A Little Weird Is Good for a House

In praise of folk art and the imperfect beauty of Southern decor

The Southern houses I loved most growing up weren’t the most formal or fancy. They didn’t have perfectly symmetrical vignettes or perfectly scaled furniture. What they had was color and a sense of character. Lime green kitchens and a gallery wall with the frames slightly askew. You’d walk in and immediately know: this house has personality.

That’s the influence of folk art.

While I still love a formal Southern dining room and a tassel-trimmed lamp, the homes that stick with me are the ones where the decor didn’t take itself too seriously. Bright walls, funky textures, and somewhere (always) a piece of art that makes you pause and smile a little bit. Whether it was by a known local folk artist or someone’s uncle who painted on plywood, it would inevitably be my favorite piece in the house.

Folk art has always been part of Southern interiors. Even if people didn’t call it that.

It’s also important to recognize that the story of Southern folk art is deeply intertwined with race. Many of the most celebrated and influential folk artists in the South have been Black, self-taught creators whose work was often shaped by resistance, spirituality, and storytelling. Artists like Mose Tolliver, Clementine Hunter, Lonnie Holley, and so many others. While this piece isn’t a full exploration of that history, it’s an essential part of the conversation and well worth a deeper dive.

They say folk art is hard to define, but easy to recognize. It’s made by people outside the formal art world, self-taught painters, woodcarvers, quilters, sign-makers, working with whatever they had on hand. Old boards, house paint, tin roofing, thrift store frames. It wasn’t about getting into galleries. It was about telling a story, honoring a memory, or just making something fun and weird out of scraps.

The South is full of it.

Folk art gives Southern homes permission to be bold. To mix patterns. To hang things that don’t match. It brings in storytelling, faces, birds, saints, snakes, words scrawled in paint, alongside the china cabinet and the monogrammed towels.

The best homes manage to layer it all. It doesn’t have to be curated. That’s the point. It just has to feel lived in and a little bit strange.

In a world where everyone wants the exact same clean aesthetic they see their favorite influencer use in their latest remodel, the same sofas, same neutral palettes, folk art still cuts through. It will always be relevant. It reminds us that style and taste doesn’t have to be polished to be exceptional. That a little weirdness is good for a house.

Southern decor has always been a mix of the refined and the rough. And it’s the folk pieces, the crooked paintings, the painted driftwood, the papier-mâché cat on the shelf, that keep it from feeling too stiff.

So yes, I still love a formal Southern room and a house that’s dressed to impress, even with a touch of fussiness. But give me a house with a hot pink hallway and a painting of a chicken riding a bike and I’ll feel right at home.

Now this is my challenge to you, friend and reader: If you don’t already have a piece of meaningful folk art in your home, start your hunt now. When you find the right one, it’ll become a treasured part of your story and your space.

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I’ll be sharing more of these little pieces in the weeks ahead. I love recording the audio versions I’ve previously shared, they feel like a special way to connect, but I’m also trying not to let the production side slow me down. So, expect a mix: some with audio, some just written. Either way, I’d love to know what you think.