Liz Arnold
Writer specializing in homes, interiors, and trends in living. Window peeper.
Author of the blog Homebodies. Read about it in T Magazine from The New York Times.
Former social media editor at WNYC. Finalist for a 2012 Deadline Club Award in Social Media.
MFA, Nonfiction, Bennington College. Teaching artist, Teachers & Writers Collaborative.
Runner-up in Georgetown Review's 2012 Magazine Contest. Honorable mention recipient in The Atlantic's 2010 Student Writing Contest.
I like to walk on my hands, parallel park, and consider using the serial comma. I live in New York. Hello!
(Photo: Jessica's bathroom.)
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- May 24, 12
Check it out: I have the cover of The New York Times Home section today! Actually, it's all Shantell Martin. She's the artist whose place I've been hinting about here. I'll be back soon with a few of my photos of her amazing Brooklyn apartment... - May 22, 12This is a photo from my friend Kevin's old place in L.A. I always loved the color of the blue-grey walls--grey changes so much throughout day, depending on light, and you can see it here from the pale blue near the window to the cooler shade on the right.
A slouched torso of a pillow.
I recently removed all the bookshelves on my walls that were secured with brackets I drilled into metal studs under the conflicting guidance of four employees at Ace Hardware across the street. (A metaphoric life lesson: No one knows the best way to drill into a wall, and you don't know what's on the other side until you do.) I've been wondering--god, I hope I don't take this on--about painting a wall either a dark blue, like Wayman did (that's Benjamin Moore's Abyss), or something light like this grey. Complicated, I think, and not only in terms of the sophisticated color scheme. Wish me luck? - May 17, 12Who are you? I am deliriously busy. And I've been working on a story on this artist, so I'll reveal her and post more pics next week when the story's up.
Who's going to Design Week? The Cooper-Hewitt has the amazing new informational site, designweeknyc.org. By the way, Kurt Andersen is funny about the over-propped house, and I've always had a thing for benches. - May 08, 12I'm writing about someone who draws, and the pens (above) live under desk (below) in organized bins. Sort of like a garden at your feet. Stay tuned for the story, and I'll reveal her identity (and many more pics) when the piece is published...
- Apr 27, 12Yesterday at the end a particularly stressful day, I zoned out taking pictures of my Begonias and the Propagation Project. Who likes drinking out of stemless wine glasses, anyway? Happy weekend!
- Apr 23, 12I won't say much about this anonymous friend's place, but I enjoyed poking around and plucking piano strings (above) while wearing a feather headpiece (below). I also enjoyed the Manhattan Bridge with coffee from a red mug; books and puzzles; a soulful guitar and a decorated thermostat; an intercom phone, askew. (Ha! I just Googled "askew," because I was curious about the etymology, and look: funny.)
- Apr 18, 12Sometimes when I visit a place for Homebodies, it ends up being so quirky and interesting that I try to sell it to a publication instead of writing about it on my blog. That's what happened here, though what's so fascinating about this home isn't pictured... We'll have to wait and see! I want a fire bucket. eBay has come cool old ones.
- Apr 16, 12The annual Salone Internazionale del Mobile furniture fair begins tomorrow in Milano! I'm following from my desk in Greenwich Village, and while nothing beats midnight dinner parties with locals like the one I'm (re-)posting here, it's not too terrible watching the scene from Twitter. So far on the #milan12 stream, I see that Stockholm studio Form Us With Love got a nice NYT write-up on its mesh metal lamp; the pop-up restaurant Spring Table from London designer Tom Dixon overlooks ruins; Camron PR has spotted Barber Osgerby with the Olympic torch... Will Sarah Natkins post her bold visions to Tumblr???
If you're in New York, stop by Sight Unseen's Shape Shop at Creatures of Comfort. On display in the gallery through May 6 is "geometry-obsessed work of 30 designers who hail from Los Angeles to London." Be there or be square.
