At Home With: Caleb Siemon and Carmen Salazar
Find out how this creative couple live with their art and craft. Also, check out video of Caleb Siemon hard at work in his glassblowing studio and photos of some of his glass art.
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It’s not every day that one’s glass creations are given to dignitaries as presents from the White House. That Caleb Siemon’s vessels are worthy of that kind of gift-giving puts the work of this glass artisan in the pop culture stratosphere. Siemon’s color-infused creations can be found in art galleries as well as in his Santa Ana studio and in the home he shares with his wife, artist Carmen Salazar. So how does a couple with artistic sensibilities live? Here, Siemon and Salazar provide a glimpse.
Aesthetic sensibility of your home It’s a ragtag mix-match. Our house was built in the ’30s and is standard Laguna crazy construction. It was a weekend house and then was abandoned for a number of years, so it needed and continues to need a lot of work. The house is definitely in a constant state of flux, but that is why we like it. We collect a lot of things. Some of them are really good and some of them would be better left on the side of the road.
Favorite room Our bedroom has great big sliding doors out to the back garden. We re-did it when our daughter, Margot, was born, so now it is insulated and warm and the roof doesn’t leak. It always seems sunny in there.
The one thing you can’t live without in the house Right now, the rug that our sister, Gabi, got us in Morocco. We all live on it. It is populated with pillows we got by trading glass. We are without a couch at the present moment so it has taken that place in our lives.
Favorite chair The Ny Rocking Chair, designed by Takeshi Nii in 1958. It really is great design.
The best place to think/imagine in your home The front porch. Everyone should have a front porch. We have some really great rocking chairs out there that just suck you in. Then you can just zone out looking at the garden, the hills, the neighbors, whatever. We used to say it was the best thing we had ever done. It is still up there but now our kids, Margot and Rome, win that position.
How you display the glass you’ve created Everywhere we can. It lights our rooms, we eat and drink from it, and there is usually at least one piece on every surface.
The latest thing you bought for your house Meadow seeds for our front yard. We have thrown down a lovely little mélange of mostly native grass and flower seeds. Fortunately for them, it has been a beautiful winter so now it is survival of the fittest. Our gardens are something of an obsession. We go through plant phases. Historically, we have had eras of bamboo, succulents, ornamental grasses, citrus, and are currently in love with the wonderful world of Protea. We get a little ridiculous. It is like someone with a shoe problem, but it is a plant problem.
A dinner party with friends at home… Always has a few kids running or scooting around. They just started coming out of the woodwork. The menu usually includes some wild game, recently harvested vegetables and lots of wine. We both love to cook so you are guaranteed something tasty. We try to roast a whole pig once a year. A house favorite right now is quinoa with sautéed onions, red peppers, Israeli feta, and a ponzu-green onion venison loin. Yum.
Cocktails Meyers Rum and tart grapefruit juice, known as a Tio Lin or Campari, cava and an orange slice.
If your house had a signature soundtrack, the song you would play is “Bella Notte” from Lady and the Tramp or the Winnie the Pooh theme song. It is amazing how long those Disney songs can play in your head.
