Home is a Gentle Artist

As a single mother, I learned to bloom where I was planted. Even though it was a house I wanted for my daughter and I, I made homes out of all the places we lived. But it didn’t come naturally at first.

Looking around our first apartment, a very utilitarian garden-style, I was discouraged. It was hard to imagine that the drab carpeting and white on white kitchen could have the warmth I craved. And so many people in our complex were transient souls – they came and went depending upon their work. There was no friendly neighborhood feel to my environs and that was another disappointment to contend with. At night in the dark hours, I wondered if I would ever be able to afford a “real” house for my child and I. But with the help of children’s books (long before the internet), I trained myself to see beyond the four walls that I existed in and came to realize that a true home is what you make it. Having a home was important to my fragile psyche and I also fervently believed that my little child deserved a home to make her feel cradled and safe.

When she was small, I took special pride in selecting books for her that included well-wrought, un-silly illustrations. If even one image was “off”, I wouldn’t buy the book. There was not much disposable income and if I made a decision to purchase and not find the book at the library instead, then I wanted it to be “practically perfect in every  way” (an endearing quote from the adorable Mary Poppins). My now-grown daughter, a teacher, took her childhood books with her when she married and she has often marveled at the small but engaging library I created. High praise from a gifted teacher…

Learning to love our small apartment and to tend to it like a real home, to make friends with locals and invite them in often, was something I learned predominately from the illustrations in my daughter’s books. It all started with Tasha Tudor’s homey art in Amy’s Goose. From the illustration depicting a family dinner table with candles, I decorated our small dining table and set it every night with care. Later, I found a book with pictures of a boy helping his mother bake bread.  I made time to bake with my daughter and fill our apartment with the smells of good food.

Books by Eloise Wilkin helped me decorate my daughter’s bedroom with inexpensive lovely things I was able to acquire over time. Other children’s books on friendship illustrated the importance of acquaintanceship and having guests. All these things turned our non-house into a beautiful home and to this day, my daughter said she never missed not having a house in early childhood.

Within the last few years, I have discovered another illustrator I admire very much. English artist Angela Barrett does not write her own books but illustrates the lyrical prose of other writers. Her art is of homes and gardens and the words that accompany her images poetically encircle in the most heartrending ways. I simply want to fall into her pictures and live quietly among her green vines with dangling blossoms and her stone houses and abundant and glorious representations of homelife.

Ms. Barrett’s illustrations were set to books published after my daughter was well on her way to the teen years when I was no longer searching for children’s picture books. I adore Ms. Barrett’s gentle figures which are not too precious and somewhat quirky. Their longing stances as they peer out from windows and doorways make me think of the wonderful Welsh word hiraeth which means to have a deep yearning for something that never was or a home that one never had.

But it’s the interiors that give me real joy – the floral carpets, the curtains and drapes, the homey well-used kitchens with flung dishtowels and bowls of fruit. And her books that feature gardening inspire me to buy geraniums and make fruit pies.

From what I can tell, Angela Barrett is elusive – there is not much about her online. But she is beloved on both continents including by me, who is still building her home, this one a Third Act Home, from hallowed and esteemed children’s books.

The above image is from The Hidden House written by Martin Waddell and illustrated by Angela Barrett.

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Yet they looked wistfully at the brightness of the house as if it were a distant star come near enough to be watched, and something stirred inside those callous to holy things, some memories of homes that one or another had had in the dim past. ~ G. Hill