My father was an artist in another life. The life that I knew with him as his son didn't have art. It would be years before I would even make the connection that the paintings in his childhood home were made by him.

And I only ever witnessed him putting pen to paper to draw something just once. It was one of his election campaigns and he asked me to design his poster. There were no Macs then, or tablets. It wasn't really easy to open the computer as it was back then and create a mock design of what you wanted. So he sketched the layout with pen on paper and the ease by which he defined his own face on it or the economy of line to bring out an expression that could only be captured with a camera made me realise that I didn't know the person that he was as an artist.

But it never occured to me to be resentful that he didn't encourage us to take up art or to even have it in our home. He gave us everything we needed including things we didn't even think we needed. And at some point, we realised that he had to give something up in order to accomplish this. He taught us by example, that life is about trade-offs and that when you make them, it has to be for a good reason; a reason you will never regret. And I don't think he ever did. 

That art thing seems to be in our family DNA and nearly everyone in our family have dabbled in it at some point with some actually having it as a career. I keep telling myself I'll give it another try only to realise lately that I actually have, that my work as a content creator involves crafting images and design albeit done digitally. To have spun that as a career without any formal training is something I can credit my father for because it's true- you can't teach true talent, it's either you have it or you don't.

In short, I'm actually 'ma-arte' (which come to think of it, is a word that probably comes from 'art' and that if you have 'too much' of it to the point of being annoying, you're therefore, 'ma-arte')
1. I rarely eat lunch straight out of a plastic lunch container. It has to be put on a proper plate and I have even brought personal plates to the office when I think that the provided office plates are not 'proper' enough.
2. I wear my best clothes everywhere just as I present my 'best self' at all times. Why in the world would you dress down, or bring your problems to work?
3. There is no art in chaos as far as housekeeping is concerned. A dirty, ugly house is a dirty, ugly house. I clean up nearly every day otherwise I can't function.
4. Spend some time immersing yourself simply appreciating the beauty of things- like browsing in an LV store! 
5. If you find the balance between the simplicity of art and the outrageous commercialisation of it, you're good. 

(the following are images taken at this unique museum hotel in Wellington called the QT Museum Hotel where I stayed at recently for a conference).