By Anna Collins

It’s that time of year again – Spring. It means taxes, house cleaning, Easter, and turning the clocks forward. I can see filing an extension, getting rid of all your old junk so you can clear the way for new junk and I can even relent to believing in an imaginary rabbit and chocolate eggs that somehow ties in with the resurrection of Christ –but isn’t that clock thing annoying?

It’s not just one clock you have to change either, for most of us it’s several; the stove, the microwave, the car, the DVD player, the digital camera, the stereo, the alarm clock, the wall clock, the iPod, your watch – your many watches if you’re an accessorizing watch freak like me. God forbid you goof up and forget one – you’ll be an hour late and looking like an idiot after you tra-la-la your way into an important meeting, chomping on a donut thinking you have an hour to kill.  Why don’t they just let the damn clocks be? Everybody gets all excited about that stupid hour: “Oh we’re losing an hour! Now I’ll really be tired.” Please. After the first day no one even thinks about it anymore until the next time when they get all revved up that they’re gaining an hour. Oh, the things they’ll do! Get up earlier, jog, take that early morning exercise class, start that novel. Yep. And what do we all end up doing? Sleeping the extra hour.

But I digress.  Let’s get to the headliner of the show – The Art of Spring Cleaning.

To make things more interesting for myself this year, instead of donning the usual surgical mask and elbow length rubber gloves to show my toilets who’s boss and give them a stern scrubbing, I hired someone to clean my house. A well worth it expense. The joy of having your house cleaned by a person other than yourself is second only to eating creamy-center chocolates while you order jewelry on QVC with somebody else’s Am Ex.

With my newly cleaned house, it was time for my new idea –the Spring makeover. That is, taking all my old artwork off my walls and replacing it with new artwork. Expensive you say? Prohibitive? Au contraire. For less than what it costs to go to the Keys for a weekend (and that includes the rum-runner stop at the Tiki Hut at Islamorada) you can redo your artwork. How? Why by ordering from the fabulous, the magnificent, the affordable – Art.com of course.

I am a huge fan of this site. With its selection of fine art reproductions, limited editions, giclees, hand-colored prints, canvas transfers and photography, Art.com has the proverbial something for everyone. There’s usually a 15 percent to 25 percent off sale that goes on longer than it doesn’t – so keep checking, you’ll see it.

Currently I am into the plain canvas look – no fancy frames or matting– just the artwork on canvas stretched over a plain wood frame. I was ecstatic when I first found out you can have fine art images transferred to canvas to make it somewhat resemble an original oil painting. Therefore, most of my purchases are canvas transfers – but the same art can be purchased framed right from the website. The cost depends on your selection and taste. You can also order just the prints to decrease your cost as you wish.

That said, I’ve been able to redo my house in just a few mouse clicks. Here’s how it went.

My first purchase was for the kitchen. The kitchen is always a wonderful place for art. It adds a sense of whimsy and cheer and is a great contrast to the week’s worth of dirty dishes in the sink. Instead of choosing the typical kitchen art which may include prints of flowers, a Paris café or a Chardonnay label, I opt for a Botero, because no matter how bloated or rotund I feel after stuffing myself on Cheez-its and Häagen-Dazs, I always feel slim next to a Botero painting. I love the fact that Fernando Botero’s figures look three times the size of a fullback for the Miami Dolphins. My pick, The Mona Lisa, looks quite satisfied with herself, like she just polished off the rest of the lasagna but still has room for canoli.

Excuse me now while I cut myself another piece of this Entenmanns’s coffee cake before I continue. Ooh, that’s good…

The dining area. I’ve always liked all kinds of bars---the high brow, the low brow, the seedy and the sublime---they all have their distinct charm. I especially like the look and feel of a dark wood paneled, high ceilinged, old- fashioned barroom---the kind with big, ornately framed pictures on its walls complimented by sconces and dim lighting. I should note here that the current euphemism for ‘bar room’ is ‘bistro’ – it’s classier. “Would you like to join me for a few cocktails at the bistro?” sounds so much nicer than “Let’s pound down some frosty tall boys at McClancy’s bar.”

