Garish

I painted my kitchen over the Thanksgiving break. I told myself I was allowed to spend three days working on the kitchen, knowing I have so much other work to finish before the semester ends. I'd been wanting to paint it for four years, ever since the initial work on the house resulted in tearing out many of the "special inventions" that littered the house. Likely installed by the previous owner known as "Adelore Chevalier" by the name engraved in the attic, the "special inventions" included weird towel hangers, dangerous light switches, and other electrical stuff that might have burned the house down given the right amount of voltage. In the end, my kitchen was 5 different colors--beige, dark blue, red, yellow, and light blue--based on what had been installed at what time over the 50 years that Adelore lived in the house.

I decided to paint the kitchen yellow. In theory, it was a good idea. The kitchen would be sunny and happy and might hopefully cheer me up. Moreover, the yellow would match the 1950's era flooring that is decorated with orange and yellow flowers. In practice, it was a very bright, very garish yellow. It felt like the sun was inside my kitchen. Rather than hate it, I decided to accept it. Moreover, I decided to balance it out by hanging up even more garish art. Knowing that GradShitTowneVille is home only to the big box stores that sell reprints of Anne Geddes photographs, I decided to make my own garish art. I call it, "Spanish Swedish Chef with Cleaver." It's 22 by 28 inches big, and it's lovely.