Blues like the deep sea, greens like the shallows. Dinner plates done in explosively imaginative designs you’d almost hate to hide with food. Vases prettier than the flowers they’re made for.

The pottery at D. Lasser Ceramics in Londonderry, Vermont, ranges from functional to purely decorative, from a full line of tableware to outdoor sculptural ceramics and even glazed garden orbs that make glass glazing balls look staid and old-fashioned. And through it all, color with a generous dollop of whimsy reigns.

“My personality is playful,” says founder Daniel Lasser, “and my personality is all over these things. You’re going to get a playful product.”

Every piece sold at D. Lasser Ceramics is made on the premises. The showroom fronts a workspace dominated by two enormous kilns, one for firing and the other for glazing, and displays of finished work spill out across the lawns. Situated on a gently rolling hillside, it’s an impossible place to miss on a drive along Route 100.

It’s surprising to learn that Lasser, 63, has been making ceramics for more than 50 years—but he got a grade school start. “When I was 11, an art teacher brought in a wheel one day so the class could try it out,” he recalls. “I never looked back. From then on, I knew just what I wanted to be.” He’s proud to show two cups he made back when he was that boy, and both look as if they’d find buyers in no time at all. 

Lasser studied ceramics at Alfred University, home of the New York State College of Ceramics, and he went into the business soon after graduating. Although he’s a veteran of the trade show circuit and formerly sold at several outlets, he’s sold his work exclusively at the Londonderry location and via his own website for the past 20 years. “I used to make things with a commercial purpose, repeating designs that were geared to sales,” he says. “But I wasn’t really in it; it was just copying. I went back to being myself.”

For Lasser, that means being focused on all the possibilities of color and on the pigments that potters use to achieve them. “My work is defined by an exploration with color,” he says. “It’s all about the chemistry, exploring what the colors can do. It’s like playing in your backyard—with a purpose.”

D. Lasser Ceramics isn’t a one-man shop. “There are usually four or five [artisans] working here, sometimes more,” he explains, “but they’re not necessarily trained in ceramics.” Lasser does the training, and all of the shop’s artisans work from his designs and color schemes.

The shop’s bestsellers are mugs and dinnerware. Pottery meant for outdoors might be second, including purpose-made large sculptural pieces—maybe even a fountain—sure to add a vibrant touch to patios or garden borders and backdrops. Decorative platters 24 inches across, too large for any but a baronial dining room, are perfect for wall mounting in a sunroom or along a piazza.

Lasser’s customers are as playful as he is. “People mix and match,” he says. “We seldom see them buying whole dinner sets with each place setting in the same pattern and colors—they buy different patterns, in different colors, and mix them up.” It’s easy to imagine a Lasser-enhanced dinner party, with guests taking seats where the table settings most intrigue them. 

It’s just as easy to suppose there are households bursting with enough Lasser ceramics to host dinners for dozens. “We meet people in the shop who tell us they’ve been buying our work for years,” Lasser says. “We’ve been here long enough that by now we have second-generation customers.”

On any given Saturday or Sunday at D. Lasser Ceramics, the number of browsers and buyers usually runs to a hundred or more. And if they miss the weekend, there’s almost every other day in the year: The business closes on just three holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, all days when countless feasts might boast a certain special splash of D. Lasser flair.

Looking back on his love affair with clay and color that dates to that day in grade school, Lasser sums up what has mattered most in his career: “My favorite thing here is sitting at the wheel. I’m a potter by nature.” lasserceramics.com

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If you were an apple, especially one plucked from an heirloom tree, you’d do well to be sliced on a JK Adams “Q-Tee” cutting board—a design that goes back more than 60 years—before being served with hunks of Vermont cheddar. If, on the other hand, you were a fresh-from-the-oven turkey, you could wind up atop something truly prestigious: the JK Adams maple reversible carving board, which for many years has been named the best of its kind by the experts at America’s Test Kitchen.

At a time when many bemoan the loss of U.S. manufacturing, there might be a lesson in this venerable family business just outside the village of Dorset, Vermont. Simply put: If you make something better than anyone else, people will want it.

Like all great American success stories, this one springs from humble origins. In 1944, Josiah Knowles Adams began manufacturing a small wooden pull toy dubbed the Speedy Racer in a small Dorset garage. His creation caught on, and Adams soon moved operations into a former icehouse located in the spot off Route 30 where his namesake company still stands today. 

Adams’s fledgling wood-products business added T-squares and slide rules to its line, and in 1949 an industrial engineer named Malcolm Cooper Sr. joined as a partner. A man of talent and vision who eventually became the company’s owner, Cooper had ambition that matched the country’s growing appetite for kitchen products that were both practical and aesthetically pleasing.

His son, Malcolm Cooper Jr., once told a reporter, “I don’t recall us ever talking about sports or political news around the dinner table. It was always about the business and how to drive the business forward.” (When asked why his father did not give his own name to the company, he chalked it up to Yankee thrift: It would cost too much to change the stationery.)

Using wood from North American hardwood forests—maple, ash, walnut, cherry—the elder Cooper designed kitchen products meant to endure and be passed down through generations. He was always tinkering: One day, frustrated by how awkward it was to pull kitchen knives from their holders, he cut the bottom of a wooden block so that it slanted at a 45-degree angle. Knives slid in and out of the block with ease, and the world took notice. He also created the first modular wine rack, as well as the rotating spice rack.

