Armchair adventurer

I confess. I'm addicted. If I buy one more Côte Sud, Elle Deco, Maison Francaise, Arts & Décoration, Ambiances, Campagnes Décoration, Mon Jardin or any other French decorating or art magazine, I'm going to need another house to store them in.  With magazines perched on coffee tables, bookshelves, even stacked under the bed, I've run out of space. Now, I've begun now to collect links to blogs on design, especially French design, with the same obsession the caused the overflow of magazines.  You can't hold a link the way you can hold the slick paper and satisfying weight of a magzine, but you don't have to dust them, either. This fascination with the decorative arts isn't new.  In fact, I've been interested in design, including French design, for as long as I can remember. 


I suspect, if I'd been better in math, I would have been an architect.  When other little girls were snuggling baby dolls or playing house, I was designing mine -- drawing floorplans with crayons and imagining castles with rainbow roofs. 

Salon, Le Clair de la Plume

As an adult, this love for interior design and decorative art translated into serial home buying. I found great fun in the first house I ever bought -- a plain wooden box -- that I gussied up with a pretty interior and flowery garden, sold at a nice profit to buy another one and begin decorating again.  Six houses and 18 years later, I'm still having fun and in the three years since I bought my home in France, I've just had a blast filling it. 


Furnishing a house is less about acquiring objects than it is about acquiring knowledge.  I've bought  little, but learned much.  I've learned to identify French furnishings by name, the way some people can identify birds -- the delicate Saint Hubert, the diminuitive bonneterie, the difference between a Bergere, Voltaire and Louis XIV.  I've discovered an ancient, Rube Goldberg-style factory in Provence where a brother and sister are the last to maintain a 19th century tradition of hand making brightly-hued coconut fiber rugs. I've met painters and potters and professors of decorative arts who were kind enough to explain the influence of nature in 17th and 18th Provencal architecture. Being an eager, appreciative student seems to bring out the teacher in everyone I meet. So the search for a single chair becomes an excuse to meet people who share my passion,  a chance to explore new corners of Provence, a key to learning more about the history and culture of France, an adventure.  I take my time; each piece has a story.  And I have many more stories than any single house could ever hold. 


Provence is a paradise for people passionate about decorative arts.  You don't need to be in Paris to have access to fantastic museums filled with beautiful objects and generous curators willing to share their knowledge. There's no better place for open-air markets, amazing out-of-the-way antiquaires and brocantes, the serendipitous greniers vides.   In the next few posts, I'm going to share some of what I've learned and hope that I'll hear from others who share my interest in art, decor and my deep affection for France.
.