{"id":2880,"date":"2025-02-17T15:50:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T07:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homeofmaterials.com\/2025\/02\/17\/artist-heather-chontos-at-home-in-her-18th-century-stone-farmhouse-in-southwest-france\/"},"modified":"2025-02-17T15:50:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T07:50:52","slug":"artist-heather-chontos-at-home-in-her-18th-century-stone-farmhouse-in-southwest-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeofmaterials.com\/de\/artist-heather-chontos-at-home-in-her-18th-century-stone-farmhouse-in-southwest-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Heather Chontos at Home in Her 18th-Century Stone Farmhouse in Southwest France"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Heather Chontos\u2019s restless verve is writ large all over her paintings. And her bright abstract paintings are all over her farmhouse in Southwest France: brushed and drawn directly on the walls, patterning the upholstery, and tucked inside old wooden drawers. Raised in New York\u2019s Hudson Valley, Heather says her gusto is in response to a year of being ill and temporarily losing her sight at age 14: \u201cThere was no clarity about what caused it or if it could happen again. I emerged with a sense of urgency to travel the world\u2014to see and taste and smell everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 16, after finessing an early high school graduation, Heather took off for London, where, among other things, she earned a BA in art history and conservation at University College London; interned at Die Welt der Innenr\u00e4ume<\/em> (\u201cwhen Min Hogg was on the way out and Faye Toogood was a junior editor\u201d); showed her art for the first time at Maureen Doherty\u2019s cult favorite store, Egg Trading; and worked as a fashion illustrator and prop stylist.<\/p>\n

Early along the way, Heather also became a mother: she has two daughters, now 24 and 15, who she has raised on her own as global citizens: they\u2019ve lived in Paris, New York, Barcelona, Maine, and Montana, with extended visits to Tanzania and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The family were based in Berlin when Heather had a sell-out show at Voltz Clarke Gallery in NYC in 2019, which enabled her to go house hunting for the first time. At French-Property.com, she came across a number of astonishingly affordable options in Southwest France, a part of the country she\u2019d never been to. \u201cI was looking for an old house with wooden beams, a fireplace, and a barn for a studio\u2014that was my criteria.\u201d She found her place in the hamlet of La Tour-Blanche in Nouvelle Aquitaine, and, unable to visit while her daughters were in school, \u201ctook a What\u2019s App tour and said \u2018I\u2019ll take it.\u2019 The broker thought I was crazy, but I figured: what\u2019s the worst that can happen? I\u2019ll just fix it up.\u201d Come see the results.<\/p>\n

Photography by Heather Chontos (@hchontos).<\/p>\n


Above: The stone farmhouse dates from the 18th century and is linked to a vast 17th century stone barn, both of which had long been uninhabited and were in grim condition: \u201cthe furniture was covered in mold and there were holes in the walls; the rooms felt like caves.\u201d <\/p>\n

Buying a house in France is an extended process and Heather didn\u2019t move in until the very start of the pandemic. At the time, her daughters were temporarily away and she was in Bolzano, Italy, with her now-former partner, Luis. As Covid hit, they decided to flee to France by car, crossing borders in Austria and Switzerland as they were literally just closing. They planned to work on the house for a couple weeks\u2014and ended up spending a year in lockdown with no Wifi or telephone and little access to materials. \u201cFortunately, just before we got to the house, we stopped at Leroy Merlin, France\u2019s Home Depot, and bought a shit ton of white paint and spackle,\u201d says Heather. \u201cIt was the best thing we could have done.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Above: A courtyard and terrace lead to the front door. <\/p>\n

During lockdown, unable to venture more than 10 kilometers beyond the house\u2014\u201dwhich led to a field\u201d\u2014Heather put her hunter-gatherer skills to work. At the big local supermarket, she bought children\u2019s paints. In the woods, she gathered stones for the front wall and hazel branches for curtain rods. And she found old paper, rolls of antique cotton canvas, and just about just about everything else she needed, such as pots and pans, at a local vintage emporium called La Cavern d\u2019Ali Baba: \u201cThey made everything okay\u2014they do house clearances and the owners\u2019 son would call and say, \u2018we have some furniture we\u2019re going to throw out but I think you\u2019d like it.\u2019 I loved<\/em> it.\u201d<\/p>\n


