Ten years ago I came across this book in the Adelaide Art Gallery Bookshop. It was love at first sight. But alas, the book was priced way beyond my budget. I frequented the bookshop, just to gaze upon it's beautiful images. It was then that I fell in love with that shade of sapphire blue so typically associated with the Greek Isles. Perhaps too it was the first time that a dominance of white for walls, floors and furnishings caught my eye. I loved the simplicity of whole hand hewn homes. A copy of that book remained in the bookshop for years, perhaps it is there still. It is now three years since I visited. You can imagine how pleased I was to find a copy in my local library this week. I have also been reading Patrick White's 'The Aunt's Story' (and loving it!). In the story there is a part where the main character, Theodora meets a great pianist from Greece. He complains to her that he cannot practice here (in Sydney) as the rooms are all full of furniture, that he requires 'naked rooms'...that "Greece is a bare country. It is all bones". Reading that switched on a little light in my head that helped me understand further why I like the rooms in this book so much. It's the stoney, boney bareness, filled with light and softened with handmade textiles and images that appeals. I see that the price of the book (it was over $80 when it first came out) is now within my budget and I could buy it. I wonder it it would still hold it's magic for me if it was mine to look at when ever I wanted?
