A couple of months ago, I was searching for a link to the artist who painted the work pictured above my shoulder in the last post which we bought in 2009.

I knew that she was no longer practising, but I was astonished to come across this gorgeous work on an auction site which sold for $200 in 2012! Her works of this size were going for at least 12x as much at the time we bought ours. We would have loved a much larger piece but had no space at all for one in the old flat.

So naturally I immediately signed up to the auction site to set up an alert for any further items that might pop up. Sadly this has not yet lead to a $200 miracle.

What did happen was that I was sent a voucher for $40 off my first purchase. And I was clearly helpless in the face of this.

There’s lots of art and lots of auctions on that site. I must have looked though hundreds of paintings, some quite terrible. I was very, very taken with one work. It reminded me of raindrops against our lounge-room window at night, which I think is really lovely and soothing (except for the leaking). But I dithered and it finished without a winner.

When it was relisted, there was nothing for it but to pull the trigger. $89 (less $40, plus 22% buyers premium, plus delivery) later and I was the proud owner of a new artwork. An artwork which I had absolutely no place for. But hey, hopefully I was supporting an indigenous artist.

I don’t know what prompted me to drag it out and tape it to the wall in the lounge, but it was a pretty genius strategy. It was the perfect place.

Eventually we took it to our favourite framer who was having a 20% off framing sale.

I am totally and utterly in love with it.

And because we were in the mood, it triggered a very small avalanche of other acquisitions, but more about those later.