors that are that are on there are just reflecting light from the colors of the dresses in the rooms from the colors of the guests if you will and I grew up with my mother teaching Italian and she taught social etiquette and bar and dancing and she would have every year a ball at the end of her classes.

3:18It was called the spring ball. So the name comes from her cotillion parties where she would host kids and they would come in these really pretty dresses and the boys in their suits and all dolled up in seventh and eighth graders. So it was really a lot of fun. Yeah. I love that the marks are representing the people in the room and the colors that they're wearing. And because it's such a festive painting and such an icon, that great chandelier. Thank you. So if I'm thinking about what sort of party this would be, I would say this would be something in the daytime before not, you know, it's a lighter color background.

4:00So it could be four o 'clock, it could be a five o 'clock, it could be something with still some light outside. And then it's definitely going to be in the spring because they're wearing pinks. They're wearing the lighter colors. They're wearing dresses. There's lots of yellow in it. Now, I've painted so many chandeliers over the last 20 years that I'll have someone say, hey, I would love a chandelier that represents a darker party. And so this chandelier over here, that's an example of a nighttime party. And this would just be a darker setting, a darker room. What I love in this particular, the smaller one, is you can see some dark blue.

4:39And that is a reflection of the men in all their suits. So men are in dark suits at night. And women are still dressed in some colorful dresses. But I love the two different sort of backgrounds. And it makes you feel like you know where this is happening. You know where this party would be. Yeah, because the backgrounds are really abstract representations of the space and these colorful fields. That's really great to know that you're putting yourself within a place when you're making these. I love them. And I started out the first couple of chandeliers that I made after this one. This is the original.

5:21Oh, like the original. The original original. Yes. The first one you ever made. Ever made. Yes. Wow. Yes. Oh, thanks for bringing it. That's so cool. That's so special. And so this one, then from here, I, just to sort of get your name out there as a local artist, I donated to auctions. I would get, would make several. Schools would call me. Would you donate to our auction? Sure. Schools I wasn't even affiliated with. And then there was this inclusion program at Peachtree Pres that we loved. We loved, loved. It's a preschool. And so I made sure that we were in that auction every single year. And we've been at auction for probably 15 years with different ones.

6:06So those folks who bought through the early stages, they really have fun, different collarways. And I loved some of those that I did for those auctions. When you did this very first one, like, you know, you said it was inspired by your mother's cotillions. but like what to walk us through like the idea behind that first one where you like because you've created it's almost like a silhouette yeah it's almost like the perspective on a chandelier is really unique okay because you didn't paint like the people you didn't paint like the whole ballroom you just painted a chandelier so I was curious what you know kind of what you were thinking when you first did that's a great question and it sort of re-bought it brings me back to my experience in the home furnishings industry, which I've been in since 1998.

6:56And we've all seen trends come and go. The trend that I, it hurt me the most was the trend that we pulled these chandeliers out of beautiful homes. And they were replaced with builder special lighting. So before that, if you bought an older home, it would usually say in the closing documents, the chandelier is not included. That's in the will. That's going to the, you know, the daughter or the, you know, granddaughter or that's promised to someone else because this was an heirloom. And so I felt like there was a time period that we were really void of that. Let's sit around the Thanksgiving table and see our reflections in the chandelier that's been in our family for 200 years, you know.

7:44So it was really from that void and I being at the furniture market so much. This year will be my 47th consecutive market. We'd go twice a year to High Point. But seeing the trends and seeing us pull away from that aesthetic was really the impetus for me to start painting this. I'd paint other things, but I loved just bringing that back. And if you even go to the Swan Coach House, they had an iconic chandelier in the restaurant for years. And you go in now and it's not in there. Now, I believe they've removed it to the basement. But, you know, just seeing that, that that was a staple for, you know, 50 years was just really sort of a classic that I wanted to sort of pay homage to.

8:36are the different chandelier designs like are you looking at specific chandeliers and sort of using those silhouettes and like where the crystals are and the the frame to come up with your design or are you kind of creating your own sort of creating my own i love the vertical orientation so i really think that's um a needed orientation for a lot uh to make a big impact in spaces your entryway for your table. You've got a vertical orientation. Your dining room, you walk in, you can have a vertical orientation. So I love that. And I really love the scale. So I'm more about scale for me and size.

