@arty  It took two years and about three different themes before I found the one for my main site.  My portfolio took about a year and three different themes.  Photography site was a few months and two different themes until the right one came along.  My husband went through five in a few months until he found one he liked.  Sometimes you have to just start with one that is ok, and just change it out later.

@arty you just need to decide on what works for you. There is nothing wrong with the standard 2011 or 2012 theme. Try something simple to get your blog up and going and use it for a while. This will let you find its strengths and shortcomings and you will be able to make a more informed decision later on as to what you really need and want in  theme.

@arty  But, to just get there, that’s something I wouldn’t really recommend as it’s all about personal opinion, it’s your blog, and you are the only one who can choose the look and feel of it. 

However, you still can take you only one week to decide, that’s what a community for  

Of course, I can give some recommendations!

I first of all, I recommend using a theme framework, why?

- A framework is actually clean looking out of the box!

- It can be customized without changing the core of the code (this is so important, and it will help you avoid a lot of hassle in the future).

- (Practically) You can change the design without changing your theme.

- If its a premium, then you get support and updates! (that’s something I always look for)

- There is much more to mention, but probably the above notes are the most important! 

In this case I would go with genesis theme, it’s clean out of the box, and it doesn’t have any noticed issues, plus it has a great support behind it! 

Or, the other option is to just use the default Twenty Eleven theme.

P.S. (I agree with @glengorham , there is nothing wrong with the standard themes that comes with WordPress, I love the Twenty Eleven (by the way, there is no Twenty Twelve yet, it should be released with WP version 3.4), it’s clean, simple and works perfectly, plus it’s from a trusted source, and free!

In this case, I recommend you use it for a few months while studying the case, then decide what’s the best thing to do!

P.S. If you decide to go with other free themes, then be careful, many of them are actually outdated, and it’s not recommended to change your blog theme often (it’s like moving to a new house, maybe it’s good, and maybe it’s too bad), you really need to stick with one theme and be happy with it, so it’s good to study the cases before making a decision.

My story: I started using Thesis Theme two years ago when I started my most popular blog, I had to redesign it a few times, probably more than 5 times till I get it to where it is now. I -for some reason- wanted to change the framework I am using, but I discover it was too late, I have a lot of heavy customizations that are not easy to emigrate to a new theme, so I am sticking with what I have! 

That was some random thoughts and my story that I wanted to share replying to your question and concerns, I hope you find it useful.

I usually find my themes over at ThemeForest Since Wordpress is now using HTML5 I try to find a theme that has been coded in HTML5 just to stay current.

Hope that helps.

Great topic!

In building out our recent Health/Beauty/Wellness site, it took us a few months of trial and error before deciding on a specific theme.  The biggest issue we kept running into was that many of the themes looked nice but they simply didn’t have the functionality we were looking for. 

I encourage you to take your time to find an appropriate theme and not just jumpt into something.  However, I would also point out that this theme may not be the last “look” of your site and so don’t perseverate too much! 

I hope that was a little helpful.

Thanks for your replies everyone!

*)

AB

Also, bear in mind that your WordPress site, theme included, is a high technology product. Not unlike, say, your automobile or consumer electronic (*iphone* *cough*) appliance.
To wit: you may find it helpful to budget maintenance chores in advance. 
For example, one of my clients, a vineyard owner, as of this evening, understands that his 3 year old Thesis-based site is due for “an oil change, tuneup and front end alignment, and we’ll add the bucket seats and spoiler along the way.” He’s not so good at budgeting “high tech”, but oil changes he gets on an almost visceral level.
Given you’re operating (if I understand it correctly) a sort of virtual gallery and online event venue, this might be equivalent to keeping the air filters clean in the A/C and dehumidifiers, and ensuring the proper light bulbs are purchased, etc. I may be reaching here… if so, please forgive my presumption.