I just had a moment to sit with my last issue of American Bungalow. Yes, it was due to be removed from the store shelves a few days ago, and being that it is a quarterly publication, you can see that life has gotten the better of me. Yes, I paid bills and have laundry in, so it's not an entirely indulgent moment, but at least it was a moment.
People have asked me about my fascination with the Arts and Crafts era and why it got started. I can say I have NO idea. I am caught up by the revival that has lasted nearly 3 times longer than the original period. If I was a new ager, I suppose I could say something like, "Well, in one of my past lives I was a finish carpenter in Oak Park, and moved to Pasadena to hone my craft." I do not have family that ever owned, (that I recollect) a bungalow, although I am sure my grandfather probably built several in his carpentry years in the San Gabriel Valley. My cousin recently sent me some old family photos, and there are several that I wish I could get past the people subjects and get in the doors of the homes behind them. Wonderful period homes that I am sure people thought were humble and plain at the time.
What is it about the architecture, textures, hues, and warmth that is so appealing? Properly done, I would guess most people would think it looks like someone's grandmother's house. As it should. But as mid-century and danish modern streamlined the American home style, it left no room for hand rubbed oak, and chenille-covered feather beds, and inglenooks with crackling fires and creaky wooden rockers strewn with quilts, and hand painted landscapes, and kitchens with banquettes waiting for hungry children to devour the day's baking. The deep colors and soft warmth faded into bright, sleek, and stainless brilliance that attacks the eyes and makes the heart feel clinical.
The foreword in the magazine made me cry. The author ventures to his childhood bungalow as safe haven from a power failure. His mother is gone, hopefully home with the Lord as has mine, but he is recalling the safety of the home and the memories it holds. I don't have such a place, well, not a physical one, but I could visualize the warmth he felt returning to his mother's home. The walls were his private historian, psychiatrist, and rampart.
I'm not one to say that things or items are really important, but I do say that the feelings evoked from them are incredibly important. The older I get, the more I long for that feeling of simplicity. Maybe that is why I love the Craftsman era. Many people stopped and took notice that their surroundings were so much better if they mimicked nature and the good and pleasant things that God had already designed. How is it that we want to create things that are so far removed from His design?
In a recent tour of the Gamble House, the docent was saying (which I had heard before) that there are no right angles in the home anywhere. Everything is eased off (with great effort), including all the paving bricks in the drive. EVERYTHING. There are no right angles in nature, and so the Greene brothers followed that design element. It just feels... right.
I have always said that I want a sunny bungalow kitchen with a very large lady (think Esther Rolle) standing there in a crisp floral apron, making some sort of summer salad with fruits and marshmallows, and when you come in, she hugs you until you disappear. Maybe that's my version of heaven? Perhaps. Maybe it is like The Shack? LOL. I don't know.
But I do want to know how we return to that. I am not interested in taking the whole world with me. I'm ok with this being a private affair. But I don't want to be questioned and asked to explain why I love it so much. It's just me. And since I myself don't have any right angles, I guess it just fits.
