When Emily Janak was growing up in the horse country of Lexington, Kentucky, design was a family tradition. “My mother is a decorator and would tote me around to auctions, antique stores, and fabric stores my whole childhood,” Janak explains. Then, when she was studying...
Paul Schürch “paints” pictures and creates other artful objects using an unexpected medium: thin wood veneers, designed, hand-cut, and applied to sturdy wooden surfaces in realistic images of miraculously radiant beauty. To achieve such results, he draws on skills gained through a lifetime of diligent...
About 25 years ago, Debora Duran-Geiger began to explore making ceramic-mosaic folk art crosses set into wooden frames handcrafted by her husband Michael. With dedicated self-education and a creative drive that tapped into her seventh-generation Santa Fean heritage, those early efforts evolved into her career...
A first glance at any of Kevin Box’s collaborative sculptures almost invariably leads to a second, longer look in astonishment. How does a folded piece of Japanese origami paper manage to withstand the elements and remain perfectly still outdoors at a monumental scale as large...
On a recent summer afternoon, while Robert D. McFarland and his wife Robbie were riding their bikes during one of their frequent visits to the area where he grew up in northeastern Utah’s Cache Valley, a work of art suddenly demanded to be painted. “I...
When Leslie Duke was little, she loved her mother’s bedtime readings of Burt Dow, Deep-Water Man, a seafaring tale written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey, best known for Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal. “Now I read it to my 4-year-old son Anders,”...
Steve Kestrel’s minute-long stroll from his house to the studio on 63 acres in Colorado’s Redstone Canyon, about 15 miles west of Fort Collins, often resembles more of a nature trek than a commute. “I almost always take my field glasses,” he says, the better...
Post-war American artist Paul Harris [1925 – 2018] decided to become a sculptor while attending the University of New Mexico in 1948, where he studied with Agnes Martin. After that, a summer working under Hans Hofmann became crucial to his creative development. Primarily a sculptor,...
SHED Architecture & Design is a bit of a maverick in today’s design world; they hue to a pragmatic rather than a conceptual line. That’s no accident. Based in Seattle, Washington, founders Prentis Hale and Thomas Schaer met while pursuing their masters in architecture at the...
Café Solo from Eva Solo Eva Solo opened its doors more than 100 years ago, and today, it’s managed by Jan Engelbrecht, the fourth generation of the founder’s family. The company was originally established to manufacture functional, high-quality kitchen utensils for the Scandinavian home. Since then,...