An Interview with Rachel Davies

Making Space with Decor & Design Writer Rachel Davies Styling: Rachel Davies Photos: Todd Midler Rachel Davies is a lover. Their enthusiasm for colour, for art, for people, for dynamic living comes through in all practices, be it writing, styling, photography, baking, or rug hooking. The pursuit of creativity is a kind of guiding appetite that the New York-based journalist feeds relentlessly, producing witty essays and articles for publications like Architectural Digest, Dwell, The Wall Street Journal, Curbed, and others. Recently, Rachel launched Personal Space, a gorgeously-appointed newsletter where they write about their discoveries in culture and design found “IRL and online.” One week’s edition could feature a forgotten home that’s barely traceable online, the next could be an exploration of the production design of some movie from the ’80s, another could recount a visit to a gallery or house museum. Along with the writing, there are also home tours with original photography by Rachel's partner, Todd Midler. “On a practical level, it’s also supposed to be a space where people can learn about design regardless of their existing knowledge level and without feeling like they need to spend thousands of dollars on any given designer furniture piece in order to appreciate it,” says Rachel. “Though I’m opinionated, I’m not really interested in imposing some idea of good or bad taste. I think we’re all better off when we embrace our own idiosyncrasies, even if it might not be the thing that 100% of people agree looks good.” Read Baa's ~exclusive~ interview with Rachel about what inspires them, the online communities they cherish, the importance of decoration, and Julio Torres. Baa Baazaar: What is the essential project of Personal Space, and what inspired you to start it? Rachel Davies: The essential project of Personal Space is how spaces reflect the people who occupy them. Maybe that sounds a little vague, but it’s intended to be a pretty wide net that encases not just appreciations of individual homes or blogs about my own home, but also writing about the work of designers who excite me, films that have particularly clever production design, and more. Even though I’m a full-time freelance writer, there’s still somehow a lot of stuff that I’m excited about but don’t cover for the outlets I write for. Part of my inspiration to start it came from my yearning for a time on the internet that felt like it was a lot more geared around knowledge sharing. I have a lot of hang ups with Substack as a company, but I do think the environment on the platform is the closest we’ve come to the blogging environment of like fifteen years ago. I’m a complete internet kid—nearly all of the friends I have now I met on Twitter or Vine like twelve years ago—and the past five or so years has been about figuring out in what ways the internet can and can’t serve me after growing up hyper-dependent on it. I really like that I can share words and images in a way where one doesn’t feel prioritized over the other and I don’t have to keep everything as brief as possible. And I like connecting with people through it, whether that’s with new friends who I’ve met through it or ending up in eye-opening conversations with old friends. When did you first realize how important defining your personal space was, and how did you begin exploring it? For a few years when I was a kid my mom owned a home decor shop. I really thought it was the coolest thing in the world. She painted the walls herself and there were all kinds of DIY projects that went beyond why it looked the way it looked that really reflected her. We definitely do not have the same taste, but I think I’ve been lucky to learn her approach to occupying space. She empowers herself to try new things, to take her own taste seriously, and she sees the need to learn something new to accomplish what she wants, not as a drain, but as part of the fun. When I was a kid she would let me pick out the paint colours for my room and I think that’s the earliest expression of my personal taste in space. Then, when I was a teenager, I was one of those teens who was very obsessive about their collage wall. I would spend hours and hours and hours rearranging it and adding to it. Sleeping under it felt like a warm hug, like a sleeping bag of my obsessions. The one or two times that I’ve been outside of the home I grew up in since my family moved out years ago, it felt fine that the rest of the house had moved on, but it felt unimaginable that those walls still stood without any of the photos. Later on, after a car accident in my early twenties, I was left with really bad chronic pain. My identity had been so wrapped up in always going to museums and concerts and experiencing as much culture as possible out in the world and that completely changed overnight. Decorating became especially important to me in the years following that accident because I was spending a lot more time at home. What are three words (open to adjectives for sure but feel free to throw out some verbs) that define your approach to creating or revitalizing space? Patience: I am impatient in almost every way except for with regards to decorating. I definitely have to remind myself of this at times, but I think it’s foolish to expect your home to be meeting all of your needs instantly after you move in, or indefinitely once you’ve been in the same place for a while. If you’re someone who’s particular about your comfort (both visual and physical), I think you’re going to constantly find room for improvement. Currently I resent the armchair in my reading nook because it’s a little too small for me to sit comfortably for hours on end. I’m too particular about what I want the next chair to look and feel like (and on too tight a budget at present!) to be impatient about finding the right chair for the space. Also, I try my best to resist the Amazon-Temu-insert-poor-quality-bad-labour-practices-brand-here mentality that you need and deserve to