9:16I have a small chandelier over here, but really that's just a tester for me before I create a large size. But if you come in my home, all of my art is at least four foot by four foot or six foot double panels. And I just love impact pieces, really. Those bigger pieces also just draw your eye up and move your eye around the room too. So that's really great to make them such huge scale. Totally agree. And when you can connect with the story behind it, I think that's how art really just affects you personally. So walking into a room, even if you like a pet painting, you know, if you have a pet painting, you can connect with that.

9:59it's just really makes your space more personal and sweet so that's what I love to do uh how did you even get I want to go back I want to go back to like how did you start painting and in-home furnishings like where did this all begin okay so uh my family growing up was very creative my mother was an artist my brother who um which George Tag we talked about earlier Tech Connection. He was an artist. My father was a cinema photographer director. And so he was a visual artist behind the camera. He was very talented. He's passed away. But I really felt like I got it from both sides of the family that I've got a lot of, you know, creativity.

10:46Now, I will say, you know, creativity as a college graduate does not pay the bills. So you might have creativity, but the ones you get to be creative in your career forever, you're so blessed. I mean, you have got to count your blessings that you get to do that. So I started out really in the home furnishings business with my husband. and he grew up in retail, in the furniture business and retail, and he decided to be a manufacturer. And so while he was, you know, working on building a manufacturing company that was high-end, eight-way, hand-tied upholstery, I was working with outside manufacturers to represent their lines to wholesale, through wholesale to B2B channels.

11:41And the greatest part about that is that I get to see trends early. So I get to see 18 months before something hits, I get to see where the colorway is going to be. I remember thinking, are we really going to do gray? Is that going to work? Because we all had, you know, St. Cecilia Granite, countertops at the time, which were brown. Yeah. And I thought, okay. And then it worked. And then every, you know, I mean, it was just like this tidal wave of gray. But seeing that 18 months in advance and telling all my friends, hey, gray's on the way and they're not believing me. I get why they didn't believe you.

12:25Right, man. But yeah, that is so funny. Yes. Yes. So I love, I love just the industry. We really a small tight knit group. We really are. We've got manufacturers. We have the sales reps. We have the merchandisers. And what I love is that the merchandisers, this is not their first rodeo. So when they come to the furniture market, they're looking for the best. They're looking for the best quality. They have standards that they live by. It's really a professional environment. I love that, especially about Ballard, the Ballard team. They can walk in and they will know right away, you know, this is a great fit for us.

13:10That's going to work. That's not, you know. And so I initially started in the home furnishing business. And this is my 26th year doing that. And then connected with Ballard through a rug line. And was, have been working with Ballard through rugs. And then now my art. So. This is why. Sort of the, sort of the short story of. But how did you start? How and when did you start painting? I started painting in college, officially. That's when I started. I learned how to create my own canvases. To wrap, to build the structure behind it. Pick the size that I want. Stretch the canvas by hand. You know, that's really an art form in itself.

13:57I mean, people don't understand that that is such hard work to do to build your own canvas. And then I realized, okay, I'm not as good as the guys that do this professionally. So I'm just going to buy their canvases. But I did that for several years. I built my own. The first real painting, which is like big girl painting, I received a card in the mail from a friend of mine, a handwritten note. And it was on this beautiful stationery. And first off, we were entering that era of email. I mean, I was in college the year that Microsoft Excel came out. So, I mean, this is eons ago. But we were transitioning from handwritten letters to emails.

14:42And the fact that this friend took the time to write me a letter and the paper, even the card was on, was a linen paper. I mean, it was just really touching and exquisite. got that in the mail and it had this beautiful flower on the front of it and I just stretched a canvas that was enormous I mean it was probably I think it was six foot tall and I painted that flower on that canvas for the first really my big girl painting um and this was about the time that red and gold that was like the color of the year red and gold and that was a red flower with gold background. And I had a red sofa. I had the rug to go with it, all of that.

15:25And every time I walked by that painting in my house, it wasn't for anyone else. It was for me. The painting was for me. It just reminded me of her, my friend. And her name's Chelsea. And we went to high school together. And it was just really sweet. So I think that from then on, I knew that I wanted to have art that would speak to myself speak to other people um surprisingly enough it is difficult for me to do abstracts and abstracts are a lot about balance but for me i really have a connection to the subject somehow some way and that's what i love to do i love to to paint things that have connections.

