We are taught from childhood that excess is inherently negative. Certainly, as a trained artist, I had a certain version of that idea reinforced throughout my studies. But thankfully in that training, there was also the affirmation that part of the purpose of knowing the rules and boundaries thoroughly, and especially the valid reasons for those having been codified as The Way to Do Things, is so that when we choose to break the rules, cross those bounds, and color outside the lines, we will do so intelligently and with purpose as well.
Otherwise there would be no invention at all.
Imagine if those who developed the magnificent decorative beauties of the art and designs prevailing in Art Nouveau work had always held back and refrained from going a bit beyond the norms, never mind whether any of the magnificently ridiculous extremes of the Baroque and Rococo would have bloomed in the darkness. Think, if you dare, of a world where experimentation and thinking outside the proverbial box were forbidden: would any of the useful, meaningful, and beautiful inventions that save lives and enrich them ever have happened?
This idea can be expressed on a much smaller and more modest scale, too. Why not let our joy in excess sometimes shout its existence for others to bask in its reflected glow!
An iconic sight along the edge of Alki Beach in Seattle, this home has grown, literally, into a garden of earthly delights that we all enjoy as we pass along our ways. Sometimes being ‘over the top’ is the perfect solution.
Art-Colored Glasses 
“Over the top” never looked so lovely! wow, great piece and great picture 🙂
It’s been a terrific fantasy-garden place for as long as I can remember, but every year it gets a new detail or two. Lots of fun! 😀
Analyst of art used to say bright colors and “busy” art works were what children created: those without training or understanding of order and restraint. They said, adults gradually gained an appreciation of subtleness, classic order, and could “see” the beauty of quiet colors…blah, blah, blah…
Maybe adults were just tired of mental/physical/ noise and needed silence, maybe adults couldn’t relate to unbridled joy and enthusiasm…maybe adult became afraid other adults knew the answers/the “rules of art and beauty” and they didn’t ….maybe they were afraid to appear ignorant or afraid to be laughed at. In any case, many adults forgot how to see and feel as a child.
Joy and whimsy is always in style…maybe adults will remember?
Lovely post and pix
Exactly—it’s never too late to hope we can at least re-learn how to revel in childlike joy and whimsy!
xo
I’d soooooo live here! Such a cute little abode
Isn’t it dandy!! The big bonus that you can’t see in the photo is that it sits directly across the street from the beach and a glorious vista over the water toward downtown Seattle, among other delights of the neighborhood!
I tend to break boundaries since I got older!!
No need to wait, either. While I’ll grant that you’re older than you were before typing those words, you look to me like you’re far from aged! 😉