I'm still working in my art journal.....
"cut and paste" a life!
In current magazines, this photo kept "jumping" out at me and "pulling" me into it.
The reason is, it is so much like the dining room of our old farm house.
Our house was designated as "the green house that sits in the middle of the road" (the road forked right in front of our place, one direction taking you to the Ouachita river for fishing and the other to a Reynold's aluminum plant about 3 miles away.)...it was also called "the old Sears house".
Whoever built it had ordered a house kit from Sears and Roebuck! ( From 1908–1940, Sears, Roebuck and Company sold more than 100,000 homes through their mail-order Modern Homes program.)
When we lived there, it still had the dark Craftman-style woodwork and windows and doors placed exactly like in this photo (color photo above) from the magazine...so the light from the south and the east flooded in in just this way. [We didn't have that '"box beam" ceiling!]
I started art courses the summer I was 15, and did sketches of the living room (you see how tolerant my mother was, she let me set my paintings right there on the living room floor ....along with the TV?...can't remember why that was on the floor...but decorating was not a high priority with my sweet mom...she had made the drapes when we first moved in and bought the room carpet to warm up the old hardwood.)
Notice how the front door is crammed into the corner and the molding is cut off...just like the door (which would have been our kitchen door) in the photo from the magazine? In my sketch, you can also see a bit of the tree filled landscape out the front window......
'Though I was very much a "house-mouse"...the outdoors was filled with "killer mosquitos" for one thing; I did go out long enough to make a sketch of the corral and barn which were next to the house....my father and siblings spent a lot of time in this world...Mom and I were usually in the house!
About 20 years ago, "the old Sears house" burned down. My sister and her family had been living there. My niece went to school in the morning, only to ride the bus home to a world in ashes.
8 comments:
Craftsman style homes have such character. Your old home was lovely....How sad that it burned!
Your sketches of your old home are just wonderful. I think the Craftsman style is so comfortable and homey feeling, and that dining room is beautiful.
It's sad that your old home is gone, but is nice that you have drawings that you can look back on. Nicer than photos in a way..
I like the craftsman style, and the picture you journalled is timeless.
xx
I drove to work one day and never saw my home again. It burned later that morning. My husband wouldn't let me go back and look. I was 8 months pregnant at the time and I think he thought the shock would cause me to lose my baby. But here we are, almost 25 years in our snug 1929 stucco bungalow with an almost-25-year-old daughter!
The sketches of your old home are just wonderful, Lila. I'm sorry to hear that it is gone now.
Kelli
I've read and heard about the "Sears House" on History Dectives on PBS. It was a fun documentary. And you've lived in one. How cool is that? Very!
I enjoyed seeing those sketches from your early teen years! There is an earnest quality there that is hard to reproduce in later years. Am I right?
Those old Sears-Roebuck houses are wonderful. I've only seen a few, and they fascinate me.
I'm so sorry that your home burned down. What a shock and a loss.
I'm back in BlogLand now. I hope you can visit my new and improved blog. I look forward to more of your gentle and artful entries.
G and I both just love Craftsman Style homes. When I lived with my roommates in Mpls the dining room of our house was very close to that photo but we also had a built-in buffet.
I am amazed at your sketches and that they depict your home in a way that came from your core when you did them. Terribly sad it burned down.
XOXO
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