Country Road Take Me Home

If you know me, you probably already know this about me: I have zero decorating sense.  Seriously, I live in a house with very little decoration and with several rooms with no curtains, and I've lived in this same house for more than a dozen years.

It's not that I don't like home decor or fabric or color - it's that I like so much of it that I can never decide what I want to have displayed, what I want to live with on a daily basis.  It's also a little bit that I've never liked knickknacks, things that some people might call "collectibles" but that I usually refer to as "dust-catchers."  If I have something out on display in my house, it's because it means something to me, not because a magazine or some decorator who doesn't know me suggested it or because it seemed like there was a hole on a bookshelf that needed to be filled.

That said, I know what I like in home accessories, furniture, and art when I see it.  And when I come across something in my price range that stirs up memories and/or emotions, I usually try to find a way to work that item into the scheme of our house.

Awhile back, I found out about the work of Kallie North, a photographer who lives in a small town in the Mississippi Delta.  She's from Texas but married a farmer from the Delta and settled down in the area near where I grew up.  She's a songwriter and a singer too, but it's her photography that makes me feel like she sees things in that area the way I remember them from many years ago.  

I've decided that I am going to order some of her prints to frame and display in my house; I love the way she shoots things that others probably don't notice and the way that, in her pictures, the beauty of things that probably isn't usually recognized is made clear to see.  I love the colors and the shots of crops and things that are unique to the Mississippi Delta.  The agriculture-related photos remind me of my dad, whose career was in the field of ag-marketing and consulting.  I exchanged a couple of emails with Kallie a few months ago, and she has agreed to take some photos this fall of the grain elevator where my dad worked many years ago.  I plan to display those shots and a few others of hers in the Mud Room of my house so that I can see them every time I come in the back door.

Here's a link to her photo gallery:
http://www.kallienorth.com/portfolio

"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity."  ~Plato