Restructure- on your own terms

"Six Apparitions of Lenin on the Piano" by Salvatore Dali

I first set my eyes on the above original painting during my field trip at Le Lourve in Paris with my fashion school. It was a painting that I became mesmerised in. I fell in love with it instantly.

It was in Paris that I discovered Dali and Surrealism properly. As a dilettante, I never paid any real attention to the different art movements that define a  time in history. Instead, I go for how I feel and connect to a painting.

I have always been inclined to the Surrealist style of painting that depict a certain darkness in its visual depiction. "Six Apparitions of Lenin on Piano" stopped me in my tracks. I could not take my eyes off that painting. Some of my classmates thought it was scary looking.


There are not many paintings that I love so much that I wanted it. The above painting gave me that rush so much so that I almost feel I had to have it. But of course, if I were to even successfully commit grand theft on it, I better be prepared that I will be watching my back for the rest of my life and finding a safe haven to guard my precious possession so that I could sit and stare at the surreal beauty of it for as long as I live.

When I lived in Paris, I visited Le Lourve, the Pompidou, D'Orsay Museum, the tiny Dali museum in Montmarte. In New York, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Gugaheim Museum and many more that I didn't care to remember.  But the place I enjoyed the most was the Dali museum where I could spend hours alone marvelling at his works, having a good laugh and enjoying myself so much so that I was sad to go and instead, I backtracked a couple of times to some of Dali's paintings just so I could re-live the pleasurable moment of soaking up in his Art.

Another painting that captured my heart was a painting titled "The Gossip Queens"' by a particular gay ex-nurse artist named Jason something. I found it at the Convent Gallery in the Victorian spa town of Daylesford, a favourite holiday destination for DL, myself and our late Fluffball. I was a poor student when I first set my eyes on it around 2003 and could not afford A$1500 for this painting. The vividness of the colours, the precised painting of the purplish veins of the old ladies' wrists captivated my imagination. It would make a great centrepiece in a high celiling dining or living room on the wall above the mantel piece of a fireplace. When I was in a good financial state as a young headhunter climbing the corporate ladder, I went back to the museum to track down that painting. A week later, they finally found the name of the artist and had to inform me that sadly, the painting was long sold. The artist have other works that I could purchase but no, my heart was set on "The Gossip Queens".

The only painting that I loved in the same league as the above two paintings and had managed to buy is "The Ghosts of the Cathedral". I bought in  Havanna, Cuba the year before Paris in 2003, which made this painting out of the three my second love after "The Gossip Queens". It was my last day in Cuba before I flew out to Canada that very night. The night before, I had my wallet stolen and had less than US$100 to my name. My trip had at least one more week to go. Because I loved the painting so much and had to have it, I bargained so hard (which I know I should never insult the artist's work by bringing down its perceived value), the seller had to make several calls on the public phone to the artist and finally relented at USD$30 down from USD$50. I didn't take good care of the rolled up canvas and kept it anywhere I like for a good  eight years. The medium was acrylic for "The Ghosts of the Cathedral" and as a result, some parts of the painting is cracked.

Early 2011, we finally bought our own house. I decided it was time to frame it. One's relationship with one's picture framer is absolutely vital. You both must have a similar aesthetics and the framer must have the eye to bring the best out of the artist through his/her artful skill of using the right frame from grain of wood to colour, with or without borders, type of glass, with or withhout glass and down to the precise dimensions required to stretch the canvas and bring about a finished hangable work of art.

I happened to pick one of the most expensive frames in the shop. But the rest just would not do. The framer had to concur with me although he tried to help me reduce the costs by trying different frames and combinations. The bill for the framing came up to A$460 but it was every cent well spent. The frame complimented the painting so well that it has now imortalised its presence on our bedroom wall. I love lying in bed to stare at this hauntingly beautiful picture. Some of my friends and even my mum are a little spooked by the painting in my bedroom. But I love every bit of it. Each time I stare at it, I discover a new expression hitherto not experienced in the face of a particular painted translucent ghost. Like an onion, it seems like there are layers and layers of meanings that unfolds before me. I love a multi-faceted painting like this. I feel like I have definitely struck gold on investing in this piece of art- I never get tired of look at it.

A good framer is definitely a big right arm in my world of art and aesthetics. I happen to also have a love for stylised vintage botanical and bird illustrations. My framer did an awesome job of suggesting and discussing with me the suitable coloured borders and the precised measurements (right down to the millimetre) of how we could bring the best out of each work. And of course, the different glass pane options to minimise discolouration and maximise the preservation of these antique prints. Again the frames costs a hundred times more than the vintage illustrations but they do their job of enhancing such beautiful works of art that grace the limited hanging wall spaces of our tiny townhouse.

I cannot wait for the day where we are much richer and can afford a much bigger house with beautiful high ceilings and more rooms where I can have my own studio to work on my art- fashion designing, sewing, working on immortalising roadkill by using their fur to create one-off couture pieces (as opposed to the animal cruelty of farming animals for the fur trade), spinning of yarn and working on experimenting with vegetable dyes. We will also have a massive sitting room designed to be like a natural history museum where I could bring in the vintage taxidermy of the Alaskan polar bear who died of natural courses and the Bengal tiger who died of old age at a zoo and other animal curiosities that I found in a vintage taxidermy store in the town of Mittagong. And of course, a nice altar piece to house the cedarwood boxes of all my deceased pets so that they would have a nice dwelling place with all their furry friends. We will have an old vintage leather cigar couch to sit on so that DL and I could seek solace in special place in our house where time is suspended and the animals congregate and become alive once more.

I think I will die a rather happy girl.