Liz Lidgett has spent years telling people the same thing: art is not reserved for collectors with seven‑figure budgets and climate‑controlled walls. It’s for people who live in their homes, raise families, host friends, hang mirrors, watch TV, spill drinks and still want their spaces to feel personal, layered and alive.
That philosophy is at the heart of her new book, “Art for Everyone: How to Collect Art & Personalize Your Space on Any Budget,” out April 21 from Simon & Schuster. Part practical handbook, part permission slip, the book distills more than a decade of Lidgett’s work as an art advisor and gallery owner into room‑by‑room guidance that strips away the intimidation of collecting and replaces it with curiosity, confidence and flexibility. The message is simple but quietly radical: no more blank walls, no matter your budget.
Written with the authority of someone who knows the market — and the warmth of someone who understands how people actually live — “Art for Everyone” walks readers through everything from how pricing works to how to hang art without fear. It demystifies jargon, encourages experimentation and makes space for art that is meaningful rather than precious. As former Better Homes & Gardens senior executive editor Oma Blaise Ford put it, the book “strips away the mystery and intimidation often surrounding art collecting,” offering “both inspiration and practical tools to bring meaningful art into their lives.”
What makes “Art for Everyone” especially compelling is that much of it is rooted right here in Des Moines. Rather than relying on generic, staged interiors, Lidgett turned the camera back toward the people whose walls she’s been filling for years — clients, close friends, and her own family. A significant portion of the book’s photography was shot in Iowa homes, photographed specifically to illustrate the ideas she’s laying out on the page.
“A huge portion of that is original photos that we staged,” said Lidgett, who moved her gallery, Liz Lidgett Gallery & Design, from the East Village to a larger space on Ingersoll Avenue last year. “I got to go back to clients, to dear friends who have fabulous homes that we’ve put art in, and actually show: this is what we’re talking about in the book, but in action.”
The Iowa houses featured aren’t pristine galleries or one‑time installations. They’re lived‑in, evolving spaces that underscore one of the book’s core principles — that great collections are built thoughtfully over time, not all at once, and never require a “giant budget.”
From mirrored dining room walls turned into unexpected canvases to gallery walls that grow and shift around televisions, the homes throughout “Art for Everyone” show what it looks like to live with art in the real world — and why Lidgett believes everyone should.
Which Iowa homes are featured in ‘Art for Everyone’?
The Iowa homes that anchor “Art for Everyone” are not aspirational showrooms or palatial galleries. They are lived‑in, accumulating spaces — places where art arrives slowly, stays awhile, gets rearranged, and makes room for life. Together, they illustrate one of Liz Lidgett’s central arguments: you don’t need a museum‑quality collection or a giant budget to live well with art.
“These collections were built over time,” Lidgett said. “It’s not all at once. It’s thoughtful and intentional, and you don’t have to have this giant budget.”
Turning a mirror into a canvas at Nikki and Jay Syverson’s home
In Nikki and Jay Syverson’s home, a mirrored dining‑room wall became an unlikely canvas. Rather than treating the mirror as a design obstacle, Lidgett leaned into it, finding a way to hang art directly on the reflective surface.
“It’s one of those things people think there’s only one correct way to do,” she said. “But I really want people to have fun with the design.”
Turning a TV display into a gallery wall at Chris Diebel and Jonathan Brendemuehl’s home
At Chris Diebel and Jonathan Brendemuehl’s home, the organizing principle is a gallery wall constructed around — not in spite of — a television. The display quietly challenges the idea that screens and good design must exist in opposition.
“We really treat the television as a piece of artwork,” Lidgett said. The surrounding works were gathered slowly — through travel, the gallery, relationships with artists — and each one carries a story. Over the years, the wall has grown and shifted along with the collection, embodying another of the book’s refrains: art is not precious in the fragile sense. It’s meant to evolve.
“Your collection will change,” Lidgett said. “Nothing is precious. You can keep changing it, and you can have fun with it.”
Lidgett’s own home appears throughout the book, not as a styled ideal but as what it is: a busy family space shared with two young children, a dog and cats. It’s a corrective to the idea that beauty requires waiting for a more perfect season of life.
“I don’t want people to wait,” she said. “I want them to live in a space now that works for them, and that makes them happy.”
Where to find Liz Lidgett Gallery & Design
Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Inside Liz Lidgett’s guide to collecting art in some Des Moines homes
Reporting by Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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