Magazine

High Shine

April, 2023 | Photography: Jeff Roberts

What is the difference between high gloss and lacquer, if there is one?

There are two major differences between high gloss and lacquer: sheen and process. While both are glossy, reflective sheens, lacquer portrays an almost glasslike finish (think of a grand piano). A lacquer finish must be applied to a flawless surface free of bumps, cracks, and even dust. A blend of resins and solvents is then sprayed on; it dries quickly, creating a hard surface. High-gloss paint is a little more forgiving. It is self-leveling, meaning it can hide some imperfections and can be applied with a brush or roller. However, it dries much more slowly and doesn’t harden like lacquer.

What are the pros and cons to consider when using these finishes?

Both are easy to clean! That’s important when considering a finish for a bar or vanity. Lacquer is a very durable and hard finish that may hold up better over time than a high-gloss paint. Lacquer can be cost prohibitive because of the amount of work that goes into prepping the surface. It is also a specialized service that not every painter can offer, and the cost of lacquer is higher.

What are the benefits of using high-gloss or lacquer paint in an interior? How do you think it is best used?

Both finishes are highly reflective, so when used on walls, they enhance natural light during the daytime and create a lot of drama at night. Using a high-sheen finish on cabinetry draws your attention and adds dimension to the space.

How do you personally like to use this finish? Do you use it in your own home or design studio?

I tend to lacquer smaller spaces to add drama and interest. My go-to lacquer spaces are wet bars, vanities, and crown moldings that when lacquered, helps to enhance a painted or wallpapered ceiling. For full-room use, I would suggest a library or dining room with detailed wood panels.

How are your clients using this finish? Are there any trending styles?

My clients are all across the board—we have lacquered entire rooms, wet bars, kitchens, trim, and furniture! It all depends on how comfortable the client is with the effect and result. Some clients who are unfamiliar may think the look is too bold. However, it is my job to educate them and coordinate this process with the selected scheme and overall aesthetic we are trying to achieve.

In the end, my main goal is to create an elegant and timeless interior for my clients that is a reflection of their personalities, which both finishes can help to achieve. Fun fact: even George Washington was a fan of high-gloss walls!

 

A Library Grows Downeast

Simons Architects is working with the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor on a new addition to its historic 1911 building. The addition is the third phase of a four-phase plan for growth dating back to 2015, reflecting the library’s mission to “nourish minds, enhance lives, and build community.” Extensive restoration and rehabilitation work, as well as ADA accessibility and energy improvements, have already been made to the existing building.

This new 11,400-square-foot addition will almost double the size of the library and create three new entrances on two levels. A library is meant to be a safe harbor, so these new entrances are designed to be open and welcoming. The two-story connector to the existing building will have intuitive wayfinding and serve the community as an informal gathering space and viewing gallery. The lower level is community oriented, with a new multipurpose meeting room designed to seat up to 150 people and a makerspace classroom. The main level will house the relocated and expanded children’s and teen collections, with a storytime area, noisy/quiet study rooms, and directly adjacent restrooms.

The expansion also includes a new archive section dedicated to storing and maintaining historic maps of Acadia National Park as well as genealogical materials. There will be a classroom, public study area, archival research stations, and a digital lab.

The library has established environmentally responsible goals for a 100-year building for the addition, with a mass timber structure and a high-performance building envelope. The design will aim to minimize energy and water use as much as possible and provide the chance to reduce reliance on fossil fuels over time as systems are upgraded. Since the library is located in a moderate fly-through zone for bird migration, bird-friendly design strategies are being incorporated.

The new addition is “stepped back” from the existing library to celebrate its history and importance within the community while creating an inviting outdoor public space. Contemporary masonry and metal cladding were carefully selected to complement the existing building in their quality and materiality, but they are differentiated with the use of contrasting colors and large-format, contemporary glazing.   

Location: Bar Harbor

Architect: Simons Architects

Design Team: Scott Simons, FAIA, principal; Julia Tate, AIA, project manager; Matt Maiello, AIA, project architect; Sam Mellecker, designer

In collaboration with: Pamela Hawkes, FAIA, principal at Scattergood Design; Scott Whitaker, director of enclosure at LeMessurier (for existing building work) Mike Rogers, PLA, and Rob Krieg, PLA, at LARK Studio

Preconstruction Services: E.L. Shea Builders & Engineers

Construction Start: September 2023

Construction Completion: September 2025

 

Montblanc Meisterstück

April, 2023 | By: Danielle Devine | Image courtesy of 1stDibs

My father, who worked in real estate, always had a gold Cross pen in his left shirt pocket. I learned at a young age that the type of pen you carry makes a statement. Like most kids in the ’80s and ’90s, I carried a Bic Cristal ballpoint (a pen with its own merits, but that’s for another Design Lesson). The pen of all pens was then, and still is, the Montblanc Meisterstück 149.

The fountain pens we know today became popular in the early twentieth century. They all use water-based inks (filling your pen with the wrong type of ink will ruin it) and have a reservoir for the ink. The reservoir can be built into the pen’s barrel, but today, a disposable ink cartridge is more common. The flexible metal tip at the end is the nib, with a tiny slit down its centerline, and it is tipped with a tiny ball made of an alloy of one of the
platinum-group metals.

The Meisterstück fountain pen was first introduced in 1924 by the company Simplo, which would later become Montblanc (after the name of the highest peak in the Alps). Meisterstück means “masterpiece,” and its design is luxurious: a black resin is used for the cap and barrel of the pen, “Meisterstück” is etched into the widest of the three gold rings that go around the base of the cap, and on the tip of the cap is the iconic white Montblanc emblem (a white star that represents the snowcap and six glacial valleys of Mont Blanc). The height of the mountain, which is 4,810 meters, is inscribed on the pen’s 18-carat hand-ground gold nib.

By the end of the 1920s, Montblanc was internationally known for its writing instruments. A lifetime guarantee was added in 1935 for the Meisterstück, and Montblanc began producing branded leather pen pouches, notebooks, and writing cases. Famous
Meisterstück users include President John F. Kennedy, Princess Diana, and President Barack Obama.

The final-year project for a young craftsperson training at Montblanc is to design a Meisterstück; it marks their transition from apprentice to master. Each Meisterstück 149 is individually crafted and can be customized with various point sizes and ranges of flexibility in the nib. The pen is 148 mm (5.8 inches) long by 16 mm (0.63 inches) in diameter, and it has changed little over the past hundred years, except for a specially developed resin that replaced the original celluloid. In 1994 the Meisterstück Solitaire Royal became the world’s most expensive fountain pen, adorned with 4,810 diamonds, each set by hand. Today you can learn even more about this iconic writing instrument by visiting the Montblanc nib-making factory and the Montblanc Museum in Hamburg, Germany.

 

All the Elements

April, 2023 | By: Katherine Gaudet | Photography: Chris Smith

When Elisa Castillo and Rob Solomon bought their East Boothbay property in 2019, the 15-acre parcel had sat on the market for a year. It was densely wooded, covered with scrubby growth, and run through with ledges that threatened to limit buildable lots; roads would have to be built, and electricity and water brought in. But the couple fell under its spell. “It’s a beautiful property with ridges, highs, lows, swamp, everything. We kept hiking through the property, and every time, we saw something totally different,” says Solomon. “It was disorienting. It was magic.” They purchased it and began to plan for a second home that would become a remote work location (Castillo is a psychologist and wellness dean at a public university, and Solomon is a solutions architect for a cybersecurity software company). Veteran travelers, they also wanted to put their Airbnb experience to use designing a home that could be rented when they weren’t using it. A hilltop offered the possibility of an ocean view, and they worked with Kaplan Thompson Architects to design a structure tall enough to see the water while conforming to local height limits. But as they spent more time on the property, they found themselves drawn to a different location: a grove of birch trees surrounding a large maple and spotted with vernal pools. They built a stone firepit there, set some Adirondack chairs around it, and changed their plan.

Putting their custom design on the shelf (for now), they began working with Kaplan Thompson’s sister firm, BrightBuilt Home, to customize a high-performance modular home. Site responsiveness was important to the couple, says Solomon: “I didn’t want a tabula rasa. I didn’t want to take an idea of a house and plop it down anyplace. I wanted to create something shaped around the place.” A modular home is, in fact, brought to the site largely complete, but that doesn’t get in the way of specificity, says architect Jessica Benner, who worked with the couple to modify the firm’s Sidekick model. With an eye toward matching the plans for the hilltop home, they switched the gable form for a shed roof and added clerestory windows under vaulted ceilings. The bedrooms were moved to opposite ends of the module to provide more privacy; the kitchen was converted to a galley. Most high-performance homes are south facing, says Benner, but in this case “the siting of the house has really beautiful views to the east, so we arranged the spaces so that all of that light and sun could come in on the east side.”

Once the design was complete, the home was constructed by KBS Builders in South Paris, while general contractor Mike White of Island Carpentry in Georgetown prepared the site. One of the efficiencies of modular construction is that the foundation can be poured while the walls and roof are being built, rather than in sequence. It can take only two weeks for the home to be constructed in the factory. Then, on “set day,” the home is delivered to the site and positioned by crane, under the supervision of the general contractor, who oversees a team of specialists. At that point, says Benner, 70 or 75 percent of the work is completed. “Once they deliver the module, it takes three months to finish these guys, on average,” says White. “If you build a house from scratch on a foundation, it might be five, six, seven months.” But for White, who has worked with BrightBuilt on around 25 homes, time savings are less important than resource conservation. Several years ago, motivated by the threat of climate change, he committed to building zero-energy homes, which produce all the energy they consume. “It’s the only thing I want to do. It’s the right thing to do, not only for the environment, but also for people’s pocketbooks. It saves money, particularly over a long period,” he says. Because modular construction creates cost savings, it makes zero-energy homes available to more people. “It’s been a mission of BrightBuilt to change the paradigm of modular, bringing high design to the modular industry. It’s meant to make the design and architecture and high performance more accessible,” says Benner.
“I firmly believe that modular is the construction method of the future.”

