Building rural

I am really enjoying Adam Nicholson's Sissinghurst An Unfinished History. Well written with a bit about Vita, a bit about garden history, alot about environmentalism in the realm of historic preservation and alot about the reality of our world agriculturally and how drastic we have let it change in the last two centuries.

Building a love of buildings

I have just survived the birthday party for the giant teenager (thirteen) a delightful all girl affair and I am remembering all the pretty parties, cupcakes and stories of "little girlness". While cleaning up I found my copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Racketty-Packetty House. The story of two doll house families, one wealthy and brand new and one many times used and pushed behind the nursery door. I wonder if this is the origin of my secret hope to be a marxist decorator-if one is reading about class wars in Victorian dollhouses at a young age it must have some effect.

Building books

I am fascinated by the work of Irma Boom lately. I normally don't indulge in graphic design-its a heady expertise that I don't quite have the bandwidth for. But it seems that she is building books, thinking through scale, form and performance to a fine result.

Library building......

Trying to decide if I NEED this book. I wholly respect McMakin's work to the point of envy. Concerned that looking at his work will influence me too greatly????

Library building......

Had a fine time at the Mass Moca book store this book is very inspiring- all sorts of ways to make drawings..... And Mad and I found a very fine bookstore in Williamstown.

Building summer reading.................

Look what's first on the reading stack this summer a book about Mark Twain AND local food! My heart be still. Thank you author Andrew Beahrs for the perfect combination.........

Building the Country

Reading a very fine book. Betsy Ross and the Making of America by Marla Miller. Not exactly beach reading but definitely summer week of thunderstorms. Its really is about American design-carefully detailing the rise of the artisan class in Philadelphia before the Revolution. I highly recommend it.

Building 'I Wants"

We are in the middle of a BIG move-studio-move half house-crazy move. And through it all I seem to have this deep desire to buy (during a move one needs to BUY ANYTHING) this book-
Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts, because why, because I need to wrap a branch and make fabric flowers.... Anyone have it? What do we think?

Library building......

We got to spend some quality time at Octavia Books off Magazine..... one book for daddy, one book for the girl and two books for Mommy!

The epic building........

Today is my birthday and Caleb gave me the amazing three volume set of Robert Polidori's documentation of the restoration of Versailles. I can not wait to stop working this evening and turn the pages...

Gift Building 9

If you have a great friend who has been there for you for all your creative endeavors-this is the book to share with them. And yes, I am a little star struck because I meet the author Rachel Cohen last month at BAM. This book will answer all your questions about a friendship truly being about creative work.

Gift Building 8

I think I will make a drawing for Caleb and get a used copy of this book for him. Madeline and I read it for the mother /daughter book club and it made our heart soar. I learned so much about parenting and being in the world. I would like to share it with my other best friend.

Gift Building 6

Another "for smart people gift" is the legendary literary magazine The Oxford American. Get the current music issue with the accompanying CD and go for a Low carbon road trip-so cool.



image by Mando Alvarez

Gift Building 4

I am going to give a few people subscriptions to A Public Space...our favorite Brooklyn based literary magazine. Unbeknownst to editor Brigid Hughes I read the poetry!

Gift Building

Okay, Count down to Christmas...I have a very mixed relationship to gifts at Christmas-its more my style to present someone with something in July since it reminded me of them. But for the sake of my daughter and trying to tone down all the weird things I do-I will present you with Twelve days of holiday gifts. I would love to get for friends and family historians this ten volume set of architectural history of the south by the famous Beehive Foundation. Beautifully made, they remind me of why I wanted to be an architect.

Building drawings

Final projects are due for the furniture class in a few weeks and we have been enjoying gaining inspiration from this book: The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book. Beautifully rendered plates show dimensions and specifications for the 18th century's best in furniture.

Library Building

Just back from a trip to NYC with students and why do we travel? "To go to book stores!" I found the dream book.....The Candida Hofer In Portugal at Potterton Books-a favorite book store. This book makes you want to jettison all of your shelter magazines and just look at interiors through the eyes of Hofer-what if she was the only one to photograph interiors?...so beautiful.

Fiction Building

My summer is officially over so I thought I would share my real reading list. It's strange for me for those of you that know me but I enjoyed the change. Respectively, one I found annoying, one I found endearing and one made me love stories again.......

Building Place

I am revisiting this book while I am up here. The Lure of the Local by Lucy Lippard. Its about place and its impact on work that is done in the art world. I have always been taken with it because of its design or organization; very dense "art talk " text through the middle of the book and up at the very top in another type there is a running narrative about her summers in Maine. Isn't that the way life is - that tiny narrative at the top of the page.....

Book (hunting) Building

You know how all travel is a means to an end for the search for the perfect Book store. I might have found it (sorry Square Books in Oxford) Left Banks Books in Searsport, Maine is a small little room where the books seem to be curated. I picked up a copy of Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding, and Seven Ages of Paris by historian Alistair Horne. And I did take a look at Ruin: Photographs of a Vanishing America by Brian Vanden Brink. A book where it seemed that half of the buildings were in Mississippi and the other half are in Maine.