As JK Adams continued turning out wooden products ranging from rolling pins to carving boards and trays, it was bringing something new to the kitchen seemingly every year. Plus, Cooper knew how to build and keep a business competitive, and in time he was able to pass the reins down to his son, Malcolm Jr., the current owner and chairman.

Today, a visit to the company’s Dorset headquarters offers the chance not only to browse the on-site Kitchen Store, but also to peek at what goes into the company’s guaranteed-for-life creations. Daily guided tours lead visitors along a catwalk to an observation deck, which looks down on the action in the 40,000-square-foot workspace. The whine of power saws, the smell of cut hardwood, the roar of massive industrial fans—they’re all part of a steady thrum of creation. And as befits a company that owes its name to Yankee frugality, nearly every scrap of wood here goes either to heating the plant or into a useful part of something.

A few years ago, Malcolm Cooper Jr. told a reporter why he was confident that despite global market pressures, there would always be a need for the craftsmanship he saw at work every day.

“Wood has been used for tools, shelter, and accessories since the start of recorded human history,” he said. “It’s attractive, warm to the touch, and relatively easy to work with. People always come back to wood. Dad believed that if you build something that is functional and well made, people will buy it. We are going to hold on to that.” jkadams.com 

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The fact that Katrina Kelley has a tattoo of a needle and thread snaking up the inside of her left forearm isn’t that surprising. She is, after all, the designer and sole seamstress behind the buzzy Newcastle, Maine–based Amphitrite Studio.

What is surprising is that she did the ink herself. “I got the tattoo machine as a gift for my 30th birthday,” says Kelley, 44, perched on a chair amid antiques and sewing equipment in her cozy home studio. “The focus on the art took away from the pain. It was a weird cancellation of properties, so it became just like drawing on myself.”

The more you get to know Kelley, however, this act of visceral self-expression starts to make sense. She has a relentless need to create, a need that drove her to launch Amphitrite Studio as an Etsy shop selling women’s linen clothing in 2012. Over time, Kelley shifted her focus to linen napkins, towels, tablecloths, and other home and kitchen textiles, a metamorphosis that became complete the December day in 2019 when restaurateur Erin French from the Lost Kitchen—yes, that Erin French—called to order aprons for her shop.

As luck had it, Kelley had been working on a café apron prototype. “I was like, Shut the front door,” she says, with a laugh. “They found me, called me, and wanted me to make something because they saw what I was trying to do … that was a big confidence-booster.”

Since then, the Amphitrite Studio aprons—long or short half aprons or full length with a cross-back in saturated earth and jewel tones—have become Kelley’s calling card. They’ve also helped put her on the map: The 2022 design book Remodelista in Maine included her studio in a who’s who of the state’s artisans. “The aprons are the biggest hit, but also the biggest pain to make,” Kelley says, explaining that they require her to switch between multiple sewing machines, plus iron between each step. Still, she says all this with a twinkle in her eye, as if she always knew her meandering path would lead her here.

Kelley grew up in the Catskills, the youngest of four children. Her parents were hippies turned Jehovah’s Witnesses. Her mother, Kathlyn, retained an artistic streak and a homegrown ethos, making the family’s clothes, leading craft time, and teaching Kelley to sew at age 4. “My nursery was her sewing room,” she says. “I like to think that’s where I got my start.”

When Kelley was 14, she relocated with her mom to southern Maine, where the family had often spent summer vacations. She did homeschool and then trained to be a hairdresser, working as a colorist and also as a florist in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, before moving to a cabin in Damariscotta, Maine, in 2005. There, Kelley landed a job at a natural pet food store, which is where she met her now-husband, Jeff, a customer, who encouraged Kelley to start her sewing business in 2012 and get her online associate degree in business.

The name Amphitrite—the goddess of the sea and the wife of Poseidon in Greek mythology—was a no-brainer from day one, she says. “I originally chose it for the strong feminine vibe with ties to the sea,” she says. “I’ve always been drawn to the sea. When I was a kid, I actually drowned and was out for over a minute at Old Orchard Beach…. Ever since then, I’ve had a healthy fear of the ocean that’s turned into a reverence for its strength.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Kelley counts nature among her inspirations. Her art is also shaped by loss—including the loss of her brother Kieth Napolitan, an accomplished Portsmouth chef who died from an overdose in 2014. “My grief threw me into making things that other chefs could use,” Kelley says. “It was this natural progression of, this is where my heart already is. I’m going to keep making more kitchen-inspired things.”

Kelley spends her days measuring, cutting, sewing, ironing, and packaging her wares for shipping. She creates fresh patterns when inspiration strikes, like the vintage-leaning apron with thinner ties she’s currently working on. Looking to repurpose the fabric scraps and elastic left over from making masks during the pandemic, she designed one of the newest additions to her line: linen dish covers that are not only stylish, but also a sustainable alternative to single-use plastic wrap.

And in warmer months, Kelley opens her showroom—a solar-powered camper parked in her Newcastle driveway—to visitors. That’s also where she styles and shoots photos for her website, newsletter, and social media.

Amphitrite Studio is truly a one-woman show, and Kelley says she wouldn’t want it any other way. “I’m sure you can tell by looking around that I’m not a simple person,” she says. “This is what I live and breathe. I have no idea how to be anything but creative.” amphitritestudio.com   

More Made in New England Textiles

Feather your nest with these New England–made textiles.

