For years I have
been wrestling with a very basic question. Is style endemic or
can it be trained? Is it within us ready to appear or something
that needs to be shaped and refined? Those are hard questions
to answer. I see style as being taste but with edginess, an attitude,
an expression of self that says 'this is my house.'
I look back to my own
visual wasteland and am astonished that decorating became my work.
There was not a shred of evidence to suggest early on that this
might be an appropriate career for me. When a young girl, I had
little interest in my surroundings and even now I can't remember
the color of the bedroom where I spent my first 12 years. I draw
a blank about any details of the house except for the pull-down
attic stairs, which I found a bit frightening, and the white stone
exterior complete with white picket fence. The exterior of the
house represented entry to the neighborhood where my friends were.
That was worth remembering. .
When I was 12 years
old we moved to a wonderful brick Georgian house where my family
lived for the next 50 years. My bedroom was octagonal, a beautiful
room with windows on three sides overlooking an orchard. That
memory is revisionist; I never noticed. Where did I do my homework?
Did I have a desk? Did I have a reading chair? I can't recall.
Actually I can't remember
a single piece of furniture in the house except for the piano
in the living room and the telephone on the chest in the hall.
I can't conjure up a single wall color. Coupled with my indifference
to my surroundings was the chaos that permeated my room. Every
surface was spilling over with rejected outfits, clothes that
did not project whatever image I was trying to create at that
particular moment. The chaos concerned everyone but me. I didn't
choose to be oblivious; it just didn't seem important. Massive
disorder and visual blinders on my part paired to make an ominous
beginning for a decorator-in- training.
Fast Forward: I've
graduated from college, taken a secretarial job in New York City,
met and married a struggling, if not starving, artist. Together
we find a fifth floor walkup apartment in Brooklyn from which
I commute daily to my job in midtown Manhattan. My dowry had not
included the domestic arts but being married and having a place
of my own was the first defining moment in my visual awakening.
The apartment was small.
There were really only two decorating decisions to be made: furniture
selection with limited funds and furniture placement. Assuming
my new wifely role, I went confidently to select our furniture.
My choices were dictated by price, my goal was to find as much
as possible with the available monies. The first mistake on my
part was quantity over quality. My next mistake was the actual
selection, a pair of electric blue quite large Danish Modern chairs
and an Early American sofa in olive green and gold, complete with
wings and ruffled skirt. I sensed a problem with the color selection
but I thought I had a solution: three bath mats in electric blue,
olive and green. The other decision regarding furniture placement
was made simple because there was only one wall large enough to
accommodate this unusual assemblage. Lastly, there was the bridge
table with four folding chairs slated for the dining area. The
only significance of this revelation is that, finally, I had begun
to notice the things around me.
What to do with this
slightly elevated sensibility? I went often to department stores
contemplating purchases that were difficult to justify when money
for groceries was hard to find. I had already destroyed the budget
with those folding chairs and the dining chairs from Woolworth's.
Actually I thought that money (or lack thereof) was the missing
ingredient for a divinely attractive apartment. The problem was
more basic; I was still clueless.
Then there was the
other youthful hangover, total disorder. Even that had begun to
nudge my sensibilities but we had no chests of drawers, no cleaning
supplies and seemingly no aptitude for these chores. It is very
hard for me to conjure up the image of one (or, actually, both
of us) so domestically challenged; this image, however, was the
reality of marriage year in the first year.
When my husband started
getting some free lance work we were ready to leave Brooklyn for
Manhattan. With our increased income we found a grand apartment
in the then not so desirable Upper West Side. It had a big living
room with high ceilings, deep moldings, a beautiful fireplace,
an alcove (which became the studio) and a bedroom just large enough
to accommodate a bed. I was beginning to not only notice but to
actually value my surroundings. Two years prior 'found' money
represented an opportunity to buy a new sweater. Something for
the apartment, however, now supplanted personal adornment.
'Found money' allowed
the purchase of slipcovers for the Early American sofa and the
Danish Modern chairs. It had taken just a lunch hour to buy that
furniture but now weeks passed before we could decide on a color
scheme for the slipcovers. During this time, my husband continued
to build his portfolio, producing a fair amount of artwork for
our own decorative use. A very large painting of a nude hung over
the sofa and various other frameless images were propped up randomly.
My decorating efforts fell quite short of the apartment's potential
although good architecture enhanced my efforts.
Our stay in New York
was short lived. My husband had landed an art job in Connecticut
and I found a teaching job…briefly. My second visual awakening
was actually a convergence of two happenings: the termination
of a fledgling teaching career by Connecticut state law as I had
become pregnant and my mother's need for a day-a-week secretary
to help with her new career as a decorator.
My mother had become
an extremely accomplished decorator which was no surprise to anyone
who knew her. Everything about her was beauty, grace and style.
Unlike myself she had spent much of her childhood subliminally
preparing for her future avocation. She described hours on end
redecorating in her head the quite drab house where she grew up.
We bought our
first house, a small Victorian farmhouse, and had three babies
in rapid succession. In between births, however, the typing went
on. I was even beginning to talk in the highly arcane language
of decorators. Simply ordering a fabric had its own protocol:
check stock, put on reserve with a CFA, PO #, Ref #, sidemark,
etc., etc. Along with my new language, I was also being exposed
to the actual tools of the decorating trade as my mother sketched
out floor plans, worked from blueprints and made fabric selections.
She articulated instructions for workrooms with details I had
never contemplated such as ogee molding edges or a particular
finishing welt for upholstery. Then there were the field trips
we undertook to New York showrooms, antiques stores and custom
workrooms. Those planning sessions and field trips were the underpinnings
of my life long obsession and with my surroundings. This, then,
was the beginning of a career.
Learning
Style, Page Two>>