In this post, I fondly recall a starry night where I was well-fed with lovely company at the home of photographer Sean Michael Beolchini. Giant gooseneck lamps were swiped from a boulevard; crates served as side tables; cords snaked around potted plants; there were a lot of sneakers. - Apr 05, 12Catherine's colorful kitchen is one of my favorites: yellow countertops; a red bucket for cleaning; bird cages on the bookshelf and the stovetop; a cheery bird hanging from a spring in front of the window. Sort of in use and sort of in place is sort of artistic and maybe attainable.
- Apr 02, 12I keep forgetting to ask: Are you suddenly getting emails from Homebodies that you didn't subscribe to? Please let me know. I added a "Follow by Email" option on the right column, and I'm noticing spikes in traffic once a day, presumably when the email is sent out, but it's such a new feature that I'd be surprised if that many people have already signed up. I'm trying to figure out if Blogger (owned by Google) uses the Gmail addresses of people who follow via other means...? Anyway, please leave a comment below if you suddenly started receiving emails, because I'd like to fix it. Don't be shy.I'm heading to the NYPL now and am looking forward to a busy week: a slew of design-related assignments, a visit tomorrow morning for Homebodies, a friend in town who's playing guitar with the lovely Rachael Yamagata. I guess it's windy today? The Weather Channel has a rather childlike depiction of the day's conditions. Happy Monday!
- Mar 29, 12Here's an outtake from the bedroom of a friend's place. She didn't like the picture, and initially, I didn't either. But since I've been following Things Organized Neatly on Tumblr, I love looking at, well, things organized neatly, like the jewelry tray above. The photos are lozenges for the brain. This one of typewriter parts is a favorite; it's a photo by Todd McLellan.
Are you on Tumblr? Follow me here, and I'll follow back. After all this time, I still need a name for mine... - Mar 28, 12I was walking through the city center of Vicenza, Italy, with some Italians friends, who I've written about here. We walked by this door, and I loved the faded paint and the color combination of green, shades of brown, gold. I couldn't not touch it. I couldn't not pull on the handle a little bit. It was open.
- Mar 22, 12I'm so proud of my talented Homebodies friends--last week, an author, this week, the news that Seamus Mullen's Spanish gastropub Tertulia is a finalist for a James Beard Award in the New Restaurant category. I went a few weeks ago, and it had the best vibe, best jamón, and best staff look: attractive people in colorful plaid shirts. If you haven't been, go! Above, a glowing toy horse from his old apartment.
I'm off to the Architectural Digest Home Design Show today. Ping me if you're heading to the pier. - Mar 15, 12I'm so excited for tonight: my Bennington MFA buddy and now author Megan Mayhew Bergman will be reading from Birds of a Lesser Paradise, her debut story collection, at Book Court at 7 pm. Do swing by if you can.I recently posted a few photos of her beautiful Vermont farm, and here are a few more of my--and a male guest's--tentative interactions with a pup, and goat, and a garden.
- Mar 14, 12Fifteen years ago I slept next to a drum kit under very different circumstances, and this time around was much more pleasant. For starters, it sparkled silently in the corner. We went to bed laaaate, after several rounds of nightcaps, and I awoke to this bottle of water that Tara left on the table next to the cozy sofa she'd covered with Frette linens. Angelic host!
The high end of the ceiling faces the driveway, but all that's visible are treetops. Pretty peaceful. If you crouch down and look through the windows on the low side, between stacks of books and floor pillows, you can see the goats and their manger. Love the rug. That's the view down the stairs, and then up the stairs, standing on the ground floor where the hall to other bedrooms intersects with the entry and the kitchen and the living spaces. It smelled like coffee. - Mar 12, 12Taking care of a few things on the home front. I'll be back tomorrow with more from Accord!
- Mar 08, 12Meet Milo, the sweet, sleek Great Dane. I couldn't help but study him, though I'll spare you the 60 photos I took of his elephant-sized paws.