American Woolen Company

In 2014, American Woolen bought Warren Mills, the last U.S. mill capable of producing both woolen and worsted fabrics. Today, it not only sells these textiles to domestic designers, but also sews them into preppy throws. Stafford Springs, CT; americanwoolen.com

Anichini

Local craftspeople stitch fabrics from Portugal, Italy, Turkey, and other far-flung places into shower curtains, meditation pillows, and kitchen linens for this Green Mountain State company’s “Made in America” collection. Tunbridge, VT; anichini.com

Bates Mill Store/Maine Heritage Weavers

When the 151-year-old Bates Manufacturing Company shuttered in 2001, its former president, his daughter, and a few employees formed Maine Heritage Weavers to continue making the venerable manufacturer’s shabby-chic matelassé cotton bedspreads and coverlets. Monmouth, ME; batesmillstore.com 

Bristol Looms

Set a sunny table with Maya Cordeiro’s coordinating brightly colored placemats, table runners, and napkins. Beyond the dining room, her handwoven baby blankets are especially sweet. Bristol, RI; bristollooms.com

Matouk

One of the last vestiges of Fall River’s textile-making past, the Matouk factory turns out crisp sheets and plush towels favored by celebs, high-end interior designers, and luxury hotels the world over. Fall River, MA; matouk.com

The post Katrina Kelley’s Premium Kitchen Linens | Made in New England appeared first on New England.

The hobbit house burrows into a hillock in Morrisville, Vermont. Its round door is edged with a remarkable fringe of dark stone, the opening just tall enough to accommodate its creator, Thea Alvin, making it roughly 5 feet, 2 inches. Inside, the tiny domed space—the fruits of her workshop on how to build a root cellar—tunnels into the belly of the land. But this is not a story about height, or hobbits, or even strength, although for the record, this dark-haired, warmly funny stonemason artist can squat 460 pounds, she tells me without a hint of braggadocio.

This is a story about hands. What they can create, and how, and sometimes their ability to move literal mountains to make things of beauty. “My hands are so smart,” says Alvin. “They know what to do. They do it without me needing to direct them, spontaneously and independently. They do things I don’t have to anticipate or plan for.”

What they do is lift stone and place it in unlikely ways.

The Phoenix Helix spirals across Alvin’s front yard, a 100-foot-long-and-growing stony haven for chipmunks and the place where local teens come to have their yearbook photos taken. The continuous loops are like stone cartwheels, gravity-defying, awe-inspiring. The eye-catching helix follows the contours of Route 100, a roadway that is busy by Vermont standards—we are, after all, just nine miles from the slopes of Stowe. Which means that the casual Sunday driver, random visiting tourists, a New York Times reporter, and even Oprah’s people might be inclined to stop and explore Alvin’s sculpture park. Because she does call it a park, and there’s certainly much more to it: undulating walls that rise into Gothic arches or settle into circles; ponds edged in giant stone; a waterfall; a pizza oven modeled after the beehive-shaped trulli in southern Italy, where Alvin brings students to help repair those crumbing little structures. The soundtrack is provided by roosters and chickens, shaggy Angora goats, happy dogs, wind. “People stop on the side of the road all the time,” she says. “They tap on the door. Sometimes”—she pauses—“they come right into the house.”

The helix also tells a story with parallels to Alvin’s own life. It is a celebration of gravitas and astonishment, turns and spirals, explosions and joys. It is also tied to this wildly beautiful patch of land and its companionable buildings: an 1810 farmhouse, a wood-clad barn, a hobbit hole, a goat shed. She sometimes wonders whether the place is a vortex of energy, when she looks at her life, events, people, the creativity that seems to settle and swirl here.

“I grew up on Martha’s Vineyard,” she tells me, “and I ran away with a boy when I was 18. I married him, and we bought a camp in Wolcott, Vermont, and raised our kids out there in the wild. For 12 years we lived without running water, or electricity, and it was a hard, hard path.” But she credits that path with teaching her to work by “feel.”

“I lived for such a long time without electricity, so working in the dark has always been part of my way of doing things. What would it be like if I couldn’t see the stones? How would I manage them? Training my hands to see without my eyes has been a very important part of what I do.”

How to Make an Arch

Alvin learned the basics of stonecraft as a teenager, during the family’s yearly bouts of financial feast or famine, when her father would take on masonry jobs to pay the bills. Alvin, 16, was his helper. Later, she would build on that foundation, apprenticing with a stonemason in Stowe, and then taking on stone jobs for trade in Europe, with an organization called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), gathering the skills that would ultimately pour into the massive sculptures, labyrinths, and stone “clocks” she is known for today.

When Alvin moved here 24 years ago, her stonework at the farm came alive almost from the start. She remembers sitting at the picnic table and crying, because “there was something about being able to buy this house. Some connection between me and the land. It feels like a sanctuary that allows me to express myself. An unconditional place where I can think out loud with my hands.”

We walk up a set of mossy stone stairs, past the hobbit door. “When I first came here, I wanted to make a sculpture on the highest ground,” she tells me. She points to a spot where old apple trees bend over a stone circle that looks out over the land like a benevolent eye. There’s a lot to take in, the cumulative work of decades: an apple orchard, a small vineyard of Maréchal Foch grapes, the blueberry patch, espaliered pear trees, beehives. There’s Aurora Pond, part of which Alvin built using an excavator. She topped it off with a waterfall tall enough to walk under, during that first year of Covid. “It was meant to be water security,” she says. “But look at that crop of tadpoles! It’s really frog security!”

