Design era reincarnation, toy parades, and the photographic genius.
Art Deco in a previous life, parading films, and photography as a group project.
❥This email may be truncated in your inbox. To make sure you are reading the entire post, please move yourself along to a web browser!
All words here are my own, unless otherwise stated. More from me + Absolument can be found in these places:
Website | Instagram | Book Recs Merci, thank you for reading!
This week has been downright rotten because of the wildfires and winds in Los Angeles. Although I wasn’t born there, and now I live on the other side of the planet, I still consider LA my home. I grew into myself there, and moved away from the city unsure if I would ever find another place that I felt so intertwined with. Most of my loved ones are in LA, along with many of my most cherished spots. Seeing it engulfed in flames and spot is unthinkable. One of my favorite places in the world, the Eames House, is in the Pacific Palisades. Every moment has been spent refreshing fire maps, checking in on friends and family, and thinking: “WE NEED MIRACLES.”
If you’re far away, like me, and want to help:
and put together some resources a few days ago for the rest of us to help those in need. Leonora’s post is here (I’m having Substack formatting issues with this one), and Ali’s can be followed below:
I’m also trying to stay on top of absolutely angelic people/organizations like the Altadena Girls, which was impressively started by an 8th grader. And on top of donating to the GoFundMe accounts of strangers, I’ve been thinking so much about the cultural/historical landmarks of the city. The Los Angeles Conservancy is helping with disaster relief information and aid. If you or someone you know has ties to a ruined historic property in LA, this is an excellent resource.
Here’s a writing full of things I’ve tried to distract myself with this week (an impossible task). I need any excuse to be pulled out of this grief. I can’t imagine what anyone living in LA is feeling.
I love you, Los Angeles.
Art Deco in a previous life
A very recent World of Interiors home tour had me instantly fawning over Harriet Parry, a florist who lives in southeast London. She mentioned that her constant state of buying decorative objects has her reframing herself as a “collector.” An identification I completely relate to. Another viewpoint of hers that I share: “Sometimes I think, when I see a piece of Art Deco, I feel like I definitely lived in that era before. If, you know, we believe in past lives.” Below is a short video, but you can read about and see more of her London flat here.
A new lens on photography
The book Collaboration is “a radical new history of photography from a team of esteemed writers and thinkers that focuses on the complex collaborations between photographer and subject.” Aperture magazine wrote about how it often catches photography being a “community-created artifact” instead of a work of one “genius”—the photographer. Often, the subjects did not have the chance to opt out of being immortalized.
I think about this concept pretty often as an archivist and historian, but also as someone who is more Chronically Online than I’d like to be. If we take a photograph of someone (especially for creativity’s sake), they’re participants in the artwork too. Aren’t they? Alfred Stieglitz photographed Georgia O’Keeffe as his pensive, elegant model. He released the shutter of the camera, but isn’t the power of the photograph largely due to Georgia’s gaze?
Le Cinéma Club
Each week via their webpage, Le Cinéma Club hosts a film free of charge—some full-length features and others brief moving images. This week, we at the Eames Office had the pleasure of collaborating with them to release the Eames film Parade (1952). It’s one that is rarely circulated, so it’s exciting to see it have a new audience, even if for only a week. Watch as vintage toys gallop, slide, spin, and dance throughout space, all controlled by the hands of Charles and Ray Eames. It’s the definition of felicity, joy, and delight.
I’m undeniably signing up for future film appearances by Le Cinéma Club. Parade is on view until Friday, January 17th.
Other Notes:
Over a year ago, I wrote about one of my favorite LA-lovers: architectural historian Reyner Banham. Like me, he didn’t grow up in LA, but that didn’t stop him from being infatuated with it. Continue reading to learn about him, his documentary REYNER BANHAM LOVES LOS ANGELES, and the charm of LA.
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (and sneaking around architecture)—and so do I.
·
My life has winded me through many distinct chapters, all defined by geography. In 2016, I was two years into my Los Angeles segment, the one that I believe has defined my identity the most. At the time, I was working at the Eames House— organizing the photo archive, doing conservation projects with the Getty, and giving tours to eager Charles and Ray fans. I was answering what felt like one million questions per week about my favorite design and architecture subjects from people from all over the globe. In my free time, I read significant amounts about architecture, stalked houses from the sidewalk in my cherry red Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible, and tried to collect interior tours of as many historic homes as possible. I was greedy for this stuff—wanting to know more, more, more about this era and its off-the-shelf style of construction.
Suzzane Valadon painting, Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Jacqueline Hyde/Dist. GrandPalaisRmn The New York Times on 9 European Exhibitions Worth Traveling for in 2025. I’m adding some to my goals list. At Le Centre Pompidou-Metz in Paris from January 15 through the end of May is a Suzanne Valadon retrospective. Her name is new to me, and the NYT piqued my interest with this comical biographical introduction of her:
“Before she shocked turn-of-the-century Paris audiences as the first European woman artist to present a full-length male nude, Suzanne Valadon waited tables, made funeral wreaths, sold vegetables, and flew through the air as a circus acrobat.”
She probably would have loved the Parade film! More on Suzanne here.
Exhibition catalog cover via le Centre Pompidou-Metz. 
Photograph via Bienaimé. I am normally a musky fragrance woman, but Bienaimé captured my heart with some nice scents unexpectedly outside of my comfort zone. I purchased a sampler fragrance kit so that I could wear Vermeil on my wedding day, and Jours Heureux (French for “Happy Days”) for my civil ceremony the day prior. Their history of perfumes is incredibly compelling, including their Art Deco era, in which the founder created the scents Eveil and La Vie en Fleurs.
**
Holding Los Angeles close. ❤️
Kelsey Rose
Wow, thank you for sharing Harriet Parry's home tour! As someone who loves Art Deco and has very similar "past lives" sentiments, it was delightful to see how personal and cheery her space is -- I am obsessed and will be watching that tour again, and again and again!
Love the first pic. Great homage.