Above: Heather and her younger daughter, Zana, eat most of their meals on the front terrace during the warm months. Cody, Heather\u2019s oldest, is a graduate student in landscape ecology in Sweden. \u201cI am the family\u2019s personal chef, carpenter, and Mrs. Fix-It,\u201d writes Heather on Instagram.
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Above: The kitchen and dining area are right off the entry. Filou, the springer spaniel, is one of the family\u2019s three dogs (there are also three horses and a cat). Heather tackled the majority of the house\u2019s updates herself: \u201cI don\u2019t do plumbing, but I\u2019ve learned to wire and hang, and you\u2019ll see me up on the roof.\u201d,<\/p>\n

In the kitchen Heather painted a wall in her signature, loose geometric style\u2014\u201dI work impulsively, harnessing the power of gesture,\u201d she says. Here, she also painted the wooden floor \u201clike six times and then sanded it back to its original natural oak. That was crazy, but this place is a living art project for me. I think about every single detail constantly.\u201d Heather bought the straw light over the table at the local, once-a-month flea market in nearby Verteillac.<\/p>\n


Above: Heather built her kitchen cabinets and shelves and put an old zinc wash bucket to work as the sink. She painted the back wall terracotta\u2014\u201dit\u2019s a product I saw in the hardware store that looks like plaster\u201d\u2014and patterned it with white dashes using oil stick, one of her favorite art materials (the best, she reports, are R&F Pigment Sticks handmade in Kingston, NY). <\/p>\n

The house and barn studio are both heated by wood stove and require constant tending: \u201cI have amazing neighbors who taught me everything.\u201d<\/p>\n


Above: To bring more light into the kitchen, Heather cut an interior window that opens to the living room. The wall is hung with cutting boards, including several of Heather\u2019s homemade versions. The tear-drop slatted board is for drying herbs. Heather buys next to nothing that\u2019s new or mass-produced. \u201cWhy would I want something everyone else has? Everyone needs to learn to use what they have and to stop buying things.\u201d,

Above: A vase bought in Morocco stands in the living room cut-out next to a wall Heather brightened with pigment and hung with paintings in found frames. The vessel on the crate is one of Heather\u2019s own creations.
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Above: The living room\u2019s doctored Ikea sofa is just about the only piece found in the house that Heather kept: I held onto the cushion and rebuilt the frame. I painted it with acrylic inks\u2014they work fine.\u201d She also painted the stump side table: \u201cI decided the color was off and should be ocher\u2014I spend my time trying to balance color.\u201d Heather commissioned the stair to her bedroom\u2014\u201dwhat was here was awful\u201d\u2014but ended up relocating it herself and has since added a driftwood banister.
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Above: A petite desk with an Italian Tyrolean milking chair is positioned next to a second interior window in the living room. The floor here has recently gone from dark to light. The homemade trellis surrounds a second stair leading down to the street level bedrooms. Note the ladder bookshelf: \u201cold wooden ladders are another freebie around here, so I put them to use.\u201d,

Above: A fresh pine wall in the downstairs guest room.
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Above: Heather is happy with the green on the floor and door (detailed with a nice-looking cat door). The armchair is a vintage Hungarian design from Ali Baba that came in a tweed; Heather had it reupholstered in vintage canvas (\u201cfrom my survival supply\u201d) and patterned it with acrylic paint: \u201cyou can use an iron directly on the chair to set the paint and it\u2019s good to go.\u201d
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Above: To disguise the bathroom\u2019s existing pedestal sink base, Heather created a sink station out of an old table. She did the tiling herself\u2014the metro tile and ceramic hooks are from Leroy Merlin, which \u201cwas the first store to reopen\u2014you could place an order and pick it up on the sidewalk.\u201d (N.B.: The international French chain has been controversial of late for retaining a big presence in Russia and has been accused of profiting from the war in Ukraine.),

Above: Heather\u2019s bedroom is in the attic loft\u2014in their first months in the house, she and Luis slept downstairs in front of the fire\u2014\u201das was customary in these houses\u201d\u2014and Heather used this space as her studio, hence the remnants on the floor. <\/p>\n

Incentivized by a need to spread out, she later transformed the vast barn into her studio and moved the bed here\u2014its homemade headboard was treated with a water-based stain of Payne\u2019s gray paint. Heather stitched the patchwork quilts out of \u201chot pink jackets and other clothes\u2014things I was never going to wear.\u201d<\/p>\n


Above: The stone tile collection was created from bathroom floor leftovers and oil stick: \u201cI like putting my mark on anything that feels right,\u201d writes Heather. To see more of her work, go to Heather Chontos. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s more next door: join us for a tour of Heather\u2019s 17th century barn studio.<\/p>\n

Here are three more artist visits:<\/p>\n