I self-identify as a maximalist. If I'm making art, I want all the colors, or all the details, or every shape that's ever been invented. My mantra when working with my own space is: "The more the merrier when it comes to art and color and plants and trinkets and candles and..."
and then I get carried away.
Sometimes, the sheer amount of visual information can start to feel like clutter. So how do I fix it? I edit! Something fun about being a collector of things, is that I get to display that collection however I want. One day, the 1976 bicentennial Sprite bottle lives on the window sill, and the next, it's seated next to a plant on top of the refrigerator. Living in my house is like waking up and getting to be the curator of my very own gallery every. single. day.
It's amazing!
Even just 15 minutes spent rearranging the nick-nacks on my bookshelf can transport me straight into my zen zone. There's something special about paying attention to items in relation to one another and editing your space that really gets the creative juices flowing. We make completely aesthetic-driven choices all the time. We pick cars depending on their color and features, we change up our hair, or get a new set of nails, or plant different colored plants in different places in our gardens. So why are so many of us afraid to make changes to the place they spend the most time? Maybe it's for convenience sake, but convenience often breeds lackluster results.
How many times have you went with the most convenient food and been disappointed in the quality? Maybe it's not about convenience at all but about permission. Maybe it's about not granting yourself the permission to spend your money on paint, or not allowing yourself to spend time on you. Maybe it's that no one has every told you that you can really do whatever you want in this one short life!
It's so easy to set it and forget it. How often do you move your couch? How long has your favorite lamp been on the same end table in the same spot? Maybe you visit home and your mom's living room looks exactly how it did in 1998. Maybe you've never even been told that you could change things up. The reason your couch has been in the same spot since you moved in six years ago doesn't matter. What does matter, is that you go rearrange that room right away! Maybe, just maybe, it will change your life.