art lights

Been struggling with finding lights to light up the art in the house. It is real hard to find attractive track lighting. I'm not sure it exists... After discussing with the architect, we "decided" to go with directional cans.

After picking at the carcass of the IKEA website for inexpensive pendant lamps for the stairwell, I came across this: The Fuga from IKEA. It's cubist and somewhat neoplastic and, typical for IKEA, has a great price: $34.99:

It uses halogen bulbs, which I'm not too keen on because of the heat (heat = not good in Texas), but halogen also = bright, which it good for lighting up art. I drove out to the KEA yesterday to check 'em out in person, and I like 'em. A new decision.

Speaking of art, we did a wee bit of thinking on where lighted art should/could go. In part we're thinking public areas and in part we're thinking "view corridors": Areas where the eye could be driven. Art will go elsewhere, of course, but perhaps these are the places to hi-lite the art with lite.