Up here, surrounded by her handiwork, she explains how she taught herself to make an arch, because “anyone can study arch building, but I wanted to figure it out.” She began by stacking two columns of marble, wrapping her arms and legs around them, and guiding them together. The piles collapsed. But by summer’s end, Alvin had evolved a wooden arch to support the stones, and a system of wedges. That was the easy bit. “The challenging part is determining how big, and what shape, and how it looks—that’s where the art is.”

The tools of Alvin’s trade haven’t changed much since medieval days: a mason’s hammer (“brickie”) with a chisel on one end and a hammer on the other. “I don’t do a lot of what’s called ‘dressing’ the stone,” she says. “I don’t hammer it into submission. I like the rocks to have their natural edges. I don’t mind that a rock is rusty. The imperfection makes it feel comfortable, and it lets us explore it and accept ourselves with our own imperfections.”

All of her hammers have names, but her favorite is Karl, handmade in Barre, Vermont, a gift from a friend. And they’re spray-painted (a decidedly un-medieval touch), because “when they’re hot pink, they don’t get lost in the grass.” She tromps everywhere in her Crocs—footwear firmly planted in our times—so much so, that her feet are dotted with tan marks. Even so, as I relearn the differences between Gothic and Roman arches, it’s a little like time-traveling into the world of a medieval craftsperson.

“It would be pretty easy to look at me,” Alvin observes, “and make a judgment that would be 100 percent inaccurate. Unless someone looked at my hands, they would not guess what my capacity or skill set is.” She gives a quick smile. “And I really like that. I like that as a lesson for myself to not judge other people.” Her hands are rough and capable. Years of working with abrasive stone materials have worn her fingerprints off. But beyond that, her hands are never still.

As we wander, Alvin waters the goats, relocates a chicken, picks bugs off a vine, and gathers a few twigs to add to the “death tunnel,” woven from fallen tree branches, where she has buried her animals over the years: dogs and cats, chickens, goats, and pigs. These hands, she informs me, also do many other things. “I’ve been a tailor, a knitter, nursed quite a few sick animals. I’m a writer, I’ve done massage work, I prepare a lot of food. I tap trees, I make maple syrup in the spring, I paint, I plaster, I lay tile and brick. I can do any of the building things, and I know how to use all of the silverware on a fancy dining table.”

The rooster is absolutely screeching. Circling back, we pass by arching wooden forms, sunk in tall grasses behind the barn, waiting to shoulder their next load. “We’re kind of growing up together, too,” she tells me of this place. “And I’ve wanted, since the fire, to fix her and make her whole and beautiful.”

Fire on the Farm

The fire began at 3 a.m. on a December morning in 2017. It raged through the barn and studio, then jumped to the house, taking half of it. It killed goats and chickens, destroyed artwork, and left Alvin with such a heightened sense of hearing that she still wakes up at the slightest sound in the night. And then, not long after, she had to leave for southern Italy, to lead a workshop to help rebuild the trulli, in Puglia. “I feel like I have the most amazing luck and the worst luck,” she admits. “I feel super-lucky, but also like I’m a person with the widest span of paradox. The worst and best things happen at the very same time.”

When she came back from Italy, friends gathered from across the country to rebuild the barn—the post-and-beam raising, captured on film, is a stunning reminder of the goodness of people, who are not just raising up a building, but raising up someone they love. Slowly, over the next two years, she worked on rebuilding the house, too. “I wanted to make it a sculpture, not just a box, a standard house,” she says. She laid the brickwork where her woodstove sits; created a sliding chalkboard to cover the pantry doorway. An artist friend painted a garden on the new living room walls. She wanted a secret door, so she built one in the library, disguised as a bookshelf. The door swings open into her stained-glass studio—a craft she took up after the fire.

“I create something every day,” says Alvin. “And I teach a lot. But really, it’s by creating beautiful things every day that I’m able to combat what would otherwise be crushing depression with the things that I see: drought and poverty and homelessness and forest fire smoke. My mom has Alzheimer’s, and I care for her here. And watching her fade, and living through her fade—that’s incredible. I have to stay positive. I have to stay doing. Otherwise it would be overwhelming.” [Editor’s note: Thea Alvin’s mother passed away after this interview, in December 2023. “She was buried in a natural burial in my backyard,” Alvin says, “in a wicker basket and a shroud made from our goats, carried by her daughters and granddaughters.”]

She saves everything, knowing she will find a way to use it. Sticks from the lilacs, to make tunnels and treehouses. Old nails and shells. And stones, obviously. Because you never know when you’ll need more stones….

The Phoenix Helix

There’s a reason the dazzling spiral that sits in front of Alvin’s house is called the Phoenix Helix. It is not the first. The old one was destroyed two years ago in April by a street sweeper, when the driver fell asleep coming home from work. “It was 7 a.m. They were probably doing 65 miles an hour when they hit it,” she remembers. “It totaled the helix, it just exploded. Stone hit the house, hit the barn, went across the road.”

She heard it from the barn. Stones lay everywhere, shattered, unusable. “It didn’t really hit me until I came out and I was shooting video—I always have my camera—and I could see that it was destroyed. I burst into tears while filming. And I put that video on social media and the world just turned out, because the world knows me for the helix.”

