victoria thorne: mary randolph carter

Showing posts with label mary randolph carter. Show all posts

3.10.14

The Holiday Keeper: Never Stop to Think... Do I Have A Place For This?

Time to start thinking about what to get for those we love.

The book at the top of the list: Never Stop to Think...Do I Have A Place For This?

Mary Randolph Carter continues to show us how to live with what we love, and rejoice in it. How to share- with panache- the memories: how to make room for new ones. How to honor the past and delight in the present.

Illuminating each space in her inimitable way, the author guides the reader through extraordinary dwellings and collections that fire the imagination.

A book to be adored, thumbed through incessantly, and referred to often. A holiday keeper.

MARY RANDOLPH CARTER: NEVER STOP TO THINK...DO I HAVE A PLACE FOR THIS?

PHOTOS: CARTER BERG

13.6.14

never stop to think...do i have a place for this?

"They thought
that hereafter they would be Thing-Finders every
single day." Pippi Longstocking

It is not always easy, in a world full of minimalists, to declare oneself a Thing-Finder. After all: in the finding there is sometimes keeping. The keeping is part of the joy. And the keeping hasn't much to do with quenching the thirst to minimize.

There's a new book about keeping, and it's written by someone who knows, better than just about anyone, how to find a place- an inspiring and perfectly imperfect place- for the things that we love.

Mary Randolph Carter may be the patron saint of Thing-Finders. Reading her books makes me feel like the world is exactly as it ought to be. Here is a place for those of us who know the thing we are set to find, the very thing we need, is right around the corner. (And, conversely, know that all that truly matters is never a thing, but love- a heart that beats for it, a home- and the life we choose to create with care and generosity.)

Never Stop To Think...Do I Have A Place For This?

Mary Randolph Carter

top photo: Mary Randolph Carter

21.3.11

addo

carterjunk

17.1.11

2 more imperfect postcards from mary randolph carter (& a note from l.b.)

"Landscape: Another 25-cent junk painting that

has that look of Fall in the American countryside.

Still life of table: From my junk master's

collection--it reminded me of Thanksgiving."

mrc

mary randolph carter included

the above in her original notes for

the postcards series. i've been

thinking about art a lot lately,

and maybe the reason it took

so long to publish these is that

i needed them to remind me

that art is not easy to define

and harder, still, to qualify.

louise bourgeois just arrived

in the mail, via a suggestion

from david john at yhbhs.

here's what she said on p. 91:

"If I am asked what I want to

express, then this makes more

sense. At that point there is a

mystery we can at least talk

about, since for a lifetime I have

wanted to say the same thing..."

7.1.11

and then in a flash you go to write something in the calendar on the kitchen wall where's it's always hung,

but you haven't a new one, until

your husband hands you

the one he picked up from the grocery story

and you paste a picture of a garden

over the...Skippy Peanut Butter

and Hellman's Mayonnaise

from mrc, here

[what i love about the words

is that you know it's so true

& why did i ever spend $20

on a shiny new calendar, ever?

at least i didn't this year. cutting

out photos of gardens

as we speak...]

photo: sissinghurst via tweedland

6.1.11

brillig

ivan & carter.

please go see.

27.12.10

(but perhaps a tray of madeleines would be fine)

i thought about naming this

post temps perdu, but that

would be sort of. well. to be

honest, it would be silly (since

i've never actually read mr.

proust's great work and what

do i know?). the reality is that

i'm trying to clean off my

desktop some, and these are bits

i've saved. the procrastination

one is from merlin mann. i think

he's right on this. the sheer &

haunting chandelier is from

tim denike; it's a snapshot of

an rrl room. the party-goers

are from room 26. the chair

is a gould (lord knows i've

raided their coffers lately;

thank you gould auctions,

i love you). and the real

thought behind this is that

times change. our little house

used to be stuffed to the gills

on the holidays, and now it is

not so much. and where i once

prayed for an hour to catch my

breath, i now have ample time

to marvel at the future. and it

is good. but it will be better, i

think, to marvel less & remember

who we are more. here's to a

busy, happy 2011. may you well

remember who you are and what

a great gift it is. i am thankful,

today, for where we have been

and where we are going. and i

wish all of you godspeed.

3.12.10

more carter berg

because i thought you needed to see this

really

photos: carter berg

for the love of old , by

mary randolph carter

imperfect postcards V

a little christmas from mary randolph carter:

"Last Christmas day my sister Nell and I dragged in this long weather-worn trestle table from outside and set it up in the front hall of Muskettoe Pointe Farm. There would be forty of us for our sit-down holiday dinner, so it was a last-minute solution! My father had built it and another years ago for one of our weddings. Mother said no one would sit there because it was off the beaten track, i.e. not in the main dining room near the tree and open fire. Her instincts are usually right, but not that night. It was the most popular seat in the house. I think because it was something new and totally improvised. A few hours before dinner began, my son Carter caught the imperfect table perfectly!"

photo: carter berg

imperfect postcards

2.12.10

imperfect postcards IV

from mary randolph carter:

"This photo of my Mother and Father was taken in the sixties by a good friend who would often visit Muskettoe Pointe Farm, our home in Virginia. It is the most romantic image of them caught in the fields beyond our house. They were in love from the time they were 12 years old."

imperfect postcards

1.12.10

imperfect postcards [and splendid lovely style court]

from mary randolph carter:

"This pic from the book (page 213) was taken by my son Carter Berg in his blue Ford pick-up that he lets me borrow to go junking. From the looks of it and the smile on my face it was a successful hunt! I am wearing my favorite old torn-up black and blue checked flannel quilted work shirt that I bought over twenty years ago in a local work wear kind of store. It's so comfortable and comforting."