Editor’s Welcome: the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of IMAGE Interiors magazine is out now
Editor Lizzie Gore Grimes welcomes you to the Spring/Summer 2023 issue of IMAGE Interiors magazine, on sale now.
How many of you reading this are lucky enough to work with your hands? Quite a lot, possibly, given the nature of the magazine. Interviewing Leo Molloy of Vintage Typewriters Ireland, on page 54, really made me think of that.
I openly admit that I felt like a kid in his workshop, dying to reach out and fiddle with all his cool kit and tap into that sensation of fixing, repairing, restoring.
I recently attacked the grout in my shower with an old electric toothbrush (which worked a charm, by the way) and honest to god I thought I was Michelangelo, so impressed was I with my handiwork. I can’t imagine how much that sense of satisfaction would be magnified if it was a 1929 Remington Portable I was working on instead of a family bathroom.
I’ve only ever really had one taste of that con le mani (with the hands) working life. Back in 2002, when I left my magazine job in London after four years, I promised myself a stint at the Ballymaloe Cookery School, before taking up another (inevitably desk-based) job in Dublin. And those 12 weeks spent cooking, tasting, smelling, working in the garden, listening and learning were some of the most memorable and rewarding of my life.
Now, bear in mind, it was also a time when mobile phones were neither small nor smart, the internet was a dial-up diva and Netflix was still a mere twinkle in Reed Hastings’s eye, so there wasn’t too much distraction from long walks at dusk along the East Cork coastline, drinks in the Blackbird pub and evenings spent endlessly talking about food. Bliss.
A “renewed respect for all things analogue, including vinyl records, slow food and film photography…” is one of the main reasons Leo cites for the growing interest in typewriters. And, of course, as a print publication, we’re all about the analogue – the slower process that allows you to craft something with care and consideration.
That is ultimately what these 160 pages are all about – a celebration of the craft and care that so many of you put into what you do. From “renegade florist” Zoe Purcell with her dreamy rewilding of Killyon Manor, on page 43, to super creative couple Michelle Byrne (sculptor) and husband Stephen O’Briain (furniture designer) on page 59 and Anne Ashe’s spectacular Stilt House build in Connemara on page 146, pains have been taken and hearts have been poured.
When you take the time to make something, whether that’s a photograph, a typewritten letter, a garden-grown bunch of flowers… or, indeed, a home… there is no greater gift to those you choose to share it with.
Also Read
