San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Capturing a nomadic California life
“The fact that I photograph homes and have chosen not to have one is pretty obviously odd,” says Bay Area photographer Leslie Williamson, whose first book, “Handcrafted Modern” (Rizzoli, 2010), was lauded for its rich photography of the real-life domiciles of midcentury-design icons, from the Eames House in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles County (also known as Case Study House No. 8) to Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus digs outside Boston.
In 2015, when Williamson began work on her latest book, “Interior Portraits: At Home With Cultural Pioneers and Creative Mavericks” (Rizzoli, 2018), the self-professed homebody was at a domestic crossroads.
For 17 years, she’d been living in a San Francisco rental — a mid-1960s Eichler — with her best friend, who was decamping to New York. Rather than undergo the tedious search for a new housemate, Williamson, who travels for months at a time on assignment (you can also find her photographs in the New York Times and World of Interiors and Dwell magazines), made the bold move to go fully nomadic, putting most of her things in storage.
Since then, the photographer estimates that she has stayed in close to 100 places, including hotels, vacation rentals and friends’ homes. As expected, there have been highs and lows, such as one spot in Los Angeles with a flea problem. Luckily, the highs are more frequent, including three homes to which she keeps returning.
Berkeley architect Don Lyndon recommended that Williamson stay in Unit 8 of the iconic Condominium One at Sea Ranch, a 1960s community built on a 10mile stretch of former ranchland on the Sonoma coast. Williamson stayed in Unit 8 several times while she was shooting Lyndon’s Sea Ranch home (not part of Condominium One) as well as architect Charles Moore’s Condominium One unit for “Interior Portraits.” She was charmed by many of Unit 8’s ’60s-era features, but especially by the starlet-style bathroom mirror ringed by light bulbs and mustardyellow kitchen tiles. Simple furnishings such as Marcel Breuer furniture and a collection of African masks also make bold design statements. “It’s a rental,” says Williamson. “But it feels like home.”
When she first photographed the J.B. Blunk house, a rustic one-room, wood-oven-heated cabin in Inverness for “Handcrafted Modern,” Blunk’s daughter invited her to spend the night. The structure, which the late artist built by hand using wood he salvaged from local beaches, has since become a home base for Williamson, who returns when she needs a quiet place to write.
“When I’m working there, it feels like (Blunk) is helping me in a way,” says Williamson, who penned the “Interior Portraits” introduction there. Blunk’s imprint is everywhere, from chisel marks in the redwood sink to chainsaw grooves in a pair of O-shaped stools. A low-slung “scrap chair” is made from offcuts from one of his sculptures. In the kitchen hangs a mask gifted to Blunk by his mentor, designer Isamu Noguchi.
Returning to familiar landing pads is key to Williamson’s nomadic life. “I have little islands of home all over the place,” she says.