Worried about what the neighbors will think because you’ve been thinking about painting the trim around your front door a sedate purple? Don’t. Your neighbors should just be happy you’re not taking it all the way, like uber-crafter Violette Clark, whose “spirit and artistic drive are completely uncontrollable” and who paints “whatever object falls beneath her gaze.” All right, so my chosen quotes make her sound a bit… wacky? But she’s really awesome, especially if a marker for awesomeness is doing whatever you want to do when it comes to your house and car.

Doing what you want to do – neighbors be damned – might even lead you down the path to a new life, as it did for Violette.

[She] always loved color, but she began saturating her home with it following the break-up of her marriage 14 years ago.

“When I went off and bought my own cottage, it was as if someone had given me a crayon and said I could do anything I wanted,” she says. “It was liberating. You don’t have to consider everybody else you live with.”

Embracing what she calls her “inner eccentric friend” has opened many doors for Clark.

Like creation a successful program of classes and workshops… writing a book… and generally getting famous within her chosen sphere. Pretty awesome to think that all that started with her painting her cottage’s doors!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 5:59 am by Christa Terry and is filed under Exteriors, Unusual homes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.