Rooms That Hold More Than They Show

In my living room, three paintings hang together — all of bars and restaurants I’ve been to. The colour palettes are similar, but not the same. Above each painting hangs an animal mask: a cat, a unicorn, and a gorilla. Their mouths move when you speak — which I still tell guests about with far too much excitement.

This is how I decorate. With personality. With humour. With things that feel like me.

I am not a minimalist. Minimalism may feel modern, but it makes me uncomfortable — like a blank canvas with no clear path on what to fill it with. I love warmth. Colour and light. Detail. The feeling of history and time. I like walking into a room and sensing it has lived a life before I arrived — that someone’s personality is woven into the walls, that you can understand a little more about them just by being there.

All three of these places share that same sense of warmth and history.

In each painting, there are empty seats. They’ve become a quiet theme in my interiors. To me, they represent connection — an invitation to sit down. Possibility. You never quite know what might happen once you take a seat somewhere. Sometimes, in my experience, it becomes much more than food and a drink.

Stretta — Valletta, Malta

The first painting is of The Kennedy Bar on Strait Street in Valletta — historically nicknamed “The Gut.” I love that.

Strait Street was once Malta’s entertainment district, especially during the time of the British naval presence. Sailors, soldiers, musicians, and locals all passed through that narrow corridor. There are stories that knights fought duels there long before that — centuries layered into one street.

It fell quiet for a time before being revived in the 2000s.

When I look at The Kennedy Bar, I see that history seeping through. I can almost hear glasses clink and laughter spill into the street. That tiled floor — I still wonder when it’s from. The 1950s? The ’60s? Earlier? I think about who walked across it and what conversations unfolded there.

I’m drawn to places that don’t erase what came before.

Last Call — The Gem Bar & Grill

The middle painting is Last Call. Those stools were where my husband Ryan and I parked ourselves regularly starting in 2011 — earlier for him. It was our spot.

Each time we went, we’d guess what was new or what had been moved. We even brought back small things from our travels to add to the space. It became our second home. The staff, regulars, and owner became friends.

It was set to turn 40 in 2024, but in late 2023 there was a fire — hence the name, and the time on the clock. When I heard they weren’t reopening, I started this painting almost immediately. It was my way of making the Gem permanent in the only way I could.

Those stools aren’t just furniture — they’re memory. Conversations. Laughter. Ordinary nights that mattered more than we realized. It reminds me how impermanent life is.

Sometimes painting is how I hold onto something.

Movers & Shakers — Toronto

The third is Movers & Shakers, inspired by Shaker’s Club in Toronto. It was packed when we arrived, and we were lucky to get a seat. People came and went quickly.

I usually remove people from my paintings, often taking them out of my references. But here the two figures felt part of the room — not the subject, just belonging to it.

It felt warm the moment we walked in. The decor had that vintage diner energy — old signage, furniture from another time, and those tiles that instantly reminded me of the mall near where I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s. Something about them hit me in a very specific way.

I became a little obsessed with the small details — the cans and bottles lined up behind the bar. Once I started painting them, I remember thinking, why am I doing this to myself? They took so much time. But they each had their own quiet beauty. The same thing happened when I painted The Gem. I get pulled into the details.

There’s something about honouring those small, ordinary objects that feels important to me. They’re part of the atmosphere. Part of the memory. Part of why the room stays with me.

I’m not painting architecture. I’m painting the feeling of being inside a place that mattered.

I’m drawn to rooms like this — places layered with history, warmth, and personality. Spaces where you can feel that other lives have passed through before you, and where something unexpected might still happen.

When these paintings hang together in my living room, they remind me that connection is rarely dramatic. It’s built in small moments — in a shared seat, in a lingering conversation, in the details most people walk past.

That’s what keeps showing up in my work.

The possibility inside an empty chair. The comfort of history still visible in the walls.

And that’s the kind of warmth I want to live with.