It is funny because I just repeated a story to someone else about a friend who had made the comment, “if it’s not one addiction, it’s another.”
He went on to tell about how he’d decided that he would wallpaper this room. He said it looked so good, that he decided to do another. With each room, he started to feel better about his wallpapering abilities, and thus about himself. So then he shared that he started letting his thoughts race and get ahead of themselves. “I’m pretty good at this, I ought to start a business” and so on, and so on. If you don’t relate, just move on. Anyway, you get the idea, pretty soon, ego out of control, he was a Wallpaper(ing) Magnate, at least in his head.
Well anyway, I just thought I would relate because there are those people who really do focus on wallpaper and know their stuff. Unfortunately, I had the opportunity to spend one of my afternoons in Paris au musée des art décoratifs with this very person: the Curator of Wallpapers.
I respect the art of the design of wall coverings in paper. I love the color, pattern, texture, historical motifs, etc. After living in a 100+ year old house, I now also understand the functionality in old houses with cracked plaster. A bandaid is much cheaper than complete re-haul of skin. But even later in my own home, I preferred to continue to spackle; I claimed these fissures in my own walls as the wrinkles that told the history.
So to generalize, architects don’t do wallpaper. And at that time, while not an architect, I was the daughter of an architect. Maybe this is all just an excuse, but I was BORED OUT OF MY MIND.
Here are the notes from my journal, Mon. July 7th, 1980:
Lecture at le musée. Headed to Institute of France (Baroque) and east façade of Louvre.
Instead of lunch, went to jeu de paume-the impressionist museum in the Tuileries. Loved it. Saw the Degas ballerinas…the one in the cafés, all that you’d ever recognize.
Lecture in P.M. & then we saw the wallpapers….Quelle nightmare. She pulled out rows after rows that all looked the same and kept us until 5:45. The technique and earlier examples were interesting, but…
Climbing the wallpaper.
Home at 7:30. Got spinach and artichoke for dinner. Cindy (Bean) came over and confirmed train reservations to Barcelona. Sun, warmth, no rain, above 60 degrees :). Wrote letters to hotels in Barcelona. Bed.
and a note:
Later when working for Bobby Smith at Jack Rees Interiors, I had the job of picking wallpaper for an older home off of Overbrook in Mission Hills. In many of these homes, the bathrooms are small, the original small white hexagonals still intact on the floor. They were well done, grout well maintained, and if it ain’t broke….Plus, old money, slow as honey, and there’s a lot to be said for not moving with the latest trends. Ranchers live like this, but to an even greater extreme since a home on a ranch is of virtually no value and there is no return on investment.
Point is, a little must have soaked in after viewing all of those many many bird & bee, basketweave, fleur de lys, strawberry, chinoiserie, toile, blah blah blah across western Europe papers. I was able to weed through vast samples to find the appropriate color, scale of print, and historic meanings to give the owner a selection of edited choices from which she might choose. And, it was fun! Not boring at all.
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