Alvin’s sculpture park was already listed on the map for the Vermont Crafts Council’s Spring Open Studio Weekend, just a month away. “It was an emergency—I needed to show up for the state of Vermont,” she says, “but it was a very difficult technical structure.” Hundreds of people flocked to help, from masons and friends to novices, with Alvin directing every hand. In an astonishing three weeks, the helix was rebuilt, from new stone, on higher ground. The old, shattered stone was incorporated inside—at what is called the “heart” of the wall.

“Everyone asks, ‘How long did it take you to rebuild?’” She pauses, clearly bothered by a question that misses the point. “Sculpture is not like that—or painting or poetry. It’s the cumulative years that get you to the place where you are a master. Yes, it took three weeks of labor with a variety of people. And then the actual build was four days, with 20 people each day. But really”—she gives me a hard look—“it took 30 years of mastering my own craft.”

Going Too Fast, You Are

There is a signpost in Alvin’s backyard, not far from the pizza oven, with signs pointing off in all directions and the names and distances of every place in the world where Alvin has made sculptures, from West Tisbury, on Martha’s Vineyard, to Valle de Bravo, Mexico, to Suzhou, China. There have been multiple voyages to Domodossola, in northern Italy, to restore ancient stone houses through the Vermont design-build school Yestermorrow. And adventures restoring an old stone house in the Portuguese Azores, on the cliff face of a remote island called Flores.

She has created giant time sculptures around the United States. She calls them clocks—structures that operate on solstice, equinox, or birth/death dates. “I really appreciate time,” she says. “I feel like a tiny little sliver of it is given to me to pack some things into.” There’s In Good Time at Duke University in North Carolina; Time and Again at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont; Time Sweeps at Rowan University in New Jersey. And in Tennessee, there is a 1,000-foot-long labyrinth called Time for Love, marking the date a woman’s beloved husband died—on February 24, as the sun rises and angles through a window, it shines at heart level, above a bench in the center of the labyrinth.

“Someday,” Alvin remarks, “the romance and importance of that will be lost. And I love that the mystery of something as simple as one man’s birthday and death day will be completely lost. And people will wonder and ponder and try to figure out why some strange people built these strange things in this place. I love planting the seed of a mystery, because I love to solve the mysteries.”

Time goes hand in hand with stone. The ancient material is inherently contemplative, and so it seems completely obvious why there is a hand-painted cutout of Yoda attached to Alvin’s new barn’s rugged exterior, with the words proclaiming: “Going too fast, you are.” Stone, and everything about this place, is a reminder to slow down.

“When I’m tearing apart walls in Italy, I know that those people who built them 500 years ago were going through their own day-to-day things, just as I am,” Alvin says. “The stone carries the energy of those intentions, and you can feel the old hands of the old workers as they put them together. You can feel their thoughts. You can see it physically, when they were tired. It’s a story you can read.”

And it’s a story that brings us back to hands. When Alvin is working, she can look at the pile of stone, look at the wall, and the next rock is the only rock she sees. “It’s nonverbal,” she tells me. “And I pick it up, and I put it on the wall, and I turn around, and the next rock that goes on the wall is the only rock I see. If I come back with a rock that doesn’t fit in the hole, it goes in another spot. It doesn’t go back. It’s always forward.”  

To see more of Thea Alvin’s creations and to learn about her workshops, go to myearthwork.com/thea-alvin.

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When Sam Hooper was growing up on his family’s farm in Brookfield, Vermont, he worked alongside his parents and brothers, haying, cutting wood, slopping pigs, repairing fences, clearing snow—a multitude of chores all done by hand. The rugged labor took its toll on his work gloves (“I’d go through five pairs in just a winter,” he recalls), until one day he put on a Green Mountain–brand pair. They were meticulously handmade from goatskin, a craft honed and perfected by three generations of the Haupt family and their small company in the nearby town of Randolph. And that day is when this glove story begins.

“I went, Wow,” Hooper says. “I was floored by them”—by how comfortable they were, how supple and flexible, and so durable that he could not wear them out. Hands down, they were unlike any he had ever worn.

Hooper eventually went off to college in Connecticut. Upon graduating in 2016, he returned home to work in the marketing department of Vermont Creamery, which was founded by his mother, Allison, and Bob Reese, and known nationwide for its butter and its specialty cheeses made from cow and goat milk. Soon afterward, he learned that Kurt Haupt Jr., the third generation to own Green Mountain Glove Company, was preparing to retire.

The company was struggling. A few years earlier, a major garden supply retailer that featured Green Mountain work gloves as a top-of-the-line product had been sold to a national corporation, which chose to offer cheaper, mass-produced gloves. Even the company’s core business—protective gloves made specifically for lineworkers, a product that needed to be flawless to ensure their safety—was under increasing pressure from overseas manufacturers. One of the country’s last local glove makers was fighting to survive.

Hooper, then 23, had long been fascinated by the manufacturing process. At the creamery he had seen raw milk become 4 million pounds of products sold to people who loved them. Green Mountain Glove Company had been in Vermont since 1920, and unlike young entrepreneurs who flock to start-ups, Hooper had this feeling, this optimism, that he might be able to stitch his ambition and vision to its existing legacy. In the summer of 2017, he went to see Kurt Haupt.

