Did you know that the word tear sheet excists since ca 1924 in the Webster Dictionary?
noun) "Inspirational image torn or cut from magazine or book. Tear sheets can also be a designer's work shown in magazine editorial or ...
For many years I have ransacked magazines, books and places for pictures and colours to remember. I love collecting them, mull them over regardless of the time which has passed since I found them. Some are more then 25 years old...
The first picture ever I remember pulling out of a magazine was a photo depicting a lovely young woman holding two little boys by their collars, she bohemian in a scruffy overall, boots and a woolen beret, the boys with newspaper boy caps, walking down a country lane, laughing. It became my dream image of myself in years to come. I felt she resembled all my longing at the time. She was free and happy and confident. Everything I was not at age 14!
I don't know exactly where it is, but I still have it somewhere in piles of tear sheets. It was the beginning of a livelong fascination and collection!
Years later I was a mother of two little boys, but then life handed me much more then I could have ever imagined.
The boys and me in France circa 1991.
Years later after a new start in a new country I began thinking of a place I could finally call home, a place to put down roots. A house to raise the family and to live with the man of my dreams.
I began collecting images of houses and rooms and gardens. Plans were made and the exciting process started. This house has since then become my haven, the place I reflect upon, the place I never really want to leave and can't wait to return to when I am away. It holds me, protects me when I feel weak and lifts my mood when I am distressed. Living here with my family makes me happy.
It reminds me every day of all the years we have lived here already, scences and situations, memories of small children now growing up very fast!
All four of them 9 years ago in our garden...
Like the proverbial parent I helicopter over the place, plan on changes, renovations and try to keep the place up to my current standards...The house is patient and unlike teenage children or a husband (or myself for that matter) takes critisism gracefully and with humour. It takes a lot of beating too. I have hundreds of images stored away holding my dreams for improvement...
Which does not mean that I am not critical...or on the lookout for dream houses to move into...Am I cheeting?
Of course many inspirations will never be realized, they stay where the are, in a folder on the computer or in my memory.
Some become transformed for clients. Project 2007/08
Some stay forever and hold my dreams.
Some might be the stuff of future changes...
And a lot is just lovely to look at!
But all of them have been part of my education, forming the style and taste I am after. Those tear sheets now hold more then inspirations, they carry memories too. I love dreaming and changing and living in this house, it is constantly moving along with us, reflecting our family life, holds tears and laughter, being the hub of the gang, the place we call HOME!
May your home be your castle!
XX
Victoria
Pictures by V.Zlotkowski, via Veranda, flickr, House and Home and bathroom picture via James Tse (Flickr?),the book 'Glamour - making it modern'.