Brazilian artist Juarez Machado captures all the coziness and seductive ambience of the aforementioned bar- ahem—bistro--- in a piece with an appealing, slightly overhead perspective, aptly titled Bistro. The scene is perhaps reminiscent of an after theatre bar where smartly clad patrons show up to critique the night’s events while sipping their libations and keeping a lookout for who’s who. The piece makes me want to climb into it and sit back on a tufted bench and order a Scotch from one of the arm garter-wearing waiters. If you stare at this piece long enough, you will really feel like you’re in there. You may also hear a voice say, “Excuse me, if you’re going to hang around in this painting, you have to order a drink.”

The Bathroom. You may not think of this as a place for art, but let’s face it, we spend a lot of time in the bathroom, so why not make it interesting? Who wants to look at those same dumb watercolors of a bathtub and vanity that seem to be so popular amongst the masses. I’m already in the bathroom; I don’t need to be reminded that I’m in the bathroom. This was the only area where I diverted from Art.com. Instead, I took some vintage Florida postcards and framed them for a lovely vertical piece of artwork. I purchased the frame, which is specifically fashioned for 4”x 6” postcards from HomeGoods and the postcards I got at a yard sale.

The living area. Here dwells my main man and favorite artist, Jack Vettriano. Most of us are familiar with his wildly popular piece The Singing Butler that depicts a glamorous couple dancing on a beach while a maid and butler hold umbrellas over their heads to protect them from the rain. For this area, I wanted something with energy to keep the room alive and positive. Vettriano’s paintings are often romantic, filled with sexual tension and style that’s permeated with heavy atmosphere, irresistible gangster-like men and beautiful, seductive women. I chose a piece titled Lazy Hazy Days, which depicts a man riding his girl on the handlebars of his bicycle. The whole theme just seems so wonderfully old-fashioned. It gives me the feeling like sure, the man might be a mobster who may have whacked a few guys in his lifetime – maybe even some with his bare hands - but he still has a soft side and it isn’t beneath him to take his special girl for a romantic bike ride. Sigh.

The bedroom. This should be a place of tranquility, peace, harmony and/or spark.  For peaceful dreams, don’t allow anything visual that would negatively disturb the imagination, like pictures of your ex or an overdue FPL bill, before you drift off to dreamland.

According to Feng-Shui expert Marie Diamond, if you want romance in your bedroom you need to hang something “hot” in there, something that exudes passion, so take down the haloed Virgin Mother or the light-up Jesus on the Cross unless your plan is for nada nookie.

For my boudoir I have two paintings, one to get some peace and one to get a piece.

First, there’s a painting by one of the most famous and definitive portrait artists of the art deco period, Tamara de Lempicka. Tamara’s paintings with their distinctive angular look, vibrant colors and larger than life figures made her a sensation during the 1920s and ’30s. The piece in my bedroom is called La Dormeuse, and it is of a beautiful woman asleep. She sleeps undisturbed with perfect hair and her makeup intact. Just like me. Right.

Next, my man Jack Vettriano makes another appearance. I chose a piece called The Last Great Romantic, of a man and a woman about to be locked in a passionate kiss.
Vettriano gives me the feeling that true love still exists, that passion and romance are just around the corner, waiting to be discovered, and anyone lucky enough to have a computer and a credit card can order it for their wall.

And there you have it. I managed to redo my whole house for under $600, plus the cleaning person $65. I opted for the pricier canvas transfers, but like I said, you can order just the prints and frame them yourself, shaving at least $200 off your tab. Interesting and unusual frames are always making an appearance in thrift stores and consignment shops or even at weekend yard sales, so check around. You can have a houseful of beautiful art without breaking the bank.  Unless you’re into to Breaking the Bank, in which case there’s a print with just that title.