Finishing the home, for Castillo and Solomon, meant completing its ties to the outdoors. It is a small space—850 square feet—but they never imagined its walls as boundaries. Castillo grew up in Puerto Rico, where, she says, “everyone lives outdoors”; Solomon had a similar experience growing up in a Long Island, New York, beach town and had developed a deep love for the woods while attending summer camp in Maine. They worked with White to add an oversized deck and a separate structure that holds a sauna and outdoor hot tub, while designing a “forest garden” in the birch grove, using stones unearthed during construction. The interior design was “all about elevating natural elements,” says Castillo. They selected light wood trim, clear maple floors, a soapstone countertop, and a fireplace surround made of river stones to anchor the design in nature. Accents in a deep teal were matched to decaying wood they found on the property, which was stained by the green elfcup fungus. Castillo chose artworks that use elemental shapes—circles, squares, and rectangles—in playful ways, to create a calming effect. She hung round mirrors opposite the large windows to bring the forest into the interior and echo the moon motif that appears throughout the home.

The property, which carries the name Forest Spa Maine on Airbnb, was always intended as a retreat, but as construction proceeded during the COVID pandemic, it gained new meanings. By then, the couple had moved beyond camping out on the site: they had built a large platform topped by a Garden Igloo plastic dome tent, and they had also brought in a portable toilet and two-burner gas grill. “We came here every other weekend through that first summer of COVID,” Solomon recalls. “It helped preserve our sanity.” Castillo was heading up the COVID response at her university. “It was so intense,” she says. “We became very mindful of how hungry we are for retreat, escape, relaxation, and wellness. We wanted to create a space not just for us but for others to unplug, be with nature, go hiking, have that meditative experience that could be so healing.” Now that they have a space for themselves and for Airbnb guests, the couple is imagining next steps. They are planning their “third bedroom”—a small, off-grid structure that will expand the home’s capacity for guests. Perhaps they will take that model further, creating private areas for “glamping” around the property; perhaps they will create a wellness retreat. And there’s still that plan for the house on the hill. For now, Castillo says, they are deeply appreciating what they have built. “My favorite thing here is being in the hot tub, when you can see the Milky Way at night. It’s a small house, but you have access to the universe.”

Hide Away

April, 2023 | By: Rachel Hurn | Photography: Tom Ross

Seamless storage options are key when designing a residence with a small footprint. This has proven true not only in our modern age of tiny living but for as long as boatbuilders have been crafting drifting homes and city dwellers have slept, eaten, and bathed in one compact space. From floating stairs to inventive built-ins to hidden storage compartments like the one shown above, Pretty Small: Grand Living with Limited Space (Gestalten, 2022) showcases residences that serve as inspired guides on how to set up a place of solitude with a reduced floor plan.

Here, architecture duo Claire Scorpo and Nicholas Agius of Agius Scorpo Architects took on a personal project to create a home for Agius in Melbourne’s historic Cairo Flats building. Designed in 1936 by Acheson Best Overend, the U-shaped building made up of studio apartments built around a central garden is one of the city’s most recognized architectural landmarks. Agius and Scorpo chose to maintain the ethos of Overend’s design—“maximum amenity at minimum cost and space”—while modernizing the unit and allowing two people to coexist with privacy.

Shown above is the studio’s “kitchen cabinet,” a multifunctional, transitional construction of recycled Victorian ash hardwood. Two doors—the left on a slide, the right on a hinge—open to reveal the kitchen and its various gadgets, tools, and ingredients, which, when the doors close, can all be tucked away while remaining easily accessible. A hidden moving panel above the sink, when opened, allows light to flow from the main living space to the bedroom, which is ingeniously made private by the kitchen’s sliding door.

1. KOBENSTYLE CASSEROLE IN MIDNIGHT BLUE Food52 x Dansk // food52.com

2. EXTRA-LARGE ROUND GLASS STORAGE CONTAINER WITH BAMBOO LID Crate & Barrel // crateandbarrel.com

3. LARGE HANDCRAFTED MAPLE CUTTING BOARD Block Brothers Custom Cabinets // blockbrotherscabinets.com

4. YAMAZAKI 12-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MALT WHISKY Suntory // house.suntory.com

5. VIKING 5 SERIES PREMIERE 30-INCH WALL OVEN IN WHITE Viking // vikingrange.com

6. ENAMEL TEAPOT IN CHARCOAL Barebones // barebonesliving.com

7. YOLK 2023-10 Benjamin Moore // benjaminmoore.com

8. SHUN CLASSIC BLONDE STARTER KNIVES Shun // shun.kaiusa.com

9. REINHARD 20-INCH FIRECLAY FARMHOUSE SINK IN WHITE Signature Hardware // signaturehardware.com

Design Wire May 2023

April, 2023 | By: Hadley Gibson & Rachel Hurn

A new modular piece of playroom furniture made from recycled olive pits called the NONTALO STOOL allows children and parents to change the shape of the seat to suit their mood or activity. Developed by design duo ENERIS COLLECTIVE and Barcelona-based biomaterials company NAIFACTORY LAB, the chair is composed of REOLIVAR, a biocomposite made from olive pits, which is then formed in molds to reduce unnecessary waste. Inspired by children’s construction sets, the Nontalo stool is made up of six parts: three large, P-shaped pieces and three long rods that slot into the central opening of the other pieces to hold them in place. Designed to bring play, spontaneity, and sustainability together, once it has reached the end of its life, the stool can be composted or returned to Naifactory Lab to be recycled.

 

Think a plaid, checkerboard, or tartan car could only exist in your children’s effervescent drawings? Think again. BMW’s latest concept car, the I VISION DEE, is equipped with programmable and customizable color-changing body panels and hub caps. Using 32 colors of E-INK—a technology most recognizable in e-readers like the Kindle—BMW believes its electric vehicles will soon sport this chameleonic characteristic, once they’ve figured out how to ensure the panels can withstand rigorous driving, as well as the bumps, pebbles, and bugs a car encounters on a typical drive. According to an article published in Fast Company in January, BMW’s concept is far from landing in dealerships, but the customizable ideas are beginning to take shape in some production vehicles.

 

EAST PINE, the Portland-based interior plant design company known for their design, installation, and maintenance work with high-profile clients like Austin Street Brewery, Après, and SeaWeed Company, has joined forces with HAY RUNNER, a Portland design, construction, and real estate firm founded and led by SHANNON RICHARDS. Services include not only residential and commercial interior plant design but also repotting (what East Pine founder AMALIA BUSSARD and plant care specialist SARA KOSICKI refer to as a spa day for weary-looking plants) and recurring plant care services to keep clients’ plants looking beautiful and healthy in their own spaces.

 

MAINE ARTS ACADEMY, a charter school for the arts currently located in Sidney, recently purchased a 69,615-square-foot building in Augusta from Maine Veterans’ Homes. According to Mainebiz, the new location, on 8.9 acres near the Capital Area Sports Complex and Viles Arboretum, is about six times larger than the MAA’s current facility. The free public high school that focuses on music, dance, theater, and visual arts and educates students from over 30 districts statewide, will move in after its lease in Sidney expires in June, with one of its goals being to grow from 225 students to 400.

 

Move over old, mismatched Tupperware. HELLERWARE, the iconic, stackable 1960s dinnerware, has returned to market. Originally designed by architect MASSIMO VIGNELLI in 1964 and manufactured in Italy using bright yellow melamine resin, the colorful and compact plates, bowls, and mugs were licensed for production in the United States by ALAN HELLER, who introduced a range of bright colors for mixing and matching. Last year, after being bought by John Edelman, Heller made plans to bring back the iconic dishes in white, the rainbow colorway having been mostly out of production since the early aughts—until now. MOMA DESIGN STORE has relaunched the collection in six vibrant colors available in six-piece sets. According to the design blog In Unison, the inspiration for the Compasso d’Oro Award–winning design came to Vignelli when he saw a client using plastic molds to make Mickey Mouse ashtrays. The plates and mugs are made with straight sides and a small lip on the bottom, creating a straight, tall stack that maximizes storage space.

 

BUREO, a company based in Oxnard, California, that makes all of its products—including sunglasses, surf fins, and even Jenga sets—out of recycled fishing nets, has launched a first-of-its-kind skateboard. THE MINNOW, a 25-inch cruiser made with Bureo’s NetPlus material and 30 percent veggie oil wheels, is manufactured in Chile with the support of local Chilean fishing communities. The manufacture of each board prevents more than 30 square feet of PLASTIC FISHING NETS—proven to be the most harmful form of plastic pollution—from entering our oceans. By creating an incentivized program to collect, clean, sort, and recycle fishing nets into reusable material, they also have created employment opportunities for local workers and funding for community programs. Other industry-leading companies like PATAGONIA are jumping on board, incorporating Bureo’s material into their own products.

 

The restaurateurs behind Mi Sen Noodle Bar and the former Cheevitdee have opened MITR, a new, 20-seat restaurant on outer Congress Street serving grilled Thai street food. Cofounder WAN TITAFAI, who lived in Thailand when she was young and has resided in Maine for many years, designed the space herself with both classic Thai and modern New England interiors in mind, such as high ceilings and dinnerware brought in from Thailand paired with crown mouldings and pop art painted by her husband John Paul. “We used antique furniture alongside some furniture and booths that we custom-made,” Titafai says. “I believe once people step into the space, they will feel the love that we put into everything.” As for the food, Titafai recommends ordering the homemade curry paste with rice, salmon, and Thai herbs, wrapped in banana leaves and grilled.

