held portières: one separating the entrance hall from the living room, another on the other side of the fireplace, leading to the dining room. The other curtains were for the two sets of French doors to the porch. I found the bronze curtain rings in the storage area below the porch and recreated two portières : one a simple velvet one, and the other a collage of Tomek shapes and colors, a love letter to the house, a visual manifestation of my love for the house that ultimately became my sanctuary. I also sewed a large pillow for the house with the window pattern replicated on it. When one loves, one delights in anticipating the beloved one’s wishes and in giving gifts, such as appropriate items and clothing to wear. Love can be a one-way street where one partner just keeps on giving and the other takes, but one also can have traffic going both ways, as was the case here. When souls interweave, one wants to show this with some appropriate gifts, the right kind of attention, or the fulfillment of a wish, whether voiced or merely a daydream. After years of having gotten deeply immersed in the Prairie different color carpet remnants, a box-cutter, a large metal T-square, carpet tape, and a glue gun before adding the final touches: lines with broad and thin indelible magic markers to echo the different caming Burley Griffin (Wright’s right-hand man in 1904) and having read his views on plaster and rugs, I realized that the large, dark oriental carpet in our dining room absorbed too much light. A pale-beige rug would bounce the light onto the original multi-colored plaster in the ceiling panels as well as on the only large wall on that level of the house. I experimented with
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker