P is for painting

"Beautiful place," said an acquaintance who'd visited our newly renovated home. "Now all you need are some paintings on all the bare walls."

I smiled politely at her. There would never, EVER be paintings (in the plural no less) on ALL the bare walls as she had pointed out.

I don't hate paintings, but I probably lack the aptitude to appreciate them. A few weeks ago, Viv and I went to an art gallery (Why on earth, you ask? Because they had a children's art workshop that Xena was going to love). We did roam around a little, looking at the various paintings on display. I spent a very very loooong time (about 13 seconds), looking at a particular painting that was priced very affordably. Only $112,000. Two words came to mind at the end of the 13 seconds. Preschool artwork.

So in our home, we have a grand total of one painting. Come to think of it, it's not even a real painting. It's just a giant photograph that comes in the form of five vertical strips that we have hung on our living room wall. I believe that more than the 'painting' itself, I liked the whole 'cut up into strips' concept. Viv and I took three days to decide which one to buy though. I wanted to go for something that would match our brown couch and yet have a splash of colour to liven things up (aka a nice-looking landscape) but he wanted a picture that would mean something to us, e.g. a place we had travelled to or a picture that we had taken. So we reached a compromise and got ourselves a beach landscape that matched the couch and had a splash of colour.

We agreed on a beach because we love beaches and have gone on a lot of beach vacations together, though we have never dared to take our DSLR along on one. Some day, if we ever repeat our Telunas island vacation, I'd like to go there armed with the DSLR and come back with a stunning picture to print in a bigass size and hang on the living room wall.

The only time I've ever coveted a painting was one that I saw literally displayed on the road at the Chiang Mai Sunday street market. It showed the profile of an elephant's head peeping into the painting. For some reason, I found it remarkable. 70% of the painting was just white space, and the elephant's head and trunk were simply made up of splashes of colourful paint. We couldn't bring it back with us because the thought of owning it struck me too late. Anyway, it was too big for us to have brought it back in our luggage. After getting back to Singapore, I tried to check if I could find it online and have it shipped to me, but all Google gave me when I typed 'Chiang Mai elephant painting' was pictures of sad elephants being forced to make paintings using paintbrushes held in their trunks.

Anyway, I tried not to get too obsessed over it as I'm strongly opposed to the idea of repeating holiday destinations (mainly because the world is so big and there is so much to see), so it's unlikely that we will go back to Telunas or Chiang Mai or New Zealand or the other gorgeous places that we were foolish enough to go to without a giant camera. However, because the world is so big and there is so much to see, I'm sure we'll find something along the way that will nicely adorn a wall in our home.

Meanwhile, here's the most beautiful painting in my life at the moment -- my new iPad cover that I had to wait two whole months for because it was out of stock and I wanted this and only this. Viv's reaction was "Hmm...", but I love it to bits. In Konmari's words -- it sparks joy in my heart.