4 Types of Functional Art To Include in Your Home

When you think of art, you tend to think of carefully painted or sculpted displays put out in museums or old buildings for the sole purpose of being a beautiful thing for us to look at and ponder. After all, some of the most famous art pieces of all time, Starry Night, The Last Supper, The Creation of Adam, and so many more fit this description exactly. However, art extends beyond that. Functional art is a type of art that still consists of carefully crafted and beautiful objects, but those objects also serve a practical purpose in everyday life. Here are a few of the many examples of practical art that you can learn about and begin appreciating today.

Furniture

When you stop and think about it, furniture takes a lot of talent and craftsmanship to make. The builder has to understand how to set up a sturdy frame, make it easy and comfortable to use, and design it to look pleasant and interesting. Many modern pieces of furniture are doing away with the stiff, right angles of the past and are instead embracing curved shapes and other traditionally unusually shaped designs. Furniture made of fleece fabric is also becoming more popular since the fabric is so soft and comfortable. People are realizing that they can make furniture out of fleece to make the furniture both look modern and be more comfortable.

Blades

Another, less common, example of functional art that is still wildly popular is anything with a blade. These can be knives, swords, katanas, or any other type of blade you can think of; functional art is a very broad and inclusive genre. One of the best, more traditional, art forms to compare bladesmithing to is glassblowing. Both involve heating materials to dangerously high temperatures in some kind of oven and carefully shaping them into objects that are both beautiful and dangerous. Cultures from all around the world have been bladesmithing for thousands of years, so having one as a decoration in your home can add an element of culture that might otherwise be lacking. Usually, the owners of these blades don't use them for anything, but the blades are still functional, so they could use them if they desire.

Clocks

Some clock designs are absurd. When you think of a typical analog clock, you probably think of a circle with 12 numbers around the outside edge. Maybe there are variations in color, font, or the way the clocks portrays its numbers, but typical clocks are all generally the same. However, once people start introducing art to clocks, there are some strange results. Some clocks dangle on conveyor belt-like chains and cycle the numbers through like that. Some sport utensils instead of hands. Some clocks have faces so distorted that it is nearly impossible to read. Clocks offer a surprising amount of freedom when it comes to making them into art since the only rule is that there has to be a system that indicates a symbol that represents a number.

Staircases

The biggest and boldest type of art on this list is what artists do with staircases. Staircases can be made out of any material and shaped into any configuration imaginable as long as they are still traversable by humans in some way. Spiral staircases and disconnected staircases are two of the most popular ways people integrate functional art into their homes. Spiral staircases fill less space, and also give your home a fancy, almost castle-like feel, while disconnected staircases give off the impression that you have a staircase that floats. Which is just plain cool.

Functional art mixes utility with aesthetics, which allows your home to feel sleek and modern while still being able to function as a regular home. There is a wide array of different objects that can be considered functional art, from something as small as a clock to as large as a staircase. That way, no matter your budget or space concerns, there is always something you can do to bring some functional art into your home.