sacred space

more than novels, i enjoy reading about the people who wrote them...

sometimes their lives were even more interesting than the books they wrote, or the pictures they created. to learn about the lives they lived, and where, can leave me feeling inspired, or just thrilled and dreaming. accounts from people who knew them, or historians who puzzled together the day to day, the mundane that can give lovely insights in who the people were before, while or after making the creations we know them from. 

almost 2 years ago, when i was in England on my week in East Sussex, i visited a few of the houses where the Bloomsbury set - and related folks - resided. modest places, a farmhouse, a cottage, and a medieval looking place that oozed history, lived in by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell and others {in Charleston Farmhouse}, Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard {in Monk's House}, and Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson {at Sissinghurst Castle}. numerous books have been written about these people, about their unusual, unconventional set-ups, assumptions made, reasons guessed at, facts cited.

feeling slightly like a hindsight groupie, it felt strange to be inside the homes of these people, as if i was intruding on their sacred space, places they held dearly and felt safe in, either hiding from the world {Woolf} or being surrounded by endless natural beauty and inspiration {Bell and Grant}. it was easy to understand why these houses were the places where they created their novels or paintings, where they pondered on life, or enjoyed the family life that was as much a part of them as their artistic exploits. the kitchens where they would make their cups of tea or butter a thickly sliced piece of bread, the bathrooms where they would wash and read and ponder, the fire places where warmth would be on cold days... it felt strangely intimate... 

a peep through at Sissinghurst Gardens

looking out the window
at Monk's House

Woolf's writing desk in the garden house

Sackville-West's writing space in the tower
of the castle at Sissinghurst

the arch under the writing tower at Sissinghurst

the sitting room in Charleston Farmhouse