Inspiration

The following book was transformative for us as writers, creative people and fellows on the search to find and make "home"- and inspired the ideas behind this blog. It also helped us to find our own artistic voices and confidence in a unique point of view, sparked the groundwork of projects and plans, and best of all, fired a creative spark:

Home: 50 Tastemakers Describe What it Is, Where it is, What it Means
What Our Homes Really Mean to Us
By Stafford Cliff



In this book, the author of The Way We Live interviews a vast number of design professionals about their own personal idea of home and how their professional work/esthetic applies to their personal space (or often, is very different.) Along the way, a philosophical viewpoint is developed as these subjects reminisce, remember, reclaim, reject, or develop their deepest feelings and ideas about home and its deep rooting in  personal identity. Happiness, enthusiasm, purpose, frustration, family, career, and the place of our home in everything is delicately and candidly explored. The veneer of wealth and big names is stripped away as the reader gets a window into the formative years of life that created the successful designers interviewed. Happy or unhappy childhoods, in/stability, family dynamics and money are all investigated in such a compelling fashion that we see past the labels, into the private worlds, and connect to the core ideas of self and the complicated and amazing elements that make up the ways we live. Home is a design philosophy book as well as collection of artist/creative/designer/leadership profiles that is a valuable and engaging must-read.

For younger creatives or anyone considering a career in some aspect of design as well as for book collectors and casual readers, this book is an amazing addition to your research and collection. We feel in the moments of reading it as if there is no other book we need in the world. It's instructive, but also cautionary. It's full of candid, free speech that reassures that people, families, and children all share essential qualities and challenges, ups and downs and that purpose filled lives can take on many forms. Creativity is as important as the inflexible notions of connections or wealth or name. Home is deeply empowering and insightful, drawing on ideas from editors, home product designers, architects, social commentators, chefs, Cultural activists, and "rock stars" of other worlds that are so much more compelling than the dull elite of modern celebrity lifestyle media productions that pass for culture too often.

We discovered this now-treasured book second hand, and by accident. This book is available through the usual bookselling resources.


HOME

50 Tastemakers Describe What it is, Where it is, What it Means


 Paperback , 256 pages
ISBN: 9781579653491 (1579653499)
Published by Artisan
$25.95(US) $33.95(CAN
http://www.workman.com/products/9781579653491/
Stafford Cliff: Author of Home, The Way We Live and More
"Intimate photographs and stories reveal the private spaces of public figures. Whether it's the memory (or fantasy) of our childhood home, or the place we decorate, show off, work from, or take refuge in as adults, it's always rich with meaning or fraught with intent. To understand it better, 50 remarkable people of our time, many of whom have made their mark in the fields of architecture, home design, and the decorative arts, open their homes and their hearts to the subject. Their emotional responses—rich with design ideas, thought-provoking philosophies, and surprising obsessions and eccentricities—both fascinate and inspire.Home is full of : clever design ideas, innovative philosophies, and endless enthusiasm. "


Book Contributors: Jasper Conran, Paul Smith, Donatella Versace, Celia Birtwell, Donna Hay, Andree Putman, Vladimir Kagan, Nick Ashley, Li Edelkoort, Nate Berkus, Michael Graves, Kit Kemp, Jane Northumberland, Richard West, Piet Hein Eek, Sue Timney, Lulu Guiness, David Rockwell, Doug Wright, Julian Fellowes, Isabella Blow, Craigie Aitchison, Martin Waller, Tracey Emin, Jonathan Miller, Tommy Hilfiger, Anne Visser, Sebastian Coe, David Adjaye, Kenzo Takada, David Clarke, Ingo Maurer, Susan Collier, Catherine Levy, John Pawson, Xavier Lust, Joan Kron, Tahir Shah, Peter York, Paola Navone, Ingo Maurer, Fergus Henderson, Timothy Hill, Barbara Hulankicki
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