No, for visitors who happen to land here via search inquiries, this barrel has nothing to do with music, showbiz or booze, this one is a painted barrel birdhouse (Barrel House is often associated with traditional, folk, country, jazz, blues or rock music, and something to do with mountains and rockies, e.g the Barrel House Band or the Barrel House Mamas). But like the bands carrying the barrel house names, this barrel is also well travelled. The owner, a real sweet lady from Johor, took the trouble to send it to me through her family member and then she came personally to collect it. Thinking back, I feel deeply touched and honoured, that she took all the trouble to make a day trip of hundreds of kilometres to collect this barrel, a trunk and a couple of other items. I do hope that she likes all the items I painted for her. I suppose I have to get used to the idea of serious collectors coming from far out of town to collect their handpainted items. And that reminds me of another collector who is still waiting for her birdhouse painted before she makes a trip here. This particular collector lives even further, across the causeway in Singapore.
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To have and to hold
Despite the occasional complaints of my domestic space being invaded by large items of furniture belonging to the clients while waiting for their cosmetic makeover, sometimes I wished that I had enough space to keep all the lovely items myself. Unfortunately you can't have everything you want in life. The clients can afford to have those big pieces but can't decorate the items themselves. I can paint the items to the best of my ability according to the wishes of the clients, but can't afford to have them for myself. I guess it's a fact of life that makes the world go round, people are not born equal and do not live equal. Most important I think, is to be grateful and to enjoy whatever you have for yourself to hold.
| Les Fleurs Decorative Painting |
| Handpainted by Aniza |
| Decorative Artist |
Something old, something new
It is amazing to note the kinds of interesting objects my clients bring along with them for me to redecorate. This particular one happens to be a medium-sized earthen urns, or what is commonly known in Malay language as tempayan. The client says this one had been handed down over a number of generations and believes that it may be over 100 years old. I am a decorative painter, not a historian. Therefore, I am unable to verify the claim. But that is enough to remind me to take extra care in order not to spoil it.
Tempayans used to be common household items long ago, especially among Malay households. They were used mostly as storage to store rice, water, pickled fish and vegetables, etc. before the arrival of modern day items such as wooden cupboard, refrigerator and plastic containers. Almost all kampung or village homes used to have one in front of the house, to catch rainwater and store water for use by the houseowners and guests to wash their feet before entering the house.
Today, tempayans are still used to store water in some remote areas of the country. But they also have other new uses, such as flower pots, decoration, collectible antiques, and even museum exhibits. Well, this tempayan here now sports a new look that hides its real age, and gets transferred from a less visible part of the owner's house to somewhere more prominent.
More chicks in a row
And yet more and more chicken items after More Chicks and Chick chick. The above are just some examples, in this particular case, all of them are handpainted-to-order for one single client. I suppose I don't have to add anymore stories to the pecking order and chicky affair. Like many others, I am still wondering why do chickens cross the road, other than to be on the other side.
Readers of Impiana magazine may have noticed a little alert in the June issue of the monthly magazine related to some folk art pieces that will be featured in the July - September issue of the quarterly Laman Impiana magazine. Well, I'm not really sure if some of my pieces will be in it but I will certainly get a copy of the July issue.
Clients and family
I paint on items and materials that I source myself based on discussions with clients (either they have seen something they like elsewhere or something they like from the gallery of photos that I keep, or even from this blog), personal, portable items provided by the clients themselves, and ocassionally, furniture and large items in the clients' homes. Therein lies the challenge of being a full-time staying-at-home-mom with 4 school-going kids. I have to juggle the time in between sending and fetching them to and from schools and their extra-curricular activities, and other things they do as part of growing-up.
But I must say that it is also nice and enriching to see the various styles of decoration employed by the clients or their interior decorators, and to work in different types of living environments. Here's one of the projects that took me many days to complete in a VIP client's home. I would not have been able to complete it any quicker even during the kids' school holidays. In fact, it might take me even longer as the kids on holidays are even more demanding than when they are not.
I was very pleased with the result and so was the client. But for the moment, I will only do something of this type for regular clients who understand the need for me to divide the time and attention between painting and family.
More chicks
Not that I have been painting only chickens these days, but painted chicks remain quite popular. I do mean real chickens here, as in 2-legged feathered, pecking and egg-laying friends, and not the derogatory nicks aimed at the so-called weaker gender (I had some difficulties when I posted the Chic chick blog, caused by those who landed here through search engines - looking for featherless chicks). Anyway, here are some more of them.
Chickens do have a special place in our society. Yes, they do make good meals for the table (in fact, used to be a special dish when I was younger). But we have also been giving them special tributes for generations. Chickens would have been closely observed by our foreparents or pretty close to their daily lives. In addition to turning them into tasty dishes, we do have all kinds of folklores, myths, proverbs, idioms, sayings, analogies, etc. involving chickens.
Chic chick
For some peculiar reasons, painted chickens have become one of the most popular items of late. I'm not sure if this has something to do with the Chinese Year of the Rooster, as the chicky orders mostly came from my Malay customers. One regular customer even ordered a matching set of a few painted chickens.
I guess it is one of the nice things about handpainted-to-order decorative items - I get free ad and air time as happy customers put on display the painted items at prominent places in their beautiful homes, and the items become the subject of their social chit chat, or shall I say, chick chat. Well, one nice chicken leads to another. Even my usual students who normally prefer to paint flowers, fruits and leaves are now asking for chicky lessons.
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