 

After three years, researchers from MIT and Harvard University, alongside laboratories in Italy and Switzerland, may have discovered the answer to why ancient Roman concrete structures, such as the 2,000-year-old Pantheon, have stood the test of time while our modern concrete structures crack and crumble just a few decades after being built. The secret? It’s a combination of one ingredient—calcium oxide, or lime—and the technique used to incorporate it. According to Fast Company, the study was recently published in the journal Science Advances. Professor Admir Masic, an MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering and an author of the study, explains, “When lime clusters are mixed with cement and water at a very high temperature, the water around them evaporates, and the clusters, which would have otherwise dissolved, remain embedded in the material.” This means that when water later seeps into the cracks, as it eventually will, instead of causing more corrosion, the lime clusters dissolve and fill in the newly formed cracks like glue. Thanks to this discovery, a new deep tech start-up called DMAT launched in the United States at the end of last year. The company’s core product, D-LIME, a self-healing concrete, is made with the ancient technique in mind, adapted for modern times.

Antique Chic

April, 2023 | By: As told to Hadley Gibson & Rachel Hurn | Photography: Carley Rudd

“This house was a gut renovation. The living room pictured here was all drywall before we went in and created the paneling. We came into the space and thought, what is needed? And we went from there, making it up piece by piece. The fireplace surround, for example, used to be brick, and we thought about different options and came upon slate, which we had done by Sheldon Slate Products in Monson. We worked around things. We’d make a decision and then see what fit from there. It was totally intuitive.

“We’re lucky that we have the same eye for things. It’s funny, but we weren’t antique dealers before we started working on this house. It completely changed our lives. It’s midcentury, initially designed by a friend of the original owners, architect Norman Klein, and that’s how we got interested in midcentury modern antiques. The midcentury modern furniture is, of course, really at home here. It’s nice to be able, as far as restoration and renovation, to stay within the time period. We fell in love with antiques, learning about the history behind things and the people who made them. They’re full of stories, and it’s nice to have that history throughout your living space. Many of the pieces you see here are from yard sales and antique shops, and the chair we bought at Modern Underground in Waterville. We also worked with a furniture maker, someone we found from our days going to Thistle Pig in South Berwick. We always sat at this one table, and when we asked who made it, it turned out he was located right down the street.

“The house layout is one of the most thoughtful we’ve ever seen. That triangular window, for example, is so sweet on its own, but it’s also planned perfectly. In certain moments you can see the moon through it or get a glimpse of the sun setting through it; it’s interactive and constantly changing.

“One playful element we added was to have Carisa’s father, Rick Salerno, who is a carpenter and a builder, design a bunch of hidden panels and doors. Here, one of the stone birds is hiding an electrical panel, and there are little storage areas throughout the house where the paneling completely blends in around them. Rick spent seven years rebuilding this house, commuting from Bristol. There’s no way we would’ve been able to do this without him. He is just as focused on details as we are. For example, those boards next to the fireplace are completely unbroken—they go straight to the ceiling. He called the mill to make that happen, and it was a huge endeavor. He is a very patient man.”

—Carisa Salerno and Aaron Levin, founders of the Maine House Hunt and Maine Antiques Hunt on Instagram

At Home With an Expert

March, 2023 | By: Katy Kelleher | Photography: Michael D. Wilson

Jorge Arango is in the kitchen, stirring a pot of richly scented soup, when I arrive at his Portland apartment. This in itself is unusual. Homeowners don’t often feed me when I come for tours, but Arango is different from most magazine subjects. He’s a design writer, too. He knows the routine we’re about to undergo because he’s done it hundreds of times himself. He knows the questions I’m going to ask about styling a home, because he wrote the book on it. “I’ve published 13 books,” he tells me as I examine his bookshelf, plus he’s had bylines everywhere one could imagine, from Elle Decor to House Beautiful. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

And yet, despite his years of experience in our shared arena, Arango isn’t intimidating in person, nor does he boast of his accomplishments. He states them quickly during our walk around his home before directing me to sit at an old, uneven dining table covered in scratches, where he’s placed a vase of yellow tulips that are lolling appealingly about in their vase. “I know Portland has a lot of great restaurants, but I hardly go to them because I love to cook,” he says. “I really love to host and feed people.” Tonight he’s throwing a dinner party for a group of his closest friends or, as he calls it, “members of my pod.”

I imagine it will be an intimate event, that all gatherings at his place must be. The kitchen is also the dining room, which is open to the living room and the “disaster zone” of a mudroom, as he calls it. (I peeked inside; it’s not that bad.) His bedroom opens into the living area and the hallway, and across from it lies the apartment’s sole bathroom. “It’s the biggest bathroom I’ve had in any apartment,” he says. “I just love it. It’s enormous and has this exposed brick wall. And of course, it was brand, spanking new when I moved in.” It’s why he chose this place—the bathroom, the newness, the blank slate of a new home for a new life.

Arango moved to Portland in 2019 after a divorce from his longtime partner. While he has always loved old buildings and old things, he didn’t want to buy another fixer-upper. This Munjoy Hill apartment fits both his needs and his aesthetic sensibilities. The exterior of the building dates back to the early 1900s, but in 2017 a fire tore through the center of the structure. The damage was considerable. Then-owner Kate Anker oversaw renovations. “She’s the one who designed the interior,” explains Arango. “Since it’s a rental, I can’t change a lot.” This doesn’t appear to be a problem: “Kate made some bold moves, like painting the wall in the kitchen black. It really works. And it came with beautiful hardwood floors and built-ins, which are something I have loved since I was a child.” The fire spared the cabinets on the walls and did no lasting damage to the lovely exposed brick. Anker’s redesign relied largely on neutral colors: black, white, and touches of gray-blond wood. “She made some really thoughtful choices, like the light fixtures,” Arango adds. “They’re all different, but you can tell they were designed by the same person.”

It’s a bachelor pad, but unlike the ugly, faux-industrial-chic ones you’ve seen on television, this small home is full of warmth, color, and texture. “I could tell you a story about every object in here,” he says, before opening a drawer to reveal a collection of vintage flatware. “Everything in this space means something to me. Even the sofa, which I bought at Baker Furniture, was something I chose knowing that it would last me decades. I want to have it for years; I want it to last.” Arango’s never been one to worship the new. He believes in the power of antiques and sees the layered, complex beauty of a dinged-up cabinet, a worn leather chair, an almost-grungy patina on a basic wood table. He also knows that, with some effort, many thrift store finds can be transformed, reborn through a baptism of paint stripper and furniture wax. He’s a frequent patron of the Flea for All and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

On a slightly more highbrow level, he’s also become a repeat customer at Greenhut Galleries. Over the past few years, Arango has formed a close friendship with founder Peggy Greenhut Golden. Through his work writing art reviews at the Portland Press Herald, Arango has come to know many members of the local arts community, and he particularly likes supporting contemporary artists. “Jorge has a wide appreciation for all genres,” says Golden. “I don’t know what pieces he will find attractive—he surprises me! But I do know that he can decipher a well-made painting and takes pleasure in acknowledging good craft.” Studio visits “inform and delight Jorge,” and Golden believes his conversations with artists have resulted in a rich appreciation for their works. It makes sense, then, that Jorge chose to hang many of his pieces in a salon style, “coating the walls top to bottom like the Barnes [Foundation] collection in Philadelphia,” explains Golden. “It maximizes the art you can exhibit.”

This is a tricky look to pull off, since every piece needs to make sense in its own context. There needs to be visual harmony in how the works are hung; one must pay close attention to framing and spacing; every element in the grouping must speak to the others. Eclecticism is the goal, while chaos is the pitfall. Arango’s collection is wide-ranging and features landscape paintings, folk art sculptures, collages, photographs, and textile arts. While he has art in every room, usually arranged in groupings, the white living room wall is where he’s created a salon-style experience using miniature American landscapes in gold frames, intricate vintage East Asian and Indian paintings and drawings, a tiny, collaged painter’s rag work by Damariscotta artist Jaap Helder, and two Indonesian wooden puppets that lean out above the matching lamps with nickel bases. While there are many different styles and techniques on display, the art is held together by the overall warmth of the collection, with its tones of gold, rosewood, scarlet, and brown, and by the Lilliputian sense of scale. Even the bigger works ask viewers to look closer at their careful details. “I’m drawn to artists who are obsessive about their work,” he explains. “And obviously, I love Asian antiques and art.”

This appreciation for craftsmanship is on display in his bedroom, where Arango has hung seven framed textiles in a closely spaced arrangement above his pillow-stacked bed. They were a gift from friends Margaret Minister and Stephen Peck, he explains. “They both had been lugging around these scraps of fabric for years because they were so beautiful, and intended to make them into cushions but never got around to it,” he says. Arango knew what to do with them; he took them to Greenhut Galleries and got them precisely framed in rosewood with beige mats. They tone down the busyness of the bedroom with all its various patterns and give a sense of order, as do the matching side tables topped with almost-matching ceramic lamps (one is white, the other seafoam). On the floor, a simple navy blue rug grounds the space. “I got this for a song at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Kennebunk,” he says. “They have the best stuff.”

In fact, there are only a few pieces that Arango didn’t get secondhand, including the living room sofa and coffee table (both from Baker Furniture) and a floor lamp from All Modern. He says he expects the sofa to become worn and show signs of age, because that’s what functional objects do. It’s part of why he has dedicated his career to the world of things. After we tour his apartment, and after we’ve finished eating soup and salad, our discussion turns briefly toward the personal. We talk about the importance of having a spiritual life, the impact friendships can have on us, and our shared interest in making meaning out of everyday objects. I tell him why I like his home, and he calls my attention to the wobbly table, then to a Hitchcock chair. “Isn’t this special?” he asks. It is.