- Mar 07, 12I think of Tara Derr Webb, the birthday girl, as a multidisciplinary artist: she paints (that's her work above, and throughout the house), she photographs, cooks, and I think she graffiti'd, perhaps, in a past life, or maybe she does it in this life, and I'm being intentionally unclear.
Her current focus is The Farmbar, which she describes as "a 1949 spartan mansion landcraft that will be modernized and transformed into a roving farm-to-table restaurant + retail space. Featuring repurposed wood, metal + tile interior, meaningful lifestyle goods and a simple organic regional menu, our mobile spartan will launch from New York and roll southbound in the fall of 2012." Fun renovation pics. The mansion landcraft is currently parked in the yard.When I woke up on Sunday morning, I walked around the house with coffee as Rafael Melendez, a friend of Tara's from art school, drew at the table with a purple pen. Quiet time. I stood in one spot and took panoramic photos, as you can see below: the living area and dining table; kitchen, cookbooks, and cowhide; the entry; a very glam gold-and-glass cabinet purchased in London. Tara made a breakfast of softly scrambled eggs, toast, and yogurt with honey and cinnamon. I liked the simple design of this Mr. Coffee, especially when paired with the nonsense of Paul Frank party napkins. - Mar 06, 12Today is the much-anticipated birthday of Birds of a Lesser Paradise, the debut collection of 12 stories by my Bennington MFA classmate Megan Mayhew Bergman. It's so exciting to see an outpouring of praise and love and support for a deserving friend's great book. From Publisher's Weekly starred review: "Reflections on the natural world, animals both domestic and wild, family, and death figure prominently as motifs. In the title story, a young woman who lives with her father in backwoods North Carolina confronts her loneliness and her father’s mortality when an attractive stranger engages them to help find a woodpecker believed to be extinct..." Check out her book: look for the pretty green cover and the owl.Last summer, during my last residency at the Bennington Writing Seminars in Vermont, Megan invited us to her beautiful nearby farm, where her husband has a veterinary practice. She's a wonderful cook and makes a killer sangria. We strolled around the property, ducked under low tree branches, shuffled through barns to check out newly born chicks, pointed at horses, stroked goats' noses, listen to chickens, chased a toddler, and admired a newborn.
- Mar 05, 12A few weeks ago, I went upstate to visit Tara and Leighton, a couple I met years ago when we all lived in L.A. It was the kind of trip that began on a Saturday at the southwest corner of Astor Place: four of us from the city were meeting at the blue Land Rover of a guy I'd never met, and he was driving us all to Accord, where we would celebrate Tara's birthday. I could not have asked for a better road trip with strangers: we agreed on listening to old country, and the lovely passenger guest shared sandwiches and entertained us with dramatic readings of her tabloids.This week I'll post more from the weekend, but for now: corrugated-metal siding (and a corrugated-metal shower, not pictured); shooting targets and Emeco chairs in the kitchen; two dogs, two goats; too many bottles of wine; one cat; lots of glass.
- Mar 05, 12I met the sweetest goat recently. Her name is Sugar, and she has ears like handlebars. I also met a Great Dane named Milo, who shared his spot in the sun with me while I drank coffee and stared at his paws.Keeping with (the new and temporary) first-Mondays post, I'll be back next week and will post photos of two farms, coincidentally: goats, horses, chicks, dogs, and even some people. Until soon!
- Feb 06, 12I grew up in Michigan with this bathroom that I shared with siblings. Isn't it wild? I think it was completed in the '70s when I was little or unborn, because I have no memory of seeing it for the first time. Now when I see it, I'm shocked at the wall-to-wall-to-ceiling coverage. It always makes me smile, and whenever friends and family visit, they ask to go upstairs to see "the strawberry bathroom."My mom, pictured above in a high school portrait, definitely had fun here, unlike my father, whose duty it was to paper the corners, around the vents, over the shower hood, which I think is upholstered in matching material (I accidentally deleted the picture), and around the plumbing and the vanity. Nightmare! Below are strategic photos taken with great concentration, as you can see in my face in the mirror; one of my siblings uses the space for extra storage--a bookcase here, a world globe there--and those pieces, unlike everything else in the room, are not plastered with strawberries.
