Your house doesn’t need to look like everyone else’s

Buy art you love, without letting the sofa decide. Leanne on personal taste, colourful homes and work by Isle of Man artists at Pink Seaweed Gallery in Ramsey.

“What if it doesn’t go with the room?”

It’s a fair question. But sometimes I think we give the sofa rather too much say in what we’re allowed to like.

Buying art can make people nervous. Will it look right? Is it a sensible purchase? What if somebody comes round and thinks it’s weird?

They don’t have to live with it. You do.

We’re constantly being told what our homes should look like. This colour is in, that one’s out. Apparently the thing you bought eighteen months ago is now deeply embarrassing.

Exhausting. And expensive.

I’d much rather you bought something because you loved it.

A painting you keep going back to. A ceramic creature with a questionable expression. A mug that becomes YOUR mug and everyone knows to leave it alone.

Pink Seaweed is full of work by people here on the Isle of Man. Different people, different ideas, different tastes. You won’t like everything. That’s fine.

You also don’t need to explain your choice in art-world language. “I like the colours” is enough. So is “it makes me laugh”.

A home can grow around the things you find. Something inherited, something from a holiday, something made a few miles down the road. It doesn’t all need to arrive in one matching delivery.

Come and have a look. See what you’re drawn to before you start worrying about where it might go.

The sofa will cope.