Home is Where the House Is

As many of you might be aware, I pride myself on being an original, some would call it an eccentric. To me it all feels perfectly natural, and if you were to gaze at me superficially, I most probably on the outside appear to be quite normal, successful, and happy. It would appear that I have it all. On a later date I can explain why appearance can be deceptive, and why I appear as I do, but this is not even the first sentence to the prologue of this story, so I better get on with it.

You see I have always loved houses. I easily could have been an architect, a furniture designer, or a woodworker. I love jointery and how things fit together perfectly and permanently.

So, in the early seventies, with a small inheritance from my grandmother, I started to restore an 18th Century sea captains house on the Connecticut coast. It was a very modest house with an old boathouse attached to the back which we made into a kitchen. There was also a small cow barn which a few years later I made into my studio and darkroom.

Now here comes the kicker that I expect very few Americans to understand. We live in a land where everything is speculation, ease of mobility, transition, status and a means to a larger end. As I see it, very few Americans invest their soul in their houses, keeping them simply houses rather than a home.

To be perfectly clear, I am not talking about raising children in a house, living in one place for a number of years, feeling security and comfort that a roof provides, or enjoying the neighborhood and friends. I am talking about something that is completely different.

You might think that the qualities described above distinguish a home from a house, but for me they do not. What I am talking about is analogous to a mother’s eternal and uninhibited love for her child. If there is one place that remains in this culture where emotion, passion and feeling are still expressed openly, it is in a mother’s love for her child.

Now my home (for better or probably for worse) is my life. If I open my front door to you (which today is a totally different house and place, which I will talk about more at a later date) I am opening my soul to you for scrutiny. I have invested the very fiber of my being in the details before you.

I have allowed you to enter a very private domain, the hidden recesses of my emotional life.

Now here lies the problem, most Americans do not have a clue what I am talking about. My house today is a far grander and perhaps a more beautiful home than my earlier house, but the same held true then as it does today. It is my belief that as most people walk through this beautiful house, they are probably figuring it’s financial worth as they walk from room to room, thinking who decorated it (my wife and I did). Their thoughts are about as deep as what’s it’s value and it’s location.

My home is like my pictures, invested with my very soul. People often comment about this. Obviously this makes perfect sense. Both have my complete emotional commitment. My home is a very special place. It is a holy space. I would hope that if one every comes to my home and studio, they would feel like they had been invited to a Japanese tea ceremony: delicate, yet requiring and being made aware that what is given requires a reciprocal response.

Although my home and my pictures are expensive, they represent the large library that is me. They are deep, rich in tonal detail. And Oh, how I hope more beautiful than words.