Choosing Our Surroundings!

Nobody asks us what we want to look at as we drive the freeway. We aren't consulted as to what color we want the machine we work on at our job or the decor of the sidewalk between where we park everyday and where we go to school. We get what someone else selects if we are lucky and happenstance if we are not. At home we get to choose. Once behind the locked doors of our humble quarters, we can paint the room whatever we wish and we can hang whatever art we want. We don't have to collect expensive sculpture by dead artists. We could keep our eye open for form that pleases the eye, even if the form was secondary to function. We don't have to expend a lot of money, but we do have to pay attention. Birds collect bits of bright colored paper and fabric to spruce up their nest, and the pack rat collects shiny objects to keep him happy while he hides from his predators. Some people adapt their surroundings to things that suit them while others just accept things they way they are... at home and everywhere else. While we operated Touch of Texas Art gallery I must have heard a thousand times, "I don't have much taste, but I know what I like!" That's pretty much at the center of good taste. If one pays a bit of attention to what he likes and what he doesn't like, it's not hard to move out the ugly stuff and move in the pleasant stuff. A little adjustment here, another there goes a long way in making a house into a home. I just wanted to remind people that the space they live in belongs to them. Take a moment and make it like you want it. R. Cox