Later, after I’ve returned home, I open my computer and find an email from Arango. He had been thinking about things after I left, he said, and he wanted to expand on our conversation. I can’t think of any better way to conclude than by sharing what he wrote:

“At some dimension of reality, all mystical traditions acknowledge there is no fundamental difference between the table, the fork, the painting, and us. All of reality is made of the same thing. We could debate what that thing is. But from this perspective, it’s easy to see that if everything is one, then the things we love and own speak some aspect of ourselves back to us. They are, literally, part of us. We don’t have to carry all those things through our entire life. There’s a lot of unnecessary stuff we can certainly shed, about our things as well as ourselves. And as we grow and change, some things lose meaning, so we let them go. But it boils down, at some level, to ‘my cherished possessions, myself.’”

Peachy Keen

March, 2023 | By: Laura Fenton

It may be months before peaches appear at farmstands, but spring blossoms have us daydreaming about all the pretty pastel colors, especially pale peaches. Named for the fruit, peach is a tint of orange, but it is closer in color to the flesh of a white peach than the classic yellow peach.

As an interior color, peach has many sides. It’s a little unexpected yet versatile; it is lively yet calming. “Peach can be a cool or warm neutral, and it is soft and approachable like the inside of a seashell,” says Krista Stokes, creative director of the boutique Maine hotel group Atlantic Holdings. Pale peach brings a subtle pop of color to a space, but it’s still neutral enough to complement any aesthetic, from Victorian to midcentury modern.

Plus, peach casts a flattering glow wherever it is used; it’s just a matter of finding the right peach for the room you’re decorating. Peaches can range from a pale, almost white hue (gorgeous on walls) to a richer, bolder color that reads pink-orange (perfect for accents). We spoke to designers to find out how to find the rich hue for you and use it in your home.

Peach is on trend.

The interior design world is primed for peach right now. After nearly a decade of “millennial pink” accents, peach is a fresh alternative that’s still soft and warm, but a little less expected. Likewise, peach is a lighter shade of trendy terra-cotta. Two years ago, interior designers’ favorite paint company Farrow and Ball launched a collection with in-demand designer Kelly Wearstler that included Faded Terracotta, which is really a deep shade of peach.

Think of it as “nude.”

Decorators, including the pros we spoke to, often encourage homeowners to think of pastels like peach as a neutral, but if you’re having trouble thinking of pale orange as a noncolor, perhaps think of it as “nude.” Writing in her book Living with Color, textile artist Rebecca Atwood makes an apt analogy: “This creamy version of orange is like using a nude shade of nail polish; it’s pretty and soft, but subtle too.”

Pair it with cool tones.

Interior designer Vanessa Helmick, the owner of Fiore Home in Yarmouth, notes that, because Mainers love their blues, she often uses small amounts of peach tones to break up the coolness. “Orange and blue are direct complements on the color wheel, so using the more muted pairings is always gorgeous,” she says.

Get peachy art.

If you’re looking for a way to bring peach into a cool-scheme room, look to art, Helmick adds. “I use peach and other warm tones in art to balance the blues,” she says, specifically noting that she loves the work of Maine artist Nina Earley, who dyes silk with avocado pits to get a peachy effect. A color that is often found in nature, peach is also often found in seascapes, portraits, floral still lifes, and abstractions.

Go deep for sophistication.

Lorna Gross, an interior designer based in Maryland, likes to play with deeper shades of the hue in formal rooms. “A palette based in peach and corals adds a soft touch to an elegant dining room,” she says. “Adding in metallic finishes retains a refined aesthetic.”

Imagine a fruit salad palette.

“Nature is masterful at coloration, because nature is nuanced,” says Catherine Wilson of Catherine Wilson Interiors in Atlanta, Georgia. When choosing peachy hues, she recommends, “Think of all the fruits in the peach, pink, and coral families: peaches, pink grapefruits, guavas, and pink lady apples.” Mix them up together for a room that’s energetic and delicious to look at.

Recreate a garden palette.

Peach pairs naturally with shades of green and other nature-inspired hues. For example, when reimagining the color schemes for the Claremont Hotel in Southwest Harbor, Stokes and interior designer Laura Keeler Pierce of Boston’s Keeler & Co. were inspired by the garden. In one room, they opted for a headboard upholstered in a trailing floral by William Morris and pulled out the peach accents on pillows and a lampshade. “The peach woven into the headboard and pillows was the perfect bridge to all the other hues in the color scheme,” she says.

Try it with teal.

Peach also pairs beautifully with blue-green shades like turquoise. Louise Hurlbutt of Hurlbutt Designs in Kennebunk tweaked a complementary scheme with a turquoise faux-bamboo headboard layered over pale peach walls (Benjamin Moore’s Peach Parfait) in a Kennebunk home. Vintage seascapes that feature teal waters and peachy sails and skies further tie the palette together.

Work with woods.

Designer Cortney Bishop, whose firm is based in Charleston, South Carolina, paired peach and pale woods in a recent bedroom project. “A peachy, blush palette and natural wood tones create a soft and balanced foundation,” she says, noting that the soft color allows for other textural touches and fabrics to be easily layered into a space.

Warm up a whitewashed room.

Interior designer Karin Thomas, who is based in Camden, knows the power of white paint, and she used it liberally in a project in a Maine island home. However, for the walls of a guest bedroom, she opted to pickle the existing wood paneling in a pale shade of peach instead of the usual white. The subtle tint gives the room a warm glow and makes the white-painted furniture look even crisper.

Don’t forget texture.

One way to ensure that pale peach hues don’t look washed out or saccharine is to layer in lots of texture and contrasting materials. For example, in a recent dining room design, New York–based interior designer Emily Butler opted for peach walls, but in grasscloth instead of paint, and paired the soft color with textured rattan chairs and shiny brass accents.

Are Peach Bathrooms the Next Big Thing?

Plumbing manufacturer Kohler sure thinks so. As part of the company’s 150th anniversary celebration, Kohler is reviving some of its vintage hues. Kohler asked their customers and industry pros to vote on six heritage colors to bring back into production in 2023. After more than 100,000 people shared their opinions, Peachblow and Spring Green won the most votes, edging out four other colors including Avocado and Pink Champagne.

Peachblow is a blush-peach color that was first introduced in 1934 and stayed in production until 1973. It’s a throwback for sure, but after decades of all-white bathroom fixtures, the hit of color feels surprisingly modern. Plus, designers always suggest painting a bathroom blush or peach for the flattering glow it casts, so if you’re feeling bold, why not take the color a step further? A selection of Kohler’s most popular products will be available in the peachy hue (and Spring Green) for a limited time this summer. Oh, and if you’ve got a vintage bathroom with a colorful tub and toilet, maybe think twice before tearing it out. As the saying goes, “Everything old is new again.”

For a cheery bathroom in a coastal home, Santa Monica–based interior designer Sarah Barnard used peach tiles to “evoke natural corals and enhance the warm tones of the terrazzo countertop and flooring made with real seashells.” Pink undertones in the wood further what Barnard calls “the joyful effects of pink shades.”

In China, the peach is a symbol of longevity, and peaches are often depicted in paintings and on porcelain.

Palette Picks

Drink + Sketch 2024

October, 2024 | Photography: Christina Wnek

There’s concern in architectural and design circles about the decline of the hand sketch. A drawing is not meant to replace a finished rendering or be a masterpiece but rather part of a designer’s creative process. “What has happened to our profession, and our art,” said renowned architect Michael Graves to the New York Times, “to cause the supposed end of our most powerful means of conceptualizing and representing architecture?” While Graves acknowledged the importance of computers for presenting data and creating detailed construction documents, he argued that an architect’s hands as creative tools should never become obsolete. Many iconic designs throughout history have begun as a simple sketch on a napkin, place mat, or scrap of paper, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater to the “I Love New York” logo drawn by Milton Glaser in red crayon on an envelope in the back of a taxi. With this spirit in mind, MH+D, Knickerbocker Group, and the Portland Society for Architecture invited Maine designers to join us at Novare Res Bier Café in Portland for a drink and a chance to create their own napkin sketches. Participants were given five prompts and some pens and napkins and asked to produce as many or as few sketches as they wished within the allotted time. Here are the results.

PROMPTS

Each guest was asked to create one or more drawings based on the following prompts.

  • A downtown train station for Portland
  • A structure based on your favorite board game
  • A children’s play fort/treehouse in Deering Oaks Park
  • An adaptive new use for an old space (mill, shopping mall, box store)
  • A reimagined Adirondack chair

CHRIS DELANO
Principal/Owner
DELANO ARCHITECTURE

“I am fascinated by the relationships of people and the fabric of places. These sketches address the collective effect that relationships have on a composition. They are visual studies: lines become an object, each object joins other objects to create movement, a point of view, and a place. A story emerges.”

RACHEL CONLY
Owner/Design Director
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“For me, the best seat in the house is always at the edge of the sea. The Adirondack prompt inspired a chair shaped from earth that is designed to provide a contemplative, front-row view of the tides and ocean life with easy access for full immersion or soaking one’s feet.”

DANIELLE FOISY
Architect
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“The treehouse is made up of interconnected pods, designed to foster imagination in nature through playful exploration or as a refuge in the trees.”

HENRI JP BIZINDAVYI
Designer
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“Envisioning the future of downtown Portland’s train station is like sketching a bridge through time, where the echoes of the past meet the wisdom of nature, guiding us toward a sustainable tomorrow. The goal is to create a space where the elegance of historical architecture seamlessly merges with organic forms inspired by our intricate ecosystem.”

