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ARLINGTON, Va. -- Tipper Gore is standing in the living room of her childhood home, which became her adult home, which is now her when-she's-in-Washington home.
She's relating the story of how she called up a decorator friend a few years ago, telling him she needed some new carpet after years of "dogs, kids and a brother-in-law who lived here when Al was V.P."
The decorator's reply came back simple and direct: "You need more than carpet."
Gore laughs as she walks through her now serene and pristine living room of beiges and taupes, a living room graced with a black baby grand piano, comfortable white sofas and bookshelves filled with CDs.
And photos. The house is crowded with hundreds of photos. She and the former vice president as newlyweds just starting out. With friends at the gates of Elvis' Graceland. With their children and grandchildren in the pool, in the snow, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol when Al Gore was being sworn in as vice president of the United States.
Unlike many homes touched by an interior designer, the brick Tudor here on a wooded ridge above Reagan Washington National Airport has a distinct personality. A cluttered and welcoming eat-in kitchen with a view of the woods behind, a multi-level deck leading down to an outdoor fireplace. A perfect outdoor party setting. (The multi-line phones throughout the house also signal that high-powered Washington types reside within.)
Gore tells the story of when the Gore children were young, they wore their bicycle helmets out on the deck to protect themselves from falling acorns, protection sorely lacking the other day as nature's little bombs pelted the grounds during an interview.
Flying acorns aside, it's the photos that make the Gore house come alive, photos that tell the story of the active family who lives there, even if only sporadically now.
Photography has long been Tipper Gore's passion -- since the early 1970s. She learned the craft at The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, the city she now calls home. She says she has had a camera in her hand most every day since, and for eight years in a front-row seat to history while her husband was in office.
One of her more famous shots is of the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn.
For decades she shot for her own pleasure. Now she has teamed up with Mitchell Gold/Bob Williams, the hip furniture duo, who began offering a 30-piece collection of Gore's photographs this summer. Seven more images were introduced this month at the High Point furniture shows. (Some $50,000 in photo sales is being pledged to The Climate Project, Al Gore's initiative on global warming.)
Photos from Tipper Gore's collection -- which range from the pyramids in Egypt to ballerinas in Russia to seals in the Galapagos Islands -- are sprinkled throughout the house, including the photo of a laughing Nelson Mandela that hangs on the wall of the dining room both here and in the Gores' Nashville home. It's one of her favorites because it catches the Nobel Peace Prize winner in a warm and informal pose.
"It's been on the wall in Nashville for years," says Gore, admitting that between the house there and their farmhouse in Carthage, Tenn., her photographs are well represented in all the Gore residences.
The 30 photos in the collection were selected by Gore, Gold and Williams, and one of Gore's favorite images is already one of the best sellers. It's of an elderly woman in Smith County, Tenn., a black-and-white photo she took years ago when on assignment for The Tennessean. It hangs on her dining room wall here.
"A good photograph communicates. It sends a message. It will speak not only to (the photographer) emotionally, but to other people, too," says Gore, sipping a Diet Pepsi. "Why do people like this one? I think it's because they can tell she's not well off, yet she's a simple person who has a joy and a spirit about her. They like her."
Gore even had one photo -- a color landscape titled The Red Tree and Tetons -- temporarily hanging on an outside wall on the deck because she liked the way it played off a nearby tree.
She says she likes landscapes as much as portraits.
"They're universal. Landscapes speak to me," she says. "They preserve nature. It's all about being environmental. ... I hope they speak to other people, too."
The Tipper Gore Collection is
available at the 10 Mitchell Gold/
Bob Williams stores nationwide. Photos range in price from $1,000 up to $4,150. All are framed and matted in museum-quality material and are signed by Tipper Gore.
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