Why "Honey & Salt"?

Ah, the inevitable trip down Roll Call Hall. “Honey…honey & Fitz?,” the vendor said to me. “No, Honey and Salt,” I said, gritting my teeth and wishing more people had read Carl Sandburg. Or, frankly, that I’d NOT started my company in the middle of the ____ + ______ naming frenzy. You know, ‘Olive & Frankie’ ‘June & Finny!’ and all that jazz. I named my interior design practice (I’m not a firm…yet!) after one of CS’s poems - a long, meandering one - about balance, about buying and selling, and about the concept of exchange: what’s mercenary, what’s not. I have no idea why he called that poem “Honey and Salt,” but to me, it seems pretty clear that he’s talking about balance - and so am I.

Lots of us might remember being able to pinpoint the moment we fell in love or chose a career path: but honestly, I can’t recall. I remember vividly that when I’d come home from travels, or when I’d look through my pictures, very few were of food, people, or fancy places: most were of aged hardware, glistening with a glorious patina; textiles I espied on the Rue de Furstenberg and wasn’t able to touch because I wasn’t a member of The Trade; or age-old architectural artifacts that caught my attention. Sandburg talks about that, too: about how love comes “the way your face came to you,” “the way the weather comes,” and how “you can’t change it.” That characterization weighs in me like a deep anchor: this practice, this work, is inside me in a way I’ve wished I could deny — Woe, capitalism! Woe, sales! Woe, fancy things! - but after working on such inspiring projects and with such diverse clients for 10+ years, I have found a generous, balmy peace in this practice. And I love it -I like it! - and I want to keep going.