CHRISTOPHER DUDLEY
Lead Carpenter
JUNIPER DESIGN + BUILD

“I drew a reimagined box store, turning a Home Depot into an apartment complex with indoor/outdoor community spaces. It was a fun evening of sketching and seeing what other creative people came up with from the prompts given.”

RICHARD LO
Senior Architectural Staff
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“My last sketch of the evening, the ‘Peacorondack,’ was no doubt helped along by excellent company and beverages. A slightly showy upgrade for a familiar and iconic vacation chair, it is best displayed prominently in small groups scattered at the edge of sloping lawn facing a lake, river, or the Atlantic Ocean.”

PAIGE BECHTLE
Interior Designer
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“We get so accustomed to drawing from observation or designing what’s ‘typical’—it was so enjoyable to stretch our creativity with playful prompts and places we are all fond of here in Maine!”

GRACE TISDALE
Project Manager
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“Although seemingly impractical, the ‘S’mores Chair’ is a comfortable yet supportive chair throughout the day, and then as you settle in for the evening and light a fire, you can enjoy your seat as it melts into a treat!”

KATIE BRADDOCK LA ROSE
Architect
KAPLAN THOMPSON ARCHITECTS

“The Adirondack chair is all about sinking back, relaxing, and taking in the surrounding views; this reimagination favors togetherness as well. The ‘Adirondack in the Round’ allows for few or many to gather, as if around a fire, for conversation and company. The semicircle pieces can be rearranged into a landscape of their own.”

ERIC WITTMAN
Senior Project Designer, Architecture
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“Imagine turning the shell of a familiar national brand into a vertical farm. The structure and layout would make it an easy transition, and existing loading docks would be a plus. Naming the farm ‘Garden Encapsulated Towers’ or simply ‘Grow Eats Tall’ would allow you to ‘adaptively reuse’ half of the existing sign.”

STEVEN MANSFIELD
Senior Associate Landscape Architect
MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM LANDSCAPE DESIGN

“It was a great evening to be with some of Portland’s best designers and contribute to conversations that came up from wildly different sketch prompts. It’s always fun to step back, let loose, and draw the first thing that comes to mind.”

KARL ALAMO
Designer
MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM LANDSCAPE DESIGN

“The Maine landscape is lush, rugged, and hosts a way of life inimitable and seldom rivaled. For a transportation center, I envision simple uses of steel that celebrate the early industry of rural Maine life, nestled into a landscape abundant with locally native plants and stone—a welcome home, and a reminder to return soon.”

ERIK MILLES
Principal
CHARRON | REFLEX LIGHTING

“I loved seeing the creativity and hand drawing skills of everyone involved. Drink and Sketch holds a special place in my heart because it brings us back to the very essence of architecture and design: putting pencil to paper, letting the mind explore, and sharing it with others to enjoy.”

RUSS TYSON
Principal
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“Introducing a light rail train station to the peninsula would make it a breeze to hop off the train and dive right into Portland’s downtown neighborhoods. It would spark more foot traffic and energy in the charming Old Port while keeping the car chaos to a minimum.”

GEORGE WORKMAN
Senior Landscape Architect
SMRT ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS

“While the world changes and moves away from analog so quickly, and freehand drawing threatens to go the way of cursive, it’s truly a pleasure to enjoy the company of colleagues and friends while drawing freehand. It feels like a vignette of the old days.”

SOREN DENIORD
Owner/Principal
SOREN DENIORD DESIGN STUDIO

“Drink and Sketch was a fun ‘after-work’ gathering and a chance to connect outside of shared projects. The prompts were imaginative, and I enjoyed hearing and seeing different people’s interpretations.”

KARI GALLOW-WRIGHT
Landscape Designer
TED CARTER INSPIRED LANDSCAPES

“There is something wonderful about reimagining a board game as a livable space. I began by studying the pieces and elements of particular games before things took on a more concrete form. I particularly enjoyed drafting a Monopoly walkway with a focus on material, shape, and color.”

TED CARTER
President
TED CARTER INSPIRED LANDSCAPES

“As my mind wandered during the sketching event, my inner child came out to play, and I found myself daydreaming about various country settings. I went off script. The natural world has so many hills and valleys filled with mystery and intrigue, both timeless and limitless.”

ALEX HABA
Designer
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“I heard that Casco Bay Lines is expanding…underwater railroad from the Eastern Prom to Brunswick.”

TORI GITTO
Designer
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“Throughout the game of dominoes, lines extend and join into lengthy shapes of legible connection. Structures share a similar language by using compatibility to build and join together what would otherwise appear to be dissimilar or incompatible. Warning: Carelessness may result in a chain reaction of fallen dominoes and failed structure!”

ALYSSA PHANITDASACK
Project Architect
WHITTEN ARCHITECTS

“A sketch is a seed. Drink and Sketch is my favorite event that encourages casual cross-pollination of creative minds.”

CHRISTIAN A. PRASCH
Architectural Designer
WINKELMAN ARCHITECTURE

“I had fun with the space station Chutes and Ladders scene. I enjoy changing the scale of an object in an attempt to make something new, and this game provides easy fodder for such an exercise.”

DAVID DUNCAN MORRIS
Partner
WOODHULL

“One fun thing on top of another!”

PATRICK BOOTHE
Director, Commercial Studio
WOODHULL

“I often take my 2½-year-old to Deering Oaks playground, where I imagine one of the majestic oaks soaring to 300 feet. After a lightning strike, it miraculously stands tall, transformed into an observation deck with a near-perfect, code-compliant spiral staircase leading to the top. Oh, and it has a zip line, of course.”

JOHN MUCCIARONE
Senior Project Manager
ZEROENERGY DESIGN

“Treehouse: an elevated, urban escape in nature that is simple, playful, and imaginative for the inner child in all of us.”

DUSTIN TISDALE
Residential Studio Project Manager
WOODHULL

“Napkin sketches are the idea droplets that fill the cup of a complete design. Sometimes a little drips out to make room for better ideas…I’m still waiting.”

RICK NELSON
Practice Leader, Architecture
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“The world is in Trouble. It’s best to stay above it.”

GREG NORTON
Senior Project Designer
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“An infrastructure that allows a Portland worker to park out of town and take a trolley to work, relieving Portland of vehicular congestion. One big train station, or series of unique neighborhood stations—anything to create more public transit options as Portland continues to grow.”

TREVOR WATSON
Design Studio Leader, Architecture
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“Being open to different view is a skillset which affords us many opportunities in life—what is more powerful than the physical manifestation of this concept? A treehouse in a park, elevated, built into the branches and leaves. A child’s first experience with a space to call their own.”

TYLER DOHERTY
Revit Specialist and BIM Manager
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“Imagine the possibilities if we innovate the millions of square feet of shopping malls in this country to become rooftop gardens and pastures. They would feed local communities, reduce the risk of food deserts, and bring people a sense of pride in what would otherwise be a desolate expanse of concrete and asphalt.”

LEAH LIPPMANN
Design Studio Leader, Interiors
KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

“I chose Commercial Street as the location for a grand train station that brings the heritage of trains back into the city. The steel structure acts as a bridge between the past and present while sleek new trains make the trip into the city quick and easy.”

David Matero Creates a Crescent-Shaped Home in West Bath Complete with Two Art Studios

October, 2024 | By: Jorge S. Arango | Photography: Jeff Roberts

Joan Lasky Saba and Mark Saba, Pittsburgh natives who raised their family in Connecticut, began renting homes in Maine for stretches of time when their son decided to attend Bowdoin College. But the state’s many charms soon lured them in, convincing them to settle here permanently. “I found this 800-square-foot, two-bedroom cottage on the internet,” Joan recalls. “The price was slashed, and I wondered why.”

Curious, she flew up to Maine and drove to West Bath. From the moment she entered the 4.3-acre
property abutting Winnegance Bay, she recalls, “I felt it was something magical.” She was so moved, adds Mark, “When the realtor told the owner Joan had gotten teary-eyed, the owner said, ‘I want them to have it.’”

The house itself, however, was not going to be sufficient to accommodate their retirement plans. Mark had been a medical illustrator and graphic designer for Yale University, but he wanted to pursue his love of painting, poetry, and fiction writing full-time, which required a studio. Joan, though still a partner at an architectural firm specializing in hospitals and academic medical centers, was also a painter in search of her own studio space. “I knew there was no way I’d have the time to design a home,” she says. So she hired David Matero Architecture, whose work she had found in design magazines.

Matero and Eric Smith of Oceanside Builders quickly realized a few possible reasons the property’s price had been reduced. “It was on a steep slope,” explains Matero. “There was about a 50- or 60-foot drop to the house, then another 30-foot drop to the water.” Additionally, there were building restrictions associated with waterfront setbacks and septic systems. “There was not a lot of buildable land.”

Furthermore, adds Smith, “We knew we were going to hit rock at some point, and we did, but only on one part of the house and not the other. I wasn’t going to build one half of the house on fill and the other on ledge.” After consultations with an engineer, Smith solved the issue by hammering back the ledge and bringing in “proper backfill so that the house would be evenly distributed on the base.”

As for the paucity of buildable land, Matero designed a contemporary crescent-shaped structure. “The landscape really formed this house,” he observes. “The crescent opens up corners on the water-facing side of the house but embraces the topography in the front. The hillside goes way up on the right, so the tall part of the house relates well to its height.” His clients also didn’t want their home to stand out like a sore thumb from the water, so Matero “broke up the massing,” which turned out to have an added advantage: the collection of small roofs drain water more effectively than one big roof would have. That water now streams down through a valley created by the varying rooflines and cascades dramatically like a waterfall outside the main living space. However, Smith explains, to help prevent pooling and foundation-damaging backwash, “We created a dry riverbed look over a storm drain that carries it away from the building.”