“I asked to be an apprentice,” Hooper says. “I wanted to know every step of the process that’s been perfected the Haupt way…. I asked Kurt, ‘How did you learn?’ He told me that one winter he needed gloves, and his father said, ‘Fine. I’m setting you up at this machine. Just get used to following the material. It takes a lot of time as you graduate to the next step.’”

For six months, Haupt and his daughter, Heidi, taught Hooper the intricate steps to make the best work gloves in the world, and also why each step mattered. And Hooper kept graduating to the next one.

He learned why the fibers in goatskin made it both supple and tough; how to look for the slightest imperfections in the leather; how to select and cut sections for thumbs, for fingers, for the back; why they sewed seams on the outside (so there would be more finger space inside); how to do the special double seams and the tricky thumb attachments. He also learned that the incessant clatter of the company’s sewing machines from the 1940s and ’50s was the music of skilled sewers, some of whom had worked on the machines longer than he had been alive. 

By the end of his apprenticeship, Hooper could make a glove that would pass as a Haupt. At night he did market research, figuring out whether he could—or should—make the leap from student to owner. He decided yes, and in early 2018, Hooper became the first person outside the Haupt family to own the company. Heidi Haupt stayed on as operations manager and sewing supervisor, as well as keeper of institutional memory.

Hooper knew the challenges. For one thing, the company’s factory was showing its age. Driven by an environmental ethic, he converted the coal burner to wood pellets, retrofitted the building with its first layers of insulation, and added solar panels. Within two years he had created a net-zero user of power.

He also needed to expand the customer base well beyond the time-honored utility worker. “We can’t lose sight that we make gloves for people where it’s life and death that they are made right,” he says. “The fact that we make gloves for utility lineworkers gives us leverage: ‘These gloves are made for people who trust their lives to them. Now they are for you.’”

His most delicate decision was to rebrand the entire line: Green Mountain Glove Company became Vermont Glove. “It was a bit scary,” Hooper admits. “They had a 100-year-old heritage. I did not want to offend the Haupt family. That name represented four generations of the best glove makers in the world. But I got their blessing. It was the right time, if we were going to be widely known to consumers and not just utility workers.

“And when you ask people outside New England where the Green Mountains are, many don’t know. Vermont has cachet—you aspire to its lifestyle. We felt being here for a century making these gloves gave us clout to use the name.”

But some traditions remained. For instance, many glove styles still bear names that read like codes, such as the most popular all-purpose glove, the AG47R0. “I have no idea where that name comes from,” Hooper says. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s always been that name. It’s kind of cool, really.”

And so, sometimes the young lead the way. The workforce has expanded, while the number of gloves that leave the factory each month is now more than 1,300 pairs. “But we have to be careful we don’t grow too fast,” he says.

Today, at age 30, Hooper works 80 to 90 hours a week. He lives in an old hunting camp on his family’s 67-acre homestead. He still works outdoors as often as he can. Still works with a pair of gloves made just down the road, as comfortable and as strong as the first ones that made him go Wow.

“We think about who we are, our value system,” Hooper says. “It does matter. We are time-tested. We are still here. That is a testament.” vermontglove.com

The post Vermont Glove | Made In New England appeared first on New England.

By Nina MacLaughlin

The thunk comes first, the sound of ax through wood. It’s a sound that registers in the body as much as the ears, a sound that one feels in the center of oneself: the exchange between blade and trunk, forces of muscle, bone, gravity, and tree, and then the whisper of wood-chip shrapnel landing on the grass.

Such is the aural landscape of Renaissance Timber in Cumberland, Maine, where Steve Smith practices the craft of hand-hewing, taking the round trunk of a tree and shaping it into a square beam. No power tools, no screaming saws or spinning blades. Just his body, the tree’s body, the ax.

And what results—structural beams and mantels of white pine, cedar, cherry, oak—breathe with life and history. They take their places in homes, above the hearth or supporting the ceiling, and become part of the soul of the place. They draw the eye, and more than the eye.

“People are homesick for imperfection,” says Smith. Every mark you see on one of his beams was a decision, part of an intimate connection between man and tree. “It’s a conversation between souls,” he says. And that conversation reverberates, providing a palpable sense of warmth absent from the sterility of industrialized perfection. And it will last longer, too. 

Smith, 43, talks of the planned obsolescence of modern-day building materials. “The stuff I’m making will be here 200 years from now,” he says, the wood speaking to the future as well as the past in its rough Maine vernacular. It’s a legacy item, he says, and to be in a room with wood he’s hewed is to “step into the river of history. It gives a sense of movement in a way that sheetrock doesn’t.”

Smith’s evolution as a hand-hewer has its roots in the past as well. His great-great-grandfather drove logs downriver in Maine; another sold used lumber. And Renaissance Timber is based on the farm where Smith grew up. A sense of heritage is important to him, the circle of life and growth and connection. When we met, he’d just finished building a small cabin playhouse for his two boys and was readying to turn the front section of the dairy barn into a showroom. The trees he uses come from his land, or that of his clients; the carbon footprint of his work is zero.

We met on a bright, warm September afternoon, the autumn equinox, and Smith was hewing a tree by the barn as the sun made the grasses glow gold in the field to the south. He’d marked the edges and snapped chalk lines down the length of the trunk; he’d stood on one side of the tree and axed a series of wide notches, concave openings every 18 inches or so. And then, with left knee resting on the log and right foot planted on the ground, he raised the ax and brought it down, that great deep thunk, jogging out the sections between the wide inviting openings, fragments of wood flying through the afternoon light.

