We bought Elm Glen Farm more than a decade ago, a country retreat,
that ended up becoming a great backdrop for many of my personal
junk stories. The Junk Masters atelier featured in American
Junk and the garden hutte, a
sort-of renovation of an old garage
attached to our barn which became the
inspiration for Garden
Junk published in 1997. The gardening craze was in full swing,
but I was more interested in digging for junk, than digging in the
dirt. Garden Junk is blooming with flower power from thrift shop
floral paintings, flower pots, tools, wheel barrows, bird baths,
bird houses, garden furniture and garden hats. It's about turning
a backyard or a widow sill into a new junking landscape.
I have always believed the kitchen is the real heart of our homes.
And the things of the kitchen--an old pie plate, a slightly dented
aluminum coffee percolator, crocheted pot holders, illustrated aprons,
even an old
broom--can evoke the strongest childhood memories. So in 1999, Kitchen
Junk was published, my ode to the kitchen and all its stuff. Stove
Heaven--"Where the good ones go!" is a shop in Los Angeles
chocked full of restored vintage stoves from the 40s and 50s. It's on
the Kitchen Junk tour. So are my own kitchens in the city and the country,
and even a couple of fantasy kitchens visited by Frida Kahlo and "Poppa"
Hemingway. Probably my favorite kitchen collectible is the lowly dustpan.
I guess I feel the same way about it that I do about my old typewriter.
It's so pure and simple and gets the job done with no fuss. One day
I was visiting my friend Alice Reed and spotted her favorite red dustpan
leaning against a white washed out building. I snapped the picture in
homage to Walker Evans who was the first photographer to celebrate humble
American things.
Having made a home for myself in New York City for so many years,
and having hunted down some pretty
great junk prizes right off the sidewalks, from stoop sales and parking
lot flea markets, I decided it was time to celebrate the urban junk
adventure. Big City Junk, just published,
began in my big city of New York, but continues through nine others--Dallas,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, Washington D.C.
and Chicago. I junked through the alleys of Los Angeles with my friend,
Shari Elf, (check out her website Sharielf.com),
trudged through the snowy streets of Chicago, ate the best bar-b-que
at the Lakeville Flea Market in Atlanta, discovered political junk in
our Nation's Capital and the best Hollywood trash at the Melrose Trading
Post in Los Angeles, of course!
The popular belief is that bargain junk
is only to be found outside the city limits! Wrong! City junkers are
hearty and ingenious. Their antennae are up all the time. One of my
personal best finds is a painting by a child that I found outside a
school in my neighborhood. The other was a message chalked on the sidewalk
from street artist James de la Vega. It read " THE PRESSURE OF
SURVIVAL IN THE BIG CITY WILL MAKE YOU LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR DREAM…HANG
IN THERE." In the wake of the tragic attacks on New York City on
September 11th, it has become part mantra, part prayer.
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