Inside, the multiple rooflines create a dynamic play of pine-clad angles overhead but also slope toward the view, training the focus on the waterfront. To ensure a contemporary sensibility that is nevertheless informed by the locality’s sense of place, “We kept rusticity to a minimum without ignoring the surroundings,” says Matero. For instance, Douglas fir paneling enveloping the primary
bedroom is a nod to camp style, as is the stone fireplace, except here the stone is cut into blocks rather than left natural, thus telegraphing a cleaner profile. The warmth of wood and its relation to the forested site continues onto the floors, which are oak throughout.

As an architect with a substantial understanding of design, Joan proved an ideal collaborator with Jeanne Handy of Jeanne Handy Designs on interior finishes and furnishings. “We talked about bringing the outside in with the palette and details like wallpaper and hardware,” remembers Handy. “But the idea for me is always to be less obvious—not to look like the outdoors, but to evoke the feeling the outdoors brings, the serenity the site already has.” The point was to “create ‘aaah’ moments where your shoulders drop a little.”

Says Handy, “It’s always fun for me to work with clients who are artistic. It facilitates a group process rather than having me dictate a style. The Sabas have an excellent eye and are open to things that are different.” They were also quick studies, apparently. “Jeanne and I selected all the light fixtures in 90 minutes,” notes Joan.

Green (primarily Sherwin-Williams Sea Salt in a matte finish) and blue were obvious choices for the color palette, but they are also subtle and susceptible to changes in light throughout the day. Wallpapers bring in elements of surprising pattern and color, such as stylized stripes on the wall behind a bed in a guest room, and the midnight blue paper with a gold pattern of the cosmos in a hidden reading nook tucked behind the fireplace.

The reading nook, one of several unusual features of the home, was Joan’s idea and is sure to be a highly coveted sleeping accommodation for grandchildren. Another of Joan’s unique, innovative details is a 38-by 38-inch “puzzle drawer” that pulls out of the kitchen island. Rather than have a jigsaw puzzle occupying a surface when no one is working on it, she explains, “you can just drop it into the drawer.”

Other elements that differentiate the house from a standard shingle-clad camp are architectural. Matero swathed the entry volume’s exterior with dark bronze corrugated metal. “We didn’t have to use metal,” he admits, but doing so “highlights the entrance and the staircase just inside.” There’s a considerable amount of shadow play activated by the rooflines, but also by brise-soleils, screen panels that protrude horizontally from the tops of windows, breaking up the sunlight both on the exterior and inside the house as it filters through them.

One of Joan’s favorite novelties is a clerestory window in her studio set into the wall within a chamfered edge. “I called David and said, ‘Wait a minute. This reminds me of the windows in Ronchamp’”—better known as Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut, Le Corbusier’s famous structure in
Ronchamp in northeast France. Indeed, her hunch about this architectural reference was accurate, he assured her.

Outside, Jorgensen Landscaping created mulched paths and stone steps to convey the Sabas, their family, and guests through the woods and down to the water, all bordered by native plantings that simply bring a bit more order to the wildness of the site.

As Handy mentioned, the cumulative result of architecture, interiors, and landscaping leans heavily into the serenity that the outdoors brings. For homeowners preoccupied with creative endeavors, this turns out to be quite generative. “We love the silence here,” says Mark, noting that they hid the television out of sight purposely, which helps them concentrate on their respective art forms. “Growing up in Pittsburgh,” he explains, “I was really familiar with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
This is not that, of course, but I like the feeling of being so tied to nature. The site is conducive to that.”

Design Wire November/December 2024

Pamela Moulton and Roy Fox, TANGLE, 2023. Steel, salvaged ropes, and nets, paint, 14” x 10”. Commissioned for the University of Maine System and the citizens of Maine under the Maine Percent for Art Act. (Photo: Zach Boyce)

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE ART GALLERY recently acquired TANGLE, a sculpture by artists PAMELA MOULTON and ROY FOX. Located on the school’s Portland campus, the artwork depicts a whimsical five-legged creature constructed of industry-discarded “ghost gear,” including steel, rope, and net salvaged from the Gulf of Maine. Funded by the MAINE PERCENT FOR ART program administered by the MAINE ARTS COMMISSION, the 14-foot-tall sculpture speaks to the history of net fishing in the state, a tradition the Wabanaki people have continuously practiced for 12,000 years. Moulton is a multidisciplinary artist known for her playful, large-scale installations built entirely from salvaged nets and ropes; Fox has worked as an artist and designer in both Los Angeles and Maine.

The WESTBROOK PLANNING BOARD unanimously approved a proposal to build Maine’s first center for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) residents, a community that comprises more than 26,000 people across the state. Sitting on 30 acres of land owned by WATT SAMAKI, a nonprofit Cambodian Buddhist temple, the center will include a large event hall, instructional and conference spaces, and offices that will house a variety of AAPI organizations and provide access to services, including immigration support, workforce development, English language classes, and small business incubation. The campus will include a new worship center, a traditional Khmer temple, extensive gardens, statuary, and walking trails. KHMER MAINE, another nonprofit serving the state’s Cambodian community, is raising funds for the $5 million project. Construction is expected to begin next summer by local firms, including ACORN ENGINEERING and WINTON SCOTT ARCHITECTS. “In keeping with Buddhist traditions of honoring and connecting to the natural world, the building includes sustainable elements such as a green planted roof system and a solar array on the event hall roof,” explains STEPHEN WEATHERHEAD, principal at Winton Scott. The office and classroom spaces will feature light shelves to direct natural light deeper into the building, thus lessening the reliance on artificial lighting. High-efficiency electrical and mechanical systems, reduced-water-flow plumbing fixtures, and high-thermal-performance window and wall systems will reduce energy needs for the building.

Photos: courtesy of Nike

NIKE’s new “TOGETHER WE RISE” campaign is flipping the script on the company’s traditional SWOOSH logo. To celebrate the rise of women’s sports, the third kits for men’s and women’s teams in European and Latin American football clubs feature a double swoosh pointing upward, a 90-degree pivot from its usual positioning. According to Nike, this limited-time graphic communicates the “acceleration” of the game and supports the brand’s belief that “women and girls are on the leading edge of change, redefining the parameters of sport and how it serves the next generation.”

BETH ISRAEL CONGREGATION in Waterville recently underwent an extensive renovation that included updates to the building’s accessibility, HVAC system, audiovisual services, and security led by construction manager SHERIDAN CONSTRUCTION. The building’s refresh also included the construction of a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath used for celebrations and healing. Designed by BECHTEL FRANK ERICKSON (BFE) ARCHITECTS, the mikvah is one of only three in the state and is supported by the JEWISH COMMUNITY ALLIANCE OF SOUTHERN MAINE. It consists of an entry room, a changing room, a bathroom, and a mosaic-tiled pool filled with more than one ton of water melted from solid ice sourced from a spring-fed pond on a congregant’s property. “The mikvah is a place of communal support with connection through engagement of the users and professional practitioners. The project at Beth Israel began with listening to the stories told by congregants, which provided us with the necessary vision, inspiration, and relevance of the mikvah for the greater Waterville community,” says Gerard Frank, principal at BFE Architects.

Photo: courtesy of JAX

Biomedical research institute JACKSON LABORATORY (JAX) launched a $750,000 fundraising campaign to renovate HIGHSEAS, the 112-year-old Bar Harbor mansion that has housed the organization’s alumni, researchers, and students over the past 70 years. Built in 1912 from locally quarried granite and bricks shipped from Pennsylvania, the estate is consistently maintained but requires updates to the roof, wood trim, and windows that have withstood wear and tear from Mount Desert’s salty ocean air. Renovations to the building, which features two floors of residential space and a third-floor classroom, will reflect its historic character with modern materials. “JAX’s HighSeas is emblematic of the legacy of our highly successful summer student program as well as a significant and iconic former summer estate. We are excited to be reinvesting in the facility to serve as a home based for the next generation of JAX learners, fellows, and scientists,” says Charlie Wray, vice president of education at JAX. The facility will remain in use while exterior renovations are performed.

Built more than 80 years ago, the INDIAN CELLAR TEA HOUSE in Hollis was facing demolition when SACO RIVER THEATRE began a fundraising campaign to relocate the structure to its site in Buxton. The subject of Margaret Hammel Shea’s book Tavern in the Town, published in 1948, the tea house has served as a store, a restaurant, and a canoe rental facility. In its new location, it will undergo renovations to become a scene shop for the theater with prop and costume storage. Spring 2025 construction on the SALMON FALLS BRIDGE, which connects Hollis to Buxton, adds to the urgency of the structure’s relocation.

Photos: courtesy of the Kraft Heinz Company

Ever wondered what it’s like to sit in JELL-O? Thanks to the new JELLY COLLECTION, a line of inflatable Y2K-inspired furniture in the shape (and colors) of iconic Jell-O molds, you can finally find out. Designed to build on the rise of jelly-inspired home decor and beauty trends along with the resurgence of nostalgic inflatable furniture, each Jelly Collection chair features smooth, rounded curves that create an inviting and comfortable seat along with a built-in cup holder that perfectly fits a Ready-to-Eat Jell-O Gelatin snack cup. “With the Jelly Collection, we’re not just celebrating our rich history; we’re bringing it to life for today’s families. By blending our heritage with a modern twist, we’re inviting consumers to embrace the playful spirit that has made Jell-O a beloved favorite for generations,” says Tyler Parker, brand manager of desserts at Kraft Heinz.

