What’s Missing? The Secret Ingredient to a Happy Home - La Gazette #15

New Haven - Summer in the Catlins 2024

Art That Feels Like Home

Hello friend,

When you walk into your house, what do you feel?

Not just comfort or functionality—but something deeper.

Does it restore you?

Remind you who you are?

Hold the texture of memory?

Sometimes what’s missing in a home isn’t more furniture—it’s emotional presence.

That quiet hum of meaning behind the objects we live with.

When I was a child, I used to pretend I was an Indiana Jones of some sort, and I would “dig” through my parents’ possessions, looking for “treasures”.

This sculpture—a small limestone mouse—is one of the objects I grew up with. It lived on my parents’ shelves, part of their quiet collection of artworks and treasures. In slow afternoons, I’d explore those shelves, sifting through boredom in search of beauty. This little mouse, carved from a typical white stone of the Corbières, always pulled me in. I held it often, studied its shape, imagined the hands that made it: a piece of wonder for a child!

What I didn’t know then it's that this little artwork would follow me to the other side of the world revealing, overtime, a deeper meaning.

I grew up in a limestone landscape in southern France—deep river gorges, pale rocks, and a village where we (kids, siblings, cousins) were free to roam during summer holidays. I remember the bright light, the vineyards all around, the adventures in the allotment gardens, the warm evenings in the river when the tourists had finally left the village and we had the place for ourselves... Somehow, 35+ years later (more or less), this mouse’s curled form holds this special memory: pale cliffs, winding rivers, barefoot summers, and the Mediterranean sea just beyond the hills.

Now it sits on my desk (“borrowed” or gifted by my parents, I can’t remember)

It’s more than a keepsake—it’s a piece of landscape, a memory in stone.

It reminds me of freedom, curiosity, and the quiet joy of finding something that feels familiar, like a friend I have known for a long time, the keeper of my story.

What do you hold?

And what kind of art might hold you in return?

Now, take a moment in your own space.

And ask, softly: what’s missing?

Thank you for reading.

Warm regards,

Marion V-W.