- Jan 09, 12I'm going to blog monthly for a while, with posts beginning on the first Mondays of the month, so I can focus on my "long-form" writing, as they call it. I have a number of essays that need some attention, and I can't wait to hole up and work.Check back in a few weeks to see my Nana in Michigan or a gallery/home Kansas or maybe Tuxedo Park, New York, or...? I'll still be on Twitter and Facebook and, when I remember, Tumblr, and you're welcome to Follow or RT or Friend or Like.For now, please enjoy cake pops and Lucian Freud from my recent visit with author Adele Griffin, whose Brooklyn townhouse provides for some seriously glorious snooping.
- Jan 08, 12Friends Azi and Carrie hosted a fabulous dinner party last night--candles; wine; strands of pearls; tea candles (the lotus above reminded me of sculptures by Lee Bontecou (below), whose new work is currently at Freedman Gallery); Tom & Jerry water glasses; a perfectly cooked turkey that Carrie won when she blazed a Turkey Trot; lively guests, including a hedge fund manager whom I heard say worked in "mismanagement" (he actually said "risk management," ahem); an artist; a yoga teacher; Carrie singing Bryan Adams ballads in Chinese at 2 am; Azi with pens in his shirt pocket; flowers from Trader Joe's; not one but two kinds of potatoes; a full moon and full belly on the warm walk home.
- Jan 06, 12This little girl's room had me longing for single-digit age. In particular I fell for the giraffe in the corner, an eternal guest at the knee-high tea party. Other highlights: beautiful wallpaper in the bathroom (walking with geese and other country antics); a scalloped bookshelf; a piggy and crewelwork; pale pinkness; chifforobe; little girl things.
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Tweets
- Ah, this looks so freeing RT @jodyavirgan Is this the best picture of a streaker ever? http://t.co/Dx2lytCz (safe for work)May 25, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Welcome @AliceMattison1 to Twitter. The novelist is tweeting 140-character stories about her childhood in Brooklyn.May 25, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @AliceMattison1 Nice to see you here! I was a June 2011 Nonfiction grad at Bennington.May 25, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @shantell_martin Wait, really? Did you get a show and a teaching opportunity out of it? !!!
- @Lizzyville What made you switch do becoming a fan? Recently?
- @Lizzyville He puts a spell on people--certainly no shame, and thanks for making me seriously consider him. I like your taste.
- I've never been a Springsteen fan, but seeing the # of songs on FB @spotify'd by the trusty @Lizzyville, I'm looking into him...May 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Cool http://t.co/jRsLGeou via @Bill_Shapiro via @maxlinsky: "mixtapes for reading" @arc90 @readlistsMay 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Thanks for the shout-outs, @theBoBartlett @lizaswanson @black_von @Artislife_28 @jmaebarizo @jljosselyn @adatseng and others!May 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Nice to see you here, @JeffQXR. Waves from the other side of this digital cubicle partition.May 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- In case, you haven't seen this, common comma mistakes http://t.co/daeRm0S0May 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Love it! Taking time out during a wall commission to pose RT @shantell_martin I posted a new photo to Facebook http://t.co/XgoKzdUTMay 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- @Artislife_28 Yay! I'm so glad! She is so inspiring, right? For any creative person...
- So giddy about NYT piece, how ever will I focus at school today? Going offline to teach, but thanks for all the tweets, RTs, etc. ❤May 24, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Status
- My English-born, genealogy-obsessed mother is leaving tonight for County Cork, Ireland, in search of family records. She's been talking about this trip for years. No, decades. If anyone can plant a forged marriage certificate for John E. Hurley in a file in any Catholic Church in Kinsale, I'll pay you.