have everything in exactly the instant that you decide you want it. Curiosity: Part of what makes that patience palatable is leaning into curiosity and research. There’s a quote-unquote design problem in my current apartment that I’ve been chewing on since I moved in three years ago, and I just discovered a palatable solution by chance last week. A big part of the fun in caring about your space when you’re not someone with an unlimited budget is in collecting as much inspiration as you possibly can. There are naturally going to be items in your house where part of the emotional value is in the fact that you spent a lot of money on it—the couch you saved up for forever, the mattress you bought praying it’ll actually last you more than ten years—but I’d argue that a great space is filled mostly with stuff that has emotional value from that long journey to owning it or making it by hand for yourself, along with all of the little trinkets you’ve collected along the way that may be more impulsive. Play: This is probably corny, but I’ve never outgrown the part of myself that wants toys and other things that make me smile around the house. As a kid I would always buy ’70s and ’80s toys on trips to the antique malls with my mom and sister and I still have some of those things, along with things that I’ve collected since. I also collect little figurines that even vaguely look like my dog. I don’t really think of my style as kitschy but I think it definitely skews in that direction when I take a step back. I take a lot of stuff probably too seriously in day to day life, but I’ve always been someone who tries to actively court joy in my living space and in conversation. This is of course totally in line with the gen z obsession with “dopamine decor.” What’s the worst room you’ve ever been in? Oh my!!! As someone whose job it is to look at really nice, usually expensive spaces, I get a sick satisfaction from being in a “bad” room. I think you can learn a lot about the subconscious rules you have by discovering something that evokes a really negative reaction. The dentist’s office that I went to to get my wisdom teeth removed last summer stands out in my memory. In his movie Problemista and his show Fantasmas, Julio Torres has developed this visual language for the indignity of modern life (specifically potent in his addressing of bureaucracy) and this room really feels of that visual world to me. The lighting was terrible in that flat, Being John Malkovich office kind of way (what I mean is fluorescents, but let me set the scene) and the dentist chair was this shade of lilac purple that might have looked cute in normal lighting but just looked wrong. The chair faced two framed beach photos that were placed so closely together that your mind wanted to believe it was the same photo sliced in two. I had the presence of mind to take photos before the procedure began. They are dear to me. What advice would you offer to someone who wants to bring a bit more ~jazz~ to their personal spaces, but are perhaps uncertain where to begin? Hmmm. I think my first humble query would be whether or not they’re open to painting. I think it can add a lot if they’re willing to take the plunge. It doesn’t have to be a bright colour and you don’t even have to paint a full wall, but I think it’s just an unparalleled level of personalization that makes you feel so much more connected to your living space. More than anything though, looking at pictures on social media, online, or especially in books (here I go with the books again) can be really helpful to learning to verbalize what you want from your living space. If you live in Toronto, spend a few hours at the Reference Library looking through architecture and design books and take phone pics of whatever speaks to you, then review all of the pics together at the end of the day and take note of any recurring themes, whether in color, pattern, or style. Even if they’re all Space Age, for example, and you can’t do a total redesign to bring that to life, you can bring in a bulbous new lamp or a few decor pieces to bring that energy in. A lot of people use Pinterest to a similar end of course, but I feel like I really enjoy the extra context that discovering imagery in a story online or in a book adds. It really frustrates me when imagery is presented with no indication of where it originated. Are there any movies/media/art that you turn to for inspiration? Just more generally: what feeds your taste? I mean I already mentioned Julio Torres but he’s definitely a favorite. The way that his writing, identity, and design are so clearly intertwined is really exciting to me. He seems like someone who isn’t necessarily trying to be the biggest comedian or performer of all time, but is trying to always develop and refine his specific take on the world, which I really respect. Katherine Bernhardt, Sara Cwynar, and Naudline Pierre are a few of my favourite artists working today. I read and wrote a lot about literary comics at the start of my career and I think my visual sensibility is still really inspired by the language of comics, even if I don’t read them quite as much as I used to. Otherwise, I get a lot of inspiration from my artist friends. My good friend Phoebe Randall makes quilts. I get really excited any time she shares photos, both by how it looks and by thinking about how many hours she’s put into creating it. My partner Todd Midler is a photographer and I’m really enamored with how he sees the world. Another friend of mine, Sarah Kennedy, has really mastered the art of communicating her joyous, thoughtful spirit in her work. She made the logo and designed other branding elements for Personal Space. Making a newsletter by myself can feel kind of lonely compared to my professional work and it feels nice that anytime I hit send, Sarah’s work is going out alongside mine. ~ Learn more about Rachel, explore Personal Space, & delight in their colourful and culture-soaked Instagram.

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