In postwar Berlin the Russians were derisively referred to as the Ivan’s. ‘Eeevaughns’ Rolled well off the tongue of a detective in a novel I listened to once. I’ve got my own Ivan now, and he’s super terrific. Yves St. Laurent meets Peter Beard meets some dashing nebulously European character out of another good spy novel, this time a Le Carre one. And he talks and laughs and story tells and shoots and meanders about our home and dreams in the language of shooting he wants to always speak and goes on like a fluid you want to drink and be drunk on. Ivan is a world renowned interiors photographer. His engaging blog is HERE. He’s come to shoot Skyfarm for a design book that Lisa’s writing. We’re excited and feel very congratulated to be included in this big-important-publisher book she’s doing. It’s a particular kudos to Ilse’s vivid home making, for she is constantly creative and our home and garden are a big part of her incomparable pallet. We are, no doubt, included in the Bohemian section. It goes almost without saying… Ilse’s also been a longtime follower of Lisa’s design blog and it’s fitting to have her now as new friend, and admirer of Skyfarm,  her Bloomsbury Life is HERE.

Ivan endeavored to shoot our home with a caring carelessness that might suit our similarly careless assemblage of colorful themes we live by. It was fun watching him shoot the world I too am always watching with my camera. It was inspiring to have him here. I immediately had to look around again. Every corner is alive here. And when the CHICKS get home from school then it really wakes up. I had been shooting Lee Baca earlier in the day. I raced home to meet them all for a lunch of goose eggs in the garden and I gave Ivan the key chain with the Sheriff star on it that Lee had given me. He immediately worked it onto his shirt pocket like a medal. A real Ivan!

So, with the camera always out here, and some new digital toys to make it all look filmy again, I gaze about and take some of my own loving Ivan’s.