Broad of shoulder, thick of bicep, Smith does not have the vanity-driven chiseled form of a gym-goer but the full-body strength of someone who uses that body for his work. It hasn’t always been so: He’s relatively new to hand-hewing, having started the business in 2019. Working a white-collar job, he tore his bicep lifting something heavy, tweaked his back logging so many hours at a desk, and worse, knew the staticky fuzz of being in front of a screen all day. Then a book crossed his path, A Reverence for Wood by Eric Sloane, and he watched the hewing process on YouTube. He took down a cedar and gave it a shot. “It resonated,” he said. While his days in front of a screen blurred together as one, “I remember every place I’ve been in the woods for clients. I remember the bugs, the temperature, the light.”

Smith carries himself with the humility of someone who’s asked himself the hard questions, recognized the painful fact that how he’d understood the world was wrong, and had the courage to make a change. He has the spark in his eye that people who are in intimate relationship with the land have, the glow that comes from the source. We sat on one of his beams—a chipmunk scurried nearby, the back door of the barn framing the field outside—and Smith spoke of the connection the work brings him with the natural world, the tactile satisfactions, the five-sensed attunement to the shifting light, the creatures and the birds, the smell in the air before it snows, the wind speaking through the trees.

There is meaning in his work, a sense of peace and place, and each beam he hews communicates exactly that, and the mysteries of our bodies in time. “Part of what surprises me about the work,” he says, “is the sense of wonder it brings, of being fully alive. It reminds me of childhood. I’m interacting with the world on its terms.”    

In addition to mantels and beams, Renaissance Timber offers hewn benches, centerpieces, and trenchers, as well as handcrafted cutting boards. To learn more, go to renaissancetimberllc.com.

The post The Throwback | Steve Smith of Renaissance Timber in Cumberland, Maine appeared first on New England.

With so many talented artists and creative, hardworking businesses in New England, it’s easy to simultaneously “shop local” and win at gift-giving this holiday season. Here are just a few of our favorite New England brands and makers to consider this holiday season.

A Taste of New England: Yankee Food Award Winners

An exclusive new collection! Indulge in a curated selection of Yankee Food Award Winners, showcasing some of the most delicious treats New England has to offer. This gift basket features beloved Yankee editor favorites that make perfect additions to any gathering or a special treat for yourself. And check out The 2024 Yankee Food Awards winners!

Ben’s Sugar Shack | Temple, New Hampshire

Ben Fisk took a childhood interest in maple sugaring and turned it into sweet success with Ben’s Sugar Shack. Ben’s is one of New England’s top suppliers of pure maple products, including syrup, candy, cream, and even cotton candy.

Blake Hill Preserves | Grafton, Vermont

Offering “sweet, savory, spicy and jams for the modern pantry” from an English fruit preservatory in Vermont, Blake Hill Preserves is the award-winning source for mouthwatering jams, preserves, marmalades (and more!) in endless flavors and collections. Grab a jam sampler here!

Exclusive! Find Blake Hill Preserves Heirloom Apple Butter with Maple Syrup in our Sweet Tooth Snacking Gift Set and the Eat.Love.Jam Sampler Gift Box.

ChappyWrap | Maine

ChappyWrap may have started as a mother-daughter duo looking to recreate a beloved family blanket, but today the brand offers a large collection of reversible, washable woven blankets in multiple sizes – all featuring a plush, natural-cotton blend and a print for every style.

Exclusive! Find the Harborview Herringbone Blanket from Chappy Wrap in our Snuggle Season Gift Set!

Farmhouse Pottery | Woodstock, Vermont

A modern heirloom pottery favorite for more than a decade, Farmhouse churns out authentically handmade pieces with something for everyone – from mugs, bowls, pitchers, and crocks to felted ornaments and thoughtfully curated gift sets.

Kiel James Patrick | Newport, Rhode Island

KJP is a year-round source for preppy New England-inspired apparel, jewelry, and accessories, but their line of bright and colorful holiday sweaters and tartan flannels have a timeless merry appeal that’s hard to resist.

Lighthouse Keeper’s Pantry | Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Dream of beachy summer days on the Cape with the small-batch, locally-made pickles, jams, dressings, and sauces from Lighthouse Keepers Pantry. We love the unique flavors like cranberry ketchup, cranberry lime hot sauce, and citrus cinnamon blueberry jam.

Mystic Knotwork | Mystic, Connecticut

Shop Mystic Knotwork for endless forms of classic nautical knotwork accessories and home decor, from bracelets and keychains to coasters and doormats.

Red Kite Candy | Bradford, Vermont

Stuff stockings with a medley of these artisan Vermont caramels, which are delightfully soft, perfectly gooey, and flavored with premium ingredients from pure maple syrup to French sea salt.

Sara Fitz | York, Maine

Dress up your presents this year with Sara Fitz’s whimsical wrapping paper, which features designs centered around New England iconography like lobsters, buoys, and hydrangeas. What’s better, if your recipient falls in love with this Maine studio’s designs you’ll have fodder for many future gifts. They also sell framed prints, wallpaper, and textiles!

Stonewall Kitchen | York, Maine

It’s no secret that Stonewall Kitchen’s jams, spreads, and foaming hand soaps make perfect stocking stuffers, but the gift options don’t stop there! Among many mail-order offerings, this Maine food brand also has an excellent gift section: From its “Taste of New England” assortment to their “Build-Your-Own Bloody Mary” basket, there’s something for everyone on your list.