2024 Holiday Gift Guide

I’ve been coveting a piece by the design duo Cee and She for the past three years. Each piece is crafted by two women artists in their Westbrook studio. These stoneware candleholders are both elegant and whimsical. The flower petals are made individually by the artists’ hands; each is unique, never to be replicated.

—Danielle Devine, editor
CEEANDSHE.COM

Ever since we covered Maine Surfers Union in last July’s Shop Talk, I’ve been dying to get my hands on one of the Ocean Clocks the store imports from France. I’d love to know if Back Cove is looking luscious or marshy before I head over.

—Becca Abramson, associate editor
MAINESURFERSUNION.COM // OCEANCLOCK.COM

I like this Orange and Gold Honeycomb Charcuterie Board, which is made in Scarborough, because it makes for a great centerpiece and is also a piece of art that I could see hanging
on a wall.Œ

—Karen Bowe, director of business & partnership development
PFWOODTURNING.COM

My friend Michelle Rose contacted me to photograph her new line of products in gorgeous packaging. Handmade in Maine, Minka Apothecary was inspired by Michelle’s personal journey to heal her case of eczema.

—Heidi Kirn, designer
MINKAHOME.COM

I long for the day I see a beautiful fireplace in my house, cozying up with a good book and my cats while letting the heat get me through the cold winter months. Stûv designs minimalist woodstoves that you can find locally at Embers Stoves and Fireplaces.

—Nicole McNeil, production coordinator
STUVAMERICA.COM

I bought my first Alice Yardley handbag at STITCH last spring. I selected a sweet summer color block bag that went everywhere with me and was often asked, “Where did you get your bag?” Spoiler alert: If my sister in Nova Scotia is reading this issue of MH+D, there will be an Alice Yardley original under your Christmas tree this year—and I just might have gifted myself an envelope clutch as a finishing touch for my holiday outfits.

—Crystal Murray, editor-in-chief & publisher
ALICEYARDLEYMAINE.COM

From planes and saws to chisels and spokeshaves, Warren-based Lie-Nielsen Toolworks crafts some of the finest heirloom-quality hand tools for furniture making that money can buy.

—Shawn Dalton, senior director, creative design & production
LIE-NIELSEN.COM

There’s nothing I love more than a soft blanket to cozy up in as the months get cooler. Made of luxurious 100 percent cotton, Blanche and Mimi’s Hand Printed Throw Quilt wraps you in the warmth of the holidays. These charming quilts are the perfect blend of elegance and coziness, serving as functional decor through the holiday season and into spring!

—Lauren McKenney, associate publisher
BLANCHEANDMIMI.COM

Chef Matt Ginn’s Crispy Duck Fritters Are a Holiday Showstopper

October, 2024 | By: Matt Ginn | Photography courtesy of Prentice Hospitality

”The concept for this dish is based on one of my favorite French brasserie dishes, a crispy duck leg confit served with a red wine and mustard glaze alongside a crispy chicory salad,” explains chef Matt Ginn, culinary director at Prentice Hospitality. At the Good Table in Cape Elizabeth, Ginn replaced Maine salt cod fritters with this duck variety, offering a similar flavor profile with an elevated twist. “We think of duck as a winter protein, often paired with roasted figs or stone fruit on the holiday table,” he says. “Duck is also sustainable, with a much better footprint than other meats, and it’s more accessible than people think. Plenty of markets in and around Portland offer it, such as Rosemont.” Try this recipe for a fun and approachable way to elevate the holiday table this season.

Makes 20 to 30 fritters (5 or 6 servings)

INGREDIENTS

For the confit
4 duck legs
About 70 grams salt
Pinch of sugar
Neutral oil or animal fat

For the fritter dough
400 grams prepared confit
200 grams cooked and mashed potato
20 grams all-purpose flour
20 grams whole-grain mustard
1 shallot, minced
15 grams chopped chives
10 grams chopped parsley
5 grams salt

For breading and frying
Flour
Egg wash (beaten egg plus about 1 tablespoon of water)
Breadcrumbs
High-heat oil

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Lightly salt the duck legs and add a pinch of sugar. Let sit in the refrigerator to cure overnight. In the morning, rinse the salt away and dry off the legs thoroughly.

2. Once the duck is cured, it is slowly cooked in fat (a technique known as confit). At the restaurant, the duck legs are cooked in a blend of olive oil and duck fat with a bit of garlic and thyme. At home, it’s easiest to use any neutral oil or animal fat. Place the legs in an oven-safe pan, cover with warmed fat, and bake at 250°F for 2½ hours. Let cool completely.

3. Pick the cooled meat from the bone and place into a mixing bowl with the remainder of the fritter dough ingredients. Stir to combine, then roll into balls about the size of a half-dollar.

4. Using the three-phase breading method, dredge each ball in flour, moisten it in egg wash, then coat it in breadcrumbs.

5. Heat the frying oil in a pan. Fry the breaded fritters at 340°F until they are golden brown. Serve with a chicory salad and red wine vinaigrette.

How Cabbage Patch Kids Grew to Rule the ‘80s Toy Market

October, 2024 | By: Danielle Devine | Photography courtesy of the Strong National Museum of Play

If there’s a doll that embodies the 1980s, it’s the Cabbage Patch Kid. The first iteration of the famous dimpled dolls was conceived in the ‘70s by an American folk artist from Kentucky named Martha Nelson Thomas. Thomas, who graduated from art school in Louisville, began making 16-inch-tall soft sculpture dolls with hand-stitched facial features and yarn for hair. She considered them expressions of herself and called them her Doll Babies. Each baby came with its own packet, which included adoption papers, a letter from Martha, and a list of the baby’s likes and dislikes. Xavier Roberts purchased the dolls from Thomas to offer at his gift store in Georgia and sold them for a huge profit. Thomas was uncomfortable with the high price of the dolls and spoke to Roberts about lowering it.

In response to Thomas’s concerns, Roberts began to make the successful cloth dolls himself, cutting out Thomas. He called his dolls Little People, but they looked exactly like Thomas’s dolls, with adoption papers and all. Roberts soon met with Roger Schlaifer, an Atlanta designer and licensing agent, and changed the name to Cabbage Patch Kids to avoid confusion with FisherPrice’s Little People toy line. Schlaifler then brokered a deal with the toy company Coleco Industries, designed the Cabbage Patch Kids logo, and, along with his wife, Susanne Nance, created the magical origin story of the Cabbage Patch Kids, which was printed on each doll’s box.

It’s fitting that it was another woman who altered the design to create the Cabbage Patch Kid we know today. Judith F. Albert was a designer at Coleco Industries in the 1980s who created a vinyl recast (with a signature sweet smell) of the formerly cloth doll head. Albert also designed a computerized program to ensure that each doll was unique, with varied eye colors, facial features, and clothes.

In 1983, the new Cabbage Patch Kids were introduced to great fanfare at the International Toy Fair in New York City, and soon, they were coveted by every child in the U.S. That holiday season, there were riots in stores across the country because there were not enough dolls to meet consumer demand. In 1985, Cabbage Patch Kids sales totaled $600 million. Schlaifer estimates that the final tally of five years of sales was around $4 billion.

Thomas, the original creator, did file a lawsuit in 1979 that was settled out of court in 1985 for an undisclosed sum. Thomas reported that the settlement was enough to allow her kids to attend college. Maybe for our next lesson we’ll talk about when karma came for the Cabbage Patch Kids empire, when the baseball card company Topps ripped them off to imagine their far less cuddly Garbage Pail Kids.

An Artsy Couple’s Guatemala City Home Showcases Their Fondness for Found Objects

October, 2024 | By: Becca Abramson | Photography: Ben Hoffmann

Designers Rodman Primack and Rudy Weissenberg, cofounders of Mexico City–based AGO Projects, live the nomadic lifestyles of celebrated creatives, bouncing from New York City to Guatemala to London to work on new projects and attend to their thriving business. In the new book Love How You Live (Monacelli, 2024), the pair open the doors to six homes they’ve designed for themselves across the globe, along with seven residences they’ve curated for others.

Despite running a successful design firm and art gallery based in Mexico City and New York, Primack claims he has no special authority to dictate what’s beautiful; rather, he aims to lead others to their own language for living with the following instructions: “Nurture what you love and share that with others. Seek out the beauty in authenticity and minimize your investment in trying to emulate the supposed ‘good taste’ of others. Embrace flexibility and chance, the unresolved and unexpected. These principles work in decorating,” he writes, “because they work in life.”

When outfitting the interior of this sprawling U-shaped home for themselves in Guatemala City, Primack and Weissenberg made the most of the “traditional local know-how” that they believe is too often overlooked in locations rich with culture and craft. To avoid importing wherever possible, the couple sourced wool textiles from looms in the Mayan highlands; used wood from family sawmills; employed a local metalsmith to make window casings, benches, and shelving; and commissioned artist and architect Dario Escobar to design tiles to decorate the home. Hand-me-down furniture and kitchenware from Weissenberg’s grandmother are found throughout the space, often paired with Guatemalan crafts from local artisans. As writer Ana Karina Zatarain notes in the book’s foreword, Primack and Weissenberg’s homes “reflect an intense fondness for objects, with every room densely populated by art, furniture, textiles, ceramics, glassware, patterned wallpaper, variegated tiles, and countless curios coexisting in eclectic juxtaposition.” Follow the couple’s lead and learn to love how you live with these nine finds.


