How the book At Home* got started, a photo of weeds, and a piece of advice.

NO TALKING SHOP, NO DAILY GRIND. Paris, 2 rue Vivienne, Institut national d’histoire de l’art. The Oval Room, seat 82. Tuesday 11 March 2014, forty-five minutes past eleven… In the Könemann book on the American photographer Harry Callahan, you’ll find, next to an extraordinary black-and-white photo of weeds, the thirteen words that were my guide while I was compiling the book At Home* (available now on www.blurb.com): ‘What matters is what we manage to do most simply every day’. The author of these words, the Italian-American artist Frederick Sommer – photographer, designer, creator of collages as violent as Soutine’s paintings of flayed animals – was a friend of Callahan. At Home grew up in the light of these giants, who both died just a few weeks apart in early 1999. And whenever I arrived at the studio, I never forgot to glance gratefully at Callahan’s weeds. And to re-read Sommer’s advice. Buddha bless them (and us too!)…