Oh, Photo, Oh Flower, Which Is The Greater Reality?

Yesterday before the rains came Mathew Mead arrived to photograph the garden, principally, the roses.  He creates magazines in the Time Entertainment Series which either have a theme like Halloween or Christmas, something like that.  He was shooting my garden for the April 2014 springtime issue. (When he suggested that someone on his staff would interview me somewhere along the line, I thought to myself sooner than later, well, considering my age.) It was fascinating to watch him work, the way he would examine the myriad of blossoms throughout the garden, and decide which were worthy of his attention.  We gave him permission to cut what he wanted and he brought them to the table under the pergola where he arranged them with various props he had brought with him, vases, baskets, and so on.  I was fascinated at how distant he managed to be from the material, and yet how extraordinarily intimate and luxuriant his photographs were.  He gave us a copy of his latest magazine, an issue devoted to recycled treasures, which is to say what you can make out of the stuff you get out of garage sales and stores like Goodwill.   The genius of his invention was extraordinary, truly breath-taking.  Page after page of suggestions for re-using ratty old tables, shabby mirrors, mismatched dishes, odd pots and pans, on and on, all transformed by Mr. Mead into the most ravishing items, clever, useful, and truly beautiful, which would adorn a palace as well as a home.  Part of it, of course, was his ravishing photography.  The items were always in rooms of such dazzling whiteness, the colors always in such exciting contrast with each other.  Dazzling, exciting, yes, those words conjure up what this is all about, what some call “shelter porn,” I believe.  It was so seductive to be led to believe that one could take junk, and at no great expense transform it all into items for magical rooms of pristine elegance.  Forget about gross Target and Ikea and whatever; from now on, unusual items, interesting combinations, hand made for idiosyncrasy and specificity.  And don’t think about your own lack of imagination, your manual clumsiness, your laziness, your willingness to let the bits and pieces from all these yard sales sit in your garage until whenever.  Like the horny guy contemplating the naked women in his porn magazines, it’s just a matter of time until some chick just like these is going to want him!  Yes, him!  As I lost myself in wonder and desire beguiled by these so beautiful photos of so many beautiful pieces in so many artful rooms, I quite forgot why it was that I have spent the last few years throwing out all the heirloom pieces that generations of forebears have finally dumped on me.  It’s the dust.  Where are the maids?  Think of something like Downton Abbey where we see the maids dusting the rooms, every last one of them, and every single item in them, before the grand folks rise from bed.  All those glorious items that I have been slavering over in the photos, everything in my house soon surrenders to obscurity under the dulling patina of dust, but that is the glory of Mathew Mead’s photographs, their glamor is forever.