Artisan’s Marketplace, a jewel box of a shop located on Route 10 in Plainville, reminds me of an era when shopping for something special was itself a special experience. Devoted almost entirely to selling curated American crafts, Artisan’s emerged at a time when artisanal values and aesthetics were ascendant. The national studio craft movement had […]
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Floral Fixation
One of my favorite harbingers of spring is the annual opening of Cheshire’s Tower Farms. From April through December, the garden center offers a parade of botanical delights from daffodils and pansies to ornamental grasses and fall mums, ending the year with an array of Christmas trees (mostly Frasier firs and some balsams). Overall, customers […]
Items of Import
According to The Japan Times, “zakka” emerged in postwar Japan as a catch-all term for “everyday tools and objects such as kettles, brooms and buckets.” In 2001, the International Herald Tribune noted that latter-day Japan had elevated it to something else (more…)
World Pieces
According to Akil Tanriguden, proprietor of the upmarket Re-Unique Art & Antique Center in Old Saybrook, a certain magic happens when someone enters his shop. “Say you come in looking for a statue of Buddha. If you stay just 10 to 15 minutes, all the Buddhas in the store will speak to you. Ultimately, the […]
Home Economics
Aiming to “reimagine, reuse and repurpose” things instead of consigning them to a landfill, Branford’s Tags on Main is like a communal attic—one that’s unusually well-dusted. (more…)
One Woman’s Treasure
“I call it, in a very affectionate way, the affliction. Because people are afflicted with the urge to collect things they know they can resell for a little bit of profit.” Carolyn Thompson is giving me an impromptu tour of the vintage stuff in Connecticut Treasures, her small shop in residential Westville. As if to […]
Home Makers
Albert Hadley Jr. (1920-2012), interior designer to the prominent and powerful—Al Gore, Jackie Onassis, director Mike Nichols—once said, “Design is coming to grips with one’s real lifestyle, one’s real place in the world. Rooms should not be put together for show but to nourish one’s well-being.” That sounds like a recipe for everyday facility; but, […]
Home Addition
Vintanthro Modern & Vintage has been a Westville staple since 2018, selling well-preserved dresses, belts, suits, boots. But there wasn’t a lot of room to carry the things that dress up homes: tables, chairs, lamps, kitchenware and more, with the character and charm of days gone by. Now there’s another room. If you can leave […]
Plant Therapy
Dogs Joplin and Gino, their chain collars jingling, are the first to greet me as I enter Anika Stewart and Georgina Gross’s Hamden home, where shelves holding carefully positioned plants climb half the perimeter of the living room. The plants’ stems are maroon, light green, deep green, and their tendrils snake among the shelves, winding […]
Rugged Individual
At the top of the staircase to The Kilim Company, a subterranean shop tucked between Donut Crazy and Toad’s Place, a bulldog welcome sign is framed by a few exotic rugs. It’s barely a hint of what waits at the bottom: a room draped in one-of-a-kind rugs from Turkey, Persia, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan, bearing […]
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