- It used to be LinkedIN and now it's BranchOUT. Are we doing this?
- Cadbury Creme Egg > Peeps
- I don't know what to do first, so I keep making tea.
- Thanks for the loving birthday wishes! Blustering sunny weather, a divine almond croissant, an author's wise reading, din with friends, the repotting of plants (same roots, new soil?), a graffitied Wall... I'm grateful for a perfect start to a new year.
- Does anyone want to tally my 2011 receipts? I think I have to go outside and play.
- “I sometimes think the only event that hits every New Yorker on the head is the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, which is fairly penetrating — the Irish are a hard race to tune out, there are 500,000 of them in residence, and they have the police force right in the family.” -E. B. White, Here is New York, 1949
- I went to U-Mich with Brady. Always a pretty girl on his arm. But no girl was prettier than Brady. Except Gisele.
- I just walked by a vintage clothing store, and it was selling a top from The Limited I owned in high school. The coordinating bracelet was not included.
- Is there any possible way to ask a new neighbor if she could, perhaps, walk more softly, or is that asking for trouble? Sometimes even my guitar reverberates, playing itself.
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Posts
London-born, Bed Stuy-based sistah Shantell Martin featured in NYTimes slideshow, peep her home wall drawings here: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/05/23/greathomesanddestinations/20120523-LOCATION.html#1
http://www.shantellmartin.com/
-sonia
I wrote this piece! Check out the cover of the NYT Home section today… :)
Ask any publisher whether they would rather have the Proust and Joyce backlists or those of the Nora Roberts and Tom Clancy of Proust’s and Joyce’s day. Really good stories, like really good wines, really do drink well for a longer time.
Adam Gopnik (again), Can Science Explain Why We Tell Stories? : The New Yorker (via housingworksbookstore)Hoop dreams. #nofilter (Taken with Instagram at Marion Street Elementary School)
I live near the W. 3rd St. courts. ❤
A 12-year-old Victoria Grant’s exquisite critique of the banking system, concluding with a proposed solution. She’s speaking about Canada, but the gist applies to just about any industrialized nation.
A book spine poem:
Here is New York
Something like ten million
In September, the light changesby David Stephenson
http://www.davidstephensonart.com/
form is void: heavenly vaultsDear tumblr friends,
I’m very sad to let you know that I’m leaving the bookmongery—and, sadder still, this tumblr. It’s been fun, tumblring the things with you—jokes about Moby-Dick, Salivagate, Funbruary and Funch, answering questions about what books to get your dads, the great American Sad…
Knopf & Tumblr present a LIVE celebration of poetry! Mark your calendars!
Knopf & Tumblr FTW, i.e., How do I love thee?
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Info
- SummaryI write on a freelance basis about design, interiors, and trends in living. And other things. My blog, Homebodies, is about the homes of people I visit—somebodies, nobodies and anybodies in between (www.lizarnold.blogspot.com).Experience
- Sept 2010 - PresentTeaching Artist / Teachers & Writers CollaborativeWriter-in-residence, I.S. 392K, spring 2012
- Mar 2006 - PresentWriter: design, interiors, culture, arts / Freelance Writer
- Mar 2010 - Oct 2011Social Media Editor / WNYC Radio
- Sept 2005 - Mar 2010Editor and Writer / Story Worldwide
- Feb 2009 - Feb 2010Contributing Editor / Surface
- Jan 2008 - Jan 2009Contributing Editor / Lexus magazine
- Jun 2003 - Aug 2005Associate Editor / Western Interiors and Design magazine
- Jan 2003 - Jun 2003Editorial Assistant, Angeleno magazine / Modern Luxury
Education-
2009 - 2011Bennington CollegeMFA in The Writing Seminars (nonfiction)
- University of California, Los AngelesContinuing Education Classes in Journalism
- University of MichiganBA in English Literature
Additional Information-
Websites:
