A good friend of mine and incredible photographer, owns an old farmhouse nearby. In the past, when I have wanted to find interesting locations to photograph artwork, we have explored every INCH of her old picturesque house. My favorite recollection is when we peeked into a hidden crawlspace and discovered (oh, lordy!) some exposed old wooden lath as well as some dangling
shreds of old sepia-toned wallpaper. Soon, BOTH of us crawled inside, along with her big camera, and crouched there (nose to nose) , setting up the props for the photo. As we refined the shot, she remembered that she had an old-fashioned rotary fan somewhere in the house — and did I agree that it would also be fabulous as part of the set-up? Yes indeed. So……..she wiggled out, I wiggled out, she found the fan, and we both crouched back inside the space, and completed the shot. We giggled like fiends, and that photograph is one of the best shots in the whole book. I still look at it with great fondness, remembering how that unexpected glimpse of the old WALL PAPER sparked all those great ideas.

I particularly like the cobalt blue and white delicate floral from the 1820s, so pretty.

Many thanks as usual GA for your thoughtful and imaginative writing, it is life enhancing.

The broken pottery pieces brought back memories. My family lived in a house 2 streets away from the pottery in Scotland that was famous for making Wemyss Ware. The designer was Bohemian and had lived in a house in the next street to us. The pottery is long gone now, the designs are reproduced by a company called Griselda Hill Pottery, but you can see originals in Kirkcaldy Museum. When my dad died we inherited the house and we used to churn up old broken pieces of Wemyss Ware and other assorted pottery that was made when we were digging in the vegetable garden. It felt like finding buried treasure, I used to put them on the kitchen windowsill with seashells from the beach.