Exclusive! Find Stonewall Kitchen Peppermint Hot Chocolate Mix in our Warming Winter Beverages Gift Set, Stonewall Kitchen New England Cranberry Relish in our Yankee Food Award Gift Set, and don’t miss the Stonewall Kitchen Holiday 2024 Blueberry Breakfast Gift Set!

Tea Forté | Maynard, Massachusetts

Among the many gift offerings at Tea Forté, we love the 2024 Warming Joy Advent Calendar. The tree-shaped box contains an assortment of 24 tea blends, including black, green, white, and herbal varieties, ensuring it’ll please any tea drinker.

Vermont Flannel | Woodstock, Vermont

Keep your loved ones cozy this winter with Vermont Flannel’s timeless flannel shirts, which have been handcrafted in the Green Mountain State since 1991. In addition to their classic flannel shirts, they sell blankets, beanies, robes, and scarves – all perfect for bundling up as the temperatures drop.

Vineyard Vines | Stamford, Connecticut

With Martha’s Vineyard roots and a corporate headquarters in Connecticut, Vineyard Vines continues to be an iconic source of New England style, from sunny beach days to cozy fireside nights.

Whale Tale Weaving | Boston, Massachusetts

Whale Tail Weaving celebrates America’s whaling and lightship history with hand-crafted Nantucket basket jewelry and accessories. The Warm Wishes Holiday Bracelet Bundle combines three of their most-loved designs, including the Nantucket basket bangle, Tiger’s Eye stone beaded bracelet, and white stone beaded bracelet.

Let us know your favorite New England gift to give (and receive!) below!

The post 2024 New England Holiday Gift Guide appeared first on New England.

Looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift that combines cozy vibes and New England charm? From hand-crafted mugs and marshmallows to warm blankets and artisanal chocolates, these 10 thoughtful and cozy New England gifts are sure to make your loved ones (or just you!) feel extra special this winter season.

10 Cozy New England Gifts

Winter Woods Mug from Goodland Pottery in Montville, Maine

A pine tree-moon motif makes these stoneware mugs from Goodland Pottery the perfect vessel for fireside sipping. We love their oversized Birch Mugs, too. ($50)

Gourmet Marshmallows from Sweet Lydia’s in Lowell, Massachusetts

The pillow-y, small-batch marshmallows from Sweet Lydia’s come in both classic and seasonal flavors like gingerbread and spiced chai. I like the traditional assortment bag of coconut, mocha, raspberry, and vanilla. If you’re sweet tooth still isn’t satisfied, you can also nab handmade candy bars, s’mores, caramels, and toffee.
($8)

Match Striker from Farmhouse Pottery in Woodstock, Vermont

You won’t be able to resist sitting fireside with this stylish match striker from Farmhouse Pottery. Not only does it hold matches, you can strike them directly on the specially blended stoneware. ($50)

Chappy Blankets from ChappyWrap in Portland, Maine

When it comes to cozy New England gifts, it’s hard to top a snuggly blanket! A woven blend of premium cotton makes the “perfectly oversized” Chappy blanket from ChappyWrap soft, durable, and perfect for shared snuggling. Choose from classic striped, herringbone, floral, and seasonal limited-edition prints. ($150 )

Round Cheese Board from JK Adams in Dorest, Vermont

A cracker groove in this sustainably-sourced maple cheese board keeps your favorite meats, cheeses, and more neatly organized for nibbling. Choose from two sizes, 12- or 16-inch. (starting at $69)

See More: Open Studio | JK Adams Cutting Boards

Winter Candles from Seawicks Candle Company in Richmond, Maine

Add ambiance to any room with cheerful 100% soy wax Seawicks candles. Their classic candles have fun New England-y names (think Strawberry Picking, Summer Swim, and Great North Woods), as do the limited-edition winter scents like Frosty Coast and Fuzzy Maine Sweater. ($16)

Alpine Frost Handmade Soap from Center Street Soap Co. in Manchester, Connecticut

The small-batch soaps from Center Street Soap Co. are so pretty you won’t want to use them, but you should! With scents like Winter Garden (light and floral), Sugar Plum (bright and fruity), and Alpine Frost (warm and woodsy), there’s a perfect bar for everyone. ($9)

Flannel Robe from The Vermont Flannel Company in East Barre, Vermont

Made with organic cotton and brushed for durable softness, the cheerful flannel robes from Vermont Flannel will keep you warm for years to come. Add a night shirt or pair of lounge pants for an even bigger dose of cozy. Shop online or visit one of their nine retail stores in Vermont and Maine. ($130)

Everyday Chocolate Assortment from L.A. Burdick in Walpole, New Hampshire

Who says cozy New England gifts can’t be edible? Indulge in the perfect handmade artisan chocolate assortment from one of our top-rated confectioners in New England, including their signature chocolate mouse. Available in three sizes. Shop online, at their New Hampshire headquarters, or one of three Boston-area locations. (starting at $36)

Warming Winter Beverages Basket from NewEngland.com

Filled with a curated collection of Yankee editor favorites, including Wood Stove Kitchen Mulling Spices, Curio Spice Poet Tea, and Stonewall Kitchen Peppermint Hot Chocolate Mix, our Taste of New England: Warming Winter