On the couch with Jasminda

DEAR Jasminda,

OUR home was adorned with beautifully framed photographic memories of our travels and adventures.

Over the past few visits from in-laws, these memories have all been replaced with watercolours.

Is this something to embrace or something to mourn?

Brett P.

Dear Brett,

What an unusual conundrum.

Are you suggesting your in-laws are perhaps moving in by stealth?

Were you in the house as your father-in-law took down an image of you and your wife immersed in the Holy Springs of Tirta Empul in Bali and replaced it with two pink magnolias on an aqua background?

Does he ask you to hold the spirit level as he double-checks the vertical and horizontal alignment of ‘Cows at Dusk’ where (due to your photographic ingenuity) a photo that looked as though you were holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa with your big toe previously hung?

Has the maternity series of your wife wearing nothing more than a strategically-placed pashmina been superseded with ‘Copper Mine in Industrial Arizona – a triptych’.

Art is a very subjective thing, Brett, as you have made clear.

And though I’m sure the watercolours have been gifted through an abundance of love (and perhaps pride if your mother- or father-in-law is the artist) a boundary has been crossed.

There are a couple of options here.

You can return your artworks to your walls and (prior to their next visit) you can replace some (but not all) of the watercolours.

Alternatively, you can apply the ‘Let Them’ theory coined by Mel Robbins, and slow-boil like a frog steeped in passive-aggressive broth.

Or you could always try behavioural mirroring.

Next time you visit your in-laws, go armed with some gifts (pre-prepared with double-sided adhesive). A limited-edition print of MONA’s famed vulva wall or Joseph Beuys’s ‘How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare’ (1965) would no doubt complement your mother-in-law’s pastel-hued sitting room.

Carpe diem,
Jasminda.