Embracing My British Aesthetic

Obsessed with Virginia Woolf

“David,” I exclaimed, “You didn’t know me then, but I was OBSESSED with Virginia Woolf when I was twenty! Ugh, if only I had known about the British half of my ancestry when I was younger, like when I decided to major in Victorian literature, or when I traveled to spend a summer at Oxford to examine Virginia Woolf’s letters to George Eliot, or when I became fixated on the idea of taking high tea at every possible spot in London.”

English Cottage Style

Soon after my twenty-year-old summer in England, which had thoroughly delighted me with its fields full of sheep, old stone buildings, climbing rose bushes, and scones with clotted cream, I began studying decorative painting. Although I had been exposed freshman year of college to the Roman frescoes of Pompeii, Etruscan murals, Greek vases and Egyptian sarcophagi, it was English Cottage decoration that most caught my fancy. When I enrolled in a decorative painting certificate program at Parsons School of design, it was the fanciful British style of decorative painting that I most wanted to emulate and master.

MacKenzie-Childs

When I first moved to NYC, it was not Ralph Lauren (nee Lifshitz) ’s faux WASP chic that thrilled me to my bones, but the authentically English zaniness of Victoria MacKenzie-Childs, whose retail mansion on Madison Avenue, complete with a simultaneously black and white checkered, and floral festooned wire bunny rabbit cage, introduced me to a gleeful, exuberant aesthetic I would embrace, imitate and draw inspiration from for the next several decades. Upon emerging from the mansion, I went directly to a restaurant supply store in New York City, bought some cheap glassware, and began painting it with fanciful patterns like the ones I had just seen in the boutique. When I hosted a Passover seder, at age 24, it was my MacKenzie-Childs style painted water pitcher that was claimed as a prize by the guest who found the afikoman.

Denial

When my husband, Paul came home from work later on the same day I had learned of what I had in common with Vanessa Bell, I announced gleefully that it had just been brought to my attention that I have inherited a British aesthetic.

“Nancy, you have a Jewish aesthetic,.” Paul sighed

“Oh really?” I replied, tilting my head saucily, rather like Julie Andrews, in Mary Poppins. “Name one - just one Jewish person - whose interior design resembles mine in even the slightest way. Go ahead, I‘ll wait. But I’ll bet you can’t.”

“I can’t,” he said. “Because you are one of a kind.”

“Am I though?”

The Evidence

Of course, we are each of us entirely unique, but let’s look at the evidence that my aesthetic is British:

We had chosen for our home a white painted brick cottage surrounded with lush greenery, including ivy creeping up the exterior with a vengeance. A filmmaker who once borrowed our house praised its cluttered interior, calling it a “layered aesthetic”. Nothing could be more English. Every corner of the house is stuffed with vintage wooden furniture. I have a writing desk tucked under the eaves. My kitchen cabinet shelves are stacked with decorative dishes in a variety of colorful patterns, so much so that the pegs holding up the shelves once gave way, resulting in an avalanche of crashing china that provided me with beautiful bits for mosaic making.

Genetic Memory

I felt curious enough to look up “genetic memory”. Okay, fine, so it’s generally considered a false idea. Never mind.

Some English Stuff I love

Debunked psychological theories notwithstanding, I am exulting in the discovery, mere months after my DNA test revealed that I share half my DNA with residents of the British Isles, that I have a strong proclivity for English style and always have. Growing up, I adored Mary Poppins. Since the turn of the century, my most treasured piece of outerwear is a red vintage Burberry raincoat. I also love rainboots, and being outside in the rain. I love beadboard, wainscotting and crown molding. Growing up, my favorite fast food was Arthur Treacher’s fish and chips. I used to be crazy for digestive biscuits. I still adore scones, even if I have given up cream. I enjoy writing calligraphy in Gothic font, and have ever since I taught myself to do so in the seventh grade. I love English ivy. And with a sheepish nod to my imperialist ancestors, I am simply mad about Indian food.

My Fake British Accent

As any of my three kids can testify, I have always loved to pretend that I have a British accent, and have often spoken with one, on a whim, both at home and also when we are out and about, just for fun. It can be quite tiresome for them. They prefer what they call my "normal voice." Anyway.

I love Shakespeare’s plays so much that, after I nearly failed my first course for having plagiarized an essay about the use of music in some of his plays, and getting kicked out of Harvard College for doing so, I switched my major from Art History to English Literature and proceeded to take another Shakespeare survey class ALL OVER AGAIN as soon as they let me back in.

BBC Shows

Before I took my DNA test, Paul and I were enjoying the British series Outlander, set mostly in Scotland, and also, Downton Abbey. I was also playing several British women at the time in Incognito, a play by Nick Payne. Pretending to have a British accent again, this time because the play called for it.

But anyway, the picture at the top of this post is included to show you what I did in my living room just as soon as David compared my house to Charleston in Kent. I bought a big piece of Birch plywood at Home Depot, had it cut precisely into several pieces, to cover my boring, grey, ceramic-tile fireplace surround. I then set about painting it to match my Ukrainian Jewish grandmother's pair of Chinese lamps, which she acquired when she was living in Brooklyn, decades before I was born. And that is a very British thing to do indeed.

Cheerio!