Tasteful Tart buys a house

I’ve been a bad blogger.  

I’ve been trying to buy a house and oh my goodness what a to-do that is.  Time consuming is an under estimation.  Stressful, compromising and expensive is the upshot, but to finally be the proud owner of an 1857 federal style home is my triumph.  Not only this but I also get to reside in the lovely community of Buchanan MI……where the hell is that you say?  It’s 90 miles from Chicago, inland from the lake, a river town with lots of history.  I will be posting more in stages about the work on my house and history on the home and the area.  For now, here are some pictures of the house as it is now.

And what does this have to do with food you say?  I will be building my own kitchen. The original kitchen is tiny so I will be moving it into the dining room and converting the kitchen that was into a laundry/pantry room.  I have a certain struggle with the fact that the rooms have so many windows (oh poor me) so configuring appliances is going to be complicated but I have the benefit of brilliant local minds.  Alan Robandt, a former Chicago antique dealer,  now located on Front Street Buchanan, is a gentleman, a scholar and a pioneer and who I have to thank for inviting me to town; William Cameron, an architect; Pam O’Connor, historic preservationist and Peter Lysy, an archivist at Notre Dame University. If it weren’t for the interest and support from these people I don’t think this new venture of mine would have happened.

So, here’s some pictures of the house to be mine and check back in for updates to the development of a kitchen built from used and vintage furniture.

 

 

 

Rations

All photos © Derek Richmond 2008
Derek Richmond, a multi-faceted, cerebral and sensitive photographer who consistently spurs me on to think about creating personal work outside of my mostly full-time styling career engendered this post.  Given a precious Saturday or Sunday I curl up at home or in the bookstore and let my brain run amok, forgetting the travails of daily life to immerse myself in mental masturbation.  In thanks to him I post this blog entry.

Browsing through food magazines, trying to come up with said concept for a new photo shoot I came across a double page of two adverts; one a very foodie Jamie Oliver ad and the other showing a dirty post meal plate (I forget the advertiser).  For some reason this juxtaposition struck me and I began to think about the have’s and the have nots. In the strange way one’s mind works I started musing upon rationing in England during WWII.  It occurred to me that no matter what material riches a person might have had, the lack of available food created a democracy amongst people.  The following series of images were borne from this idea.  Basic foodstuff (tinned sardines, smelt, corned beef, evaporated milk, canned spinach, smoked fish, jello) juxtaposed with luxury  material items.  Enjoy.