16:11Do you buy abstracts for yourself or do you, like you said it's hard to paint them, but do you like to buy them in your collection? Honestly, I do not. I do like other artists. I do have other artwork in my home. I love Laura Mooney. She's a great oil artist. And for me, a strong perfume will give me a headache. So oil is just not something that I can tolerate. And I respect those who can use oil. So she's in my kitchen. One of her pieces is in my kitchen. My brother, Brandon Wilson, he went to tech. He's the one I was talking to. I went to tech. He's great. He's phenomenal. And I have one of his.

16:56He did a series for our entire family at Christmas, which was a six-panel series. And we each got a panel. Oh, my gosh. So it's like a puzzle piece. And each puzzle piece is at everyone's home. Oh, that's so cool. Yes. And it's of our family home way from home in Ocean Isle. It's the marsh. And it's just a nice really put them all together. They make this incredible landscape. So I have a chunk of that. But so I love to paint things that are important to me. And I've been known to walk by the dining room and see something that need to be tweaked and walked up to it with a paintbrush and tweaked it.

17:38Oh, my gosh. So I feel like I couldn't do that to someone else's work. It's funny. So you paint a lot for your own self still? Yes, I do. Yes. And I do a lot of commission work. If someone has a fabric they're working with in their home or they've got, they're working with my husband, an upholstery group, and they need something to complement it, yes, I will do that. Now, I love florals. I do a lot of florals. I love landscapes. I love animals. I did a double panel for my brother who lives right outside of D.C. and his wife. And it was two four-foot square double panels that were together and they were two deer.

18:25And they were deer coming out of the fog and sort of the dew in the morning. and when I finished the eyes it was almost as if they were just staring at me and it was it was wild I mean it's just incredible and when I unveiled them for him as a gift a surprise he said he put them in his his living room and every time he said I had to move them to the dining because they they would not stop staring at me but they're too good of a job on the eyes he's like the eyes are just they're like you know feed us or something. But I love anything with life. Animals have life. Landscapes have life. This chandelier, you can see life in it.

19:10So that's why those things feel more comfortable for me to paint. And I feel like that art is really a representation of the heart, you know. And landscapes, I love. One of my favorite style to do is a golf scene. And I love that because I feel like there's not as much out there for men in the world of art. We have a lot of florals that we will gravitate to. And what does a man want in his office? He doesn't want a hydrangea bush, you know. He appreciates that. And so I love to paint golf scenes. And I've done so many of those. But I love to add azaleas in there. And we know exactly what time of year those pop open and where.

19:56It's going to be southern golf courses with azaleas. And that's sort of my favorite to do. I believe we have some landscapes and some florals coming next spring. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I'm super excited about those. And, you know, the azalea, if you think about it, it only, do you know how long an azalea stays in bloom? Not long. Only three to six weeks. Oh. A year. I don't know that. So you have these beautiful bushes you grew up with and the yards of, you know, here in Atlanta. They're only going to bloom for three to six feet. It's wild. It's wild. So really to capture that, I always tell my husband, you know, flowers die.

20:42Diamonds never do. So we have to, we're painting flowers, you know. Paint the flowers to get them to stay. But diamonds are also a good idea. Yes, absolutely. What do you want for your birthday? That's the response. Hi. Diamonds never do. So has it always been acrylic then that you've done? It's always been acrylic. Yep. Yes. And large brushstrokes. So I really love the vast, the magnitude of something that's large and grand scale for me. And I also, you know, paint that way. I design that way in my home. I design light pictures. The light pictures in my home are gigantic. But I love I love something with scale, really.

21:33Yeah. I mean, you can probably walk into a space and say, OK, that feels underscaled. You know, it's something that is and you and I can do that because we're in the industry and we see that all the time. But I think something powerful and meaningful needs scale. I mean, it almost can never be too big. like unless it cannot fit yeah right but yes like fill up the whole wall you know what i mean yeah love co-drama yeah be dramatic about it i love that yeah what do you um when you are creating pieces for yourself or even um commissions do you let do you feel like the painting needs to complement the room's color palette or do you feel like they can kind of work together but not necessarily match?

22:22I think it can work together. It does not need to, you know, exactly match. I'm thinking right now at the top of my head, I've got my laundry room. I have a six-foot painting in my laundry room. And great key. Yeah, that's amazing. Great key wallpaper behind it, you know? And so, and I have the Phoebe light in there, that acrylic light in my laundry room. So it all sort of is, it's all working together. And I love, now if I'm going to my living room, I'm starting with the rug. Laying that just, and rug, rugs are artwork. I mean, a lot of people, you know, don't recognize that. But these are handcrafted, handmade.