VEJIGANTE MASK
Art by Mercedes // etsy.com/shop/artbymrcds

MAUVIEL COPPER TRIPLY 7-PIECE COOKWARE SET Williams Sonoma // williams-sonoma.com

THAMES PENDANT LIGHT
Den Studio // denstudioshop.com

MERCER LARGE CANISTER Crate & Barrel // crateandbarrel.com

19th CENTURY SPANISH CONSOLE TABLE Pamono by Chairish // pamono.com

POMELO 4×4 TILE
Zia Tile // ziatile.com

DESIGNER SERIES
WALL MOUNT RANGE HOOD ZLine Kitchen & Bath // zlinekitchen.com

ABODE COUNTER STOOL WITH STEEL SEAT IN RED Industry West // industrywest.com

NO. 898 MOROCCAN RUG Kantara // kantararugs.com

Davies Toews Architecture Hatches a Bird-Friendly Hideaway on Saddleback Mountain

October, 2024 | Photography: Andy Gagne | As told to Becca Abramson

“Saddleback was looking to expand dining options on the mountain, and our inspiration was a picnic table in the woods where the ski instructors used to hang out. It was their secret spot with a hidden aspect to it, which is how the building came to have a humble, rustic look. We looked at old Swedish ski buildings and the technique of coating locally sourced wood siding with a natural pine tar finish. The black exterior in the snowy landscape is then contrasted by the warm colorful interior of the building. When you approach the structure, it appears small, and you enter through thick doors that make the portal more intimate. Inside, it opens to a large dining space with a panoramic view. There’s an industrial aesthetic with the nest of exposed steel overhead which is offset by the use of a cozy color palette.

“The structure is three-sided, with one side featuring floor-to-ceiling glass toward the big view. Bird safety was something we were talking about from the beginning because of the building’s location in the middle of the rare Bicknell’s thrush’s habitat. Working closely with Maine Audobon throughout the project, we designed a simple and low-cost screen to be installed in front of the windows that can be put up in the spring and taken down in the winter when the birds have left the area. The removable screens allow for adaptability and testing but also provide an opportunity to educate visitors about bird safety. Plus, we thought it could be fun to make it an annual spring ritual when the bird screens are added.

“The top of the building features a living green roof with hay-scented ferns and low-bush blueberries; the idea is to recreate the natural alpine meadow above the building, as if the ground had been lifted up for the building to be tucked into. Instead of a poured concrete foundation, the entire structure is built on posts that minimize disruption of the watershed.

“It’s nice to hear that people are surprised when they walk into the building. The vision was a collaboration, and we tried to create something that feels truly different— something you can’t find at any other ski mountain in New England and beyond.”

—Jonathan Toews, principal, Davies Toews Architecture

Matthew Cunningham Reveals the Benefits of Thoughtful Landscape Design

“Landscape architects play a vital role in driving innovative and sustainable design solutions to the problems posed by the climate crisis.”

MH+D ASKS CUNNINGHAM TO TELL US MORE.

Q. Many of your gardens integrate native plants. What long-term benefits will we see if more people use native plantings?

A. There are many incredible benefits to working with plants that are “of a place,” particularly since many native plants have coevolved for millennia with fluctuating weather patterns specific to our region. A robust palette of natives is inherently more adaptive to seasonal drought and deluge cycles, and because of these unique adaptations, they typically require less maintenance than more conventional ornamental plantings. Native and indigenous plant communities provide habitat along with other essential ecosystem support, which nourishes food webs and increases biodiversity. They enhance air quality, sequester carbon, reduce the heat-island effect, and define critically important site-specific ecologies on the land. In short, native plants are directly tethered to context. Because of this, they possess dazzling multi-seasonal characteristics that connect people to the natural rhythms of the places we live.

Q. How will climate adaptation play a role in your work as your firm continues to create resilient landscapes that rise to the challenges posed by the climate crisis in New England?

A. I firmly believe landscape architects play a vital role in driving innovative and sustainable design solutions to the problems posed by the climate crisis—not just here in New England but worldwide. There are generalists and specialists in all fields. I’m proud to lead a firm devoted to creating domestic landscapes that embrace context, support site-specific ecologies, and enhance our patrons’ lifestyles.

In 2022 I founded MCLD Land Lab, a curated research farm in a repurposed equestrian facility in Arundel. We study residential ecologies by examining the interactions among living things and their environments. As we evolve this endeavor, we will explore how the influence of time, seasonality, and land stewardship impacts design thinking, craftsmanship, and management strategies in response to the climate crisis. Through experiments and observations with vegetation communities, we investigate vital connections among human, plant, and animal communities, emphasizing the importance of maintaining environmental health throughout placemaking.

As an educator, practitioner, and leader in our profession, I believe mentoring the next generation of designers is one of the most significant contributions I can make to landscape architecture. I have never believed more in the power of our field to advance the fight against climate change than I do now, and we must do all we can to attract students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and cultures so that they can learn how to return to the places they’re from and help their communities. Everything is riding on this. We have so many opportunities to use the medium of landscape architecture to positively shape the places we live.

Photos: Matthew Cunningham

Q. What are some health benefits you have witnessed over the years from investing in good landscape design?

A. Anchoring day-to-day human experiences within the natural systems surrounding us can only enhance our connections to the land, which will establish positive land stewardship ethics within our neighborhoods. A thoughtfully designed landscape will encourage people to be engaged in the outdoors, and the pandemic only reinforced this. As our landscapes grow and evolve, we’ve watched our clients forge incredibly meaningful connections to their land that help reduce stress and encourage passive and active recreational experiences for their families and friends. I believe the cumulative impacts of good landscape design will make indoor–outdoor connections visible. If we can work together, one yard at a time, we can establish resilient landscapes that will thrive for generations.

MH+D is proud to partner with acclaimed architectural photographer Trent bell on his architecture, design, and photography podcast. To hear Bell’s conversation with Cunningham, please visit adppodcast.com.

“Anniversary” Celebrates 10 Years of the Charles Altschul Book Arts Studio

October, 2024 | By: Lucky Platt

There’s a layer cake—in the form of a book, of course!—at the entrance to Anniversary: 10 Years of the Charles Altschul Book Arts Studio, the wildly imaginative group exhibition at the Haas Gallery in Rockport. Cake is a limited-edition book created by the artist and writer Cig Harvey with designer Anneli Skaar and letterpress artist Art Larson. It was published by Two Ponds Press (Liv Rockefeller
and Ken Shure), who ultimately handed off the printed text block to four generations of bookbinders to assemble Harvey’s baker’s dozen of photographs, drawings, and text in their own ways, bound and unbound.

The tradition of the anniversary gift made from a distinct material with symbolic content dates back at least to the Victorian era, according to myriad wedding websites. The first anniversary gift is paper, for the opening chapter, followed the next year by cotton for the fibrous “intertwining of lives.” Through each subsequent year, embodied in a material like leather, fruit/flowers, wood, iron, wool/copper, clay, willow, or tin, there’s an expression of comfort, allure, durability, vitality, and resilience—qualities that contribute to a lasting relationship.

For Anniversary, Richard Reitz Smith, artist and studio manager of Maine Media Workshop Book Arts, has invited 36 current and former studio faculty to take inspiration from anniversary gifts “with plenty of room to stretch meaning and loosely, often playfully, respond to the theme.” Among the invited exhibitors are many nationally known book artists, as well as celebrated photographers who, like Barbara Bosworth, materially reference book arts and artists from Maine and away who celebrate the book as a form for narrative and sculptural invention.

A decade-long relationship with a shared interest in enduring and thriving is by nature collaborative, and so is almost every piece in this visual feast—from the renowned book artist and studio founder Charles Altschul’s monumental folio The Lost Ones by Samuel Beckett, created in the 1980s by Altschul with engravings by Charles S. Klabunde and signed by Samuel Beckett; to Erin Fletcher’s
gorgeous embroidered, sequined, and hand-bound letterpress edition of Rebecca Chamlee’s
At Low Water: An Intertidal Memoir; to the work of “godmother of book arts in Maine” Rebecca Goodale, whose letterpress accordion-style book Shagbark Sestina illustrates a poem by Lisa Hibl with hand-painted drypoint prints. Other works in Anniversary take on more traditional book art forms as points of departure for sculptural explorations. Rachel E. Church’s soft sculptural clementines printed from inked clementines (really!) seem to roll out of their book box as a dimensional still life. Erin Sweeney’s collection of steel wire forms, handmade books, and soft sculpture arrived at the gallery for Reitz Smith to assemble using his own storyteller’s sensibility. Sweeney, in delightful collaboration with Reitz Smith, presents The Divine Lorraine—Inside My Head (translated by Richard) as a wall installation resembling a puppet theater with dynamic shadow play.

In Anniversary books are containers for stories, or portals to worlds the artists help us to imagine, or forms that, when opened book-like, as are Sal Taylor Kydd’s mixed-media tin box photographs, might reveal something otherwise thought to be lost. All the works in the exhibition exude a reverence for, or even giddy delight in, books. Suzanne Glémot, a librarian and book conservator, presents Confetti Library, a book box enclosing hand-dyed paper confetti sorted by color into glass vessels. Jan Owen’s astounding scrollwork on layers of translucent cloth begins with her words,
“Do you know how beautiful words are…” and encompasses chosen writings by beloved writers of poetry and prose.

As a 15-year Maine Media Workshops veteran, the Book Arts program chair since 2018, and Anniversary’s curator and collaborator, Richard Reitz Smith brings his own story to the piece he presents, which is appropriate for the tenth anniversary gift of tin. His mixed-media piece Tarnished—a story of aging together told in found objects and poetry—speaks as much to a personal storytelling style that lends itself wonderfully to book arts as it does to his love for material forms that can contain emotion and for collecting and caring for beautiful things.

Anniversary: 10 Years of the Charles Altschul Book Arts Studio will be on view at the Haas Gallery at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport through December 2024.

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