East Coast part II

As I previously mentioned, Steady J and I stayed in New Hampshire with his cousin Ian. Shortly after we arrived, Ian and I started to talk about my blog and not buying stuff in general. Ian's a bit of a minimalist. We stayed in his living room, which is a room he doesn't actually use. He's basically set up his living area to consist of his bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/dining area. That area is cozy enough for him, making the living room just a repository of furniture and antiques that their uncle keeps hoisting on him, some of which are amazing examples of New England craftsmanship. If Ian was into furniture, he'd be set for life!

Instead of dreaming of a big house to fill with family heirlooms, Ian's planning to go in the other direction. He introduced me to The Small House Book, by Jay Shafer. The author designs and builds tiny houses, some of which are less than 100 square feet. All are adorable! Beyond the individual plans for all the small dwellings made by the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, the book contains interesting commentary about urban sprawl, and sheds light on all sorts of ridiculousness like land use laws requiring that houses be a minimum square footage (get around this by building your tiny house on a trailer bed).

The book is fascinating! The whole time I read through it and looked at the photos I wondered if I could ever live in something that small. Probably. But two people? I think that could get interesting! In the book, Shafer talks about planning your house to fit your needs, and in turn, reflecting on what it is that you actually need as opposed to want for the sake of convenience. To balance the idea of living with nothing, he also talks about the importance of keeping yourself comfortable. No need to give up your laptop - just make sure your tiny house has a place to store it when it isn't being used.

I was in Sweden last month and passed by a neighborhood of tiny houses. If the Swedes can do it, why can't these go big in the US? They have much more character than Katrina Cottages which were lauded as the answer to the FEMA trailer disaster that occurred in Louisiana post hurricane. I'd buy one (if I were buying new things).

East Coast part 1

The RockSteady and I recently took a holiday to the East Coast to see his old stomping grounds. You see, Steady J is a Mass Hole. That means that he is from Massachusetts. Get him with his people and the Rs start dropping, and everything becomes "wicked", (except it sounds more like "wikid".) Worcester becomes "Woosta", you go fishing in the "habaaaahhh" (harbor) and the Red Sox play in Fenway - home of the Green "Monstaaaaaaaa". And let me tell  you about driving. Massachusetts drivers are the most defensive I've ever seen, looking for any excuse to treat the turnpike like the Autobahn. In Oregon, Steady J rarely drives, and if he does, it is so slow that I sometimes wonder if he has spent so much time on a bike that he forgot how to use a car. But put Steady J in Massachusetts and he drives like a bean town native, too fast for me to take photos of town signs for places like Leominister ("Lemonster") and Redding ("Reading") or Athol ("Athall"- which sounds a lot like another word that I think is funny).

Anyway, while back east we attended the lovely wedding of Justin's childhood friend Chris to his lady fan Ashley in the college town of Keene, New Hampshire. To save ourselves the drive back to Massachusetts that evening, we stayed with Justin's cousin Ian who lives in Westmoreland, NH in a cool above garage apartment on a farm. 

Ian's front yard

On Sunday morning Steady J and Ian worked on Ian's bike and I wandered down the road to an art studio in an old New England farm house that we had passed earlier that day. What I found was the gallery of Arthur R. Herrick (1897 -1970), a painter who had focused on painting landscapes and farmhouses around Westmoreland during the 1950 and 1960s. I looked at the painting and stumbled upon a cutout of a newspaper article from the previous week explaining that the paintings were being sold by Anne Herrick, the painters grand daughter and that there are hundreds of them up for sale and auction! Correction: I heard back from Anne and she said that none of the paintings went to auction - each one was sold locally. As of today (October 18, 2010) she has only 12 paintings left - the rest found new homes. 

As I looked through the paintings, I started to notice that the people coming to view and buy the paintings were often members of the community - they knew the names of everyone else and were eager to search for paintings of their homes. On two occasions elderly farmers came in, blue coveralls and all, and went through the paintings explaining the farms they recognized and the family names of who lived there for generations. One old farmer looked at a painting and recognizing the road commented, "that farm house was where my wife was born and raised". Another pointed out that the pastoral farmhouse scene in another painting was actually the county poor farm. It was so fascinating to hear their stories of which families lived where and how the village had changed.

Eventually I made my way over to the woman I assumed to be Anne and I asked her about the selling of her grandfather's work. She explained that the farmhouse belonged to her family, and when her grandfather died in 1970, her parents opened a gallery of his works on their property. Anne recently inherited the house and gallery from her parents, but she lives and works as an architect in Seattle (funny to find another Pacific Northwest resident on a country road in New Hampshire) so she is preparing the house and gallery/studio space to be sold. All of her grandfather's paintings need to go, except of course, the paintings that she decided to keep for herself. The fact that there are hundreds of paintings means that this is an incredible undertaking which will take months.  

As I walked back to reunite with the gents, I reflected on the accumulation of stuff, especially art. I come from an artistic household and I understand the habit of keeping the pieces you really like, and also needing to keep a large amount of art as inventory if you are receiving your livelihood from sales. But what happens later, after you are gone from this world and there is still a house full of your creativity and hand rendered records of your experiences? Without the context provided by the artist, how would anyone understand the true meaning of the piece and why it was held onto? Maybe the answer is just to disperse your art as much as possible? Seeing the excitement of the community to own artistic renderings was interesting - would they have been equally excited to have owned the pieces fifty years ago when they were painted? Maybe. It's hard to tell! I would assume that long ago they had the opportunity - perhaps the wealth to buy art just wasn't there at that time? In any case, I'm thinking now about the art I have, the art I make and the art I hold on to. I'm also thinking that I want to know more about the art that my mom has in her house. What pieces does she love? Why? What would she want to keep in the family, and what could be offered to others?

It's been a good exercise in thought.