23:04I mean, someone with their physical, you know, hands, they sat down and made these. It's an art piece on the floor, just the same as we have art on the walls. And having spent a lot of time in the rug industry, I have a lot of respect for the artisans. But, you know, in my home in general, I, of course, I have a lot of art everywhere. I do like to move art around. I think that's a fun thing to do. If you have color palettes that work together and room to room, if you are moving your art around, you know, it can be seen somewhere else fresh and look different. And the way the light comes into the room is different.

23:43But I do have sort of a gallery house. My house is all white, except for the window trim and the mullions are dark. But inside the walls, they're all panda white everywhere. I love that. I see your art really. Yeah, and the art really shows. Right. It pops. Very nice. Yes. I love that and I love rugs. Those two things are. Those are your, yeah. Yes. And so your husband's into upholstery. So you guys are in fabrics. Yes. So together, you guys are decorating rooms together. So he's phenomenal with fabric. Always has been. He's great. We love working together. It's one of those. Awesome. It's so nice because we're in the same industry and we've been married for 28 years.

24:32And so we've just been able to do this together. And it's really lovely to be able to say, hey, let's break. You want to go grab some lunch? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's really nice. It is very nice. So we do collaborate quite a bit. And he'll ask my opinion. I'll ask his. He's really great with construction and how things are made and built. And really the way it's going to fit your body when you sit into it and all that. And I love, like I said, I love seeing colorways come out early. I love being on the front edge of, you know, what's happening in the industry. Yeah. And seeing what's next. Yeah.

25:11So. You really have a pulse on it. And to your point, to affect your colors and what you're feeling too. Absolutely. What colors, you know, that are on their way in, are you excited? Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average 8 to 9 headache days a month versus 6 to 7 for placebo.

26:05Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. I'm very excited about a teal.

26:29Now, when I was growing up, I was not quite as excited because everyone had teal walls and mob carpet. Yes. You know? And so that was really it. If you weren't drinking tab in your teal room with your mob carpet, you really were not, you know, cool. Amazing. Yes. So, but really it's a different teal, but it's really sort of fun. And I've already painted a couple of pieces with some dramatic, it just ruins a lot of drama to the background of, say, some white flowers. that really pop off of a teal background. And I love it because right now, if we're looking at colorways for this fall, we're really sort of in the earth tones and we're going to see a lot of ochre and we're going to see a lot of, you know, browns and sort of that mixed metal to kind of mix us out of the grays and kind of warm us up a little bit.

27:27But then I feel like you're just going to be super excited about the wave after that, which is going to be some rich colors, some, you know, teals. When you're saying teal, are you thinking like a jewel tone teal? A jewel tone? Like a peacock kind of. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Not the lighter version, but more of that peacock feel. Yes. Love that. Love it. Deep rich. Yeah. It's kind of amazing how that color teal will go with those ochres and those browns. It really kind of makes all of those sing together. Yes. And think about the wood. Think about the wood that they'll pair with it, you know?

28:09I mean, the wood color drives a lot of the color in the fabrics, too. Yeah. And I love the romance, the romance of the products. That's really what got me hooked in the furniture business is just really talking about how things are made and what is really— I mean, I remember as a salesman at Broyho Furniture in High Point, and this man came out to teach us how to sell the wood products that we were selling. That was one of my first jobs. And he was in a three-piece suit. He had a tie. He was all dressed up. He was just to the nines perfectly. His shoes were shined. And he sat down and taught us about book-matched, cathedral-cut, mahogany tabletops.

28:54and we just were I mean we were salivating over the romance of the product we're like I mean this is incredible this is just an entire show that they and and they want me to turn around and sat then sell this yeah and and it was incredible knowledge but the romance of the product is so important to just know that someone really did work and to design it this way and let's appreciate the thought that went into this to make it so that it would be in your home You know? Yeah. You're storytellers, but you are. You're storytellers. Because there is a story behind it, to your point, and who made it.

29:31But that doesn't ever, you know. Yes. That's not a friend of mine, so. I know. I know. My dream job would be to host a show on QVC and talk about all the things and the romance. Yes. I saw it. Because there's so much behind just walking in and saying, oh, I like a brown table. I'll take that. Or I need a, you know, white chair. Or I need a white sofa. Right. Yeah. Well, we always talk about bringing the things that you love into your home. So knowing that story or understanding that story behind a piece just makes it more special. It's so true. Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. I feel like you're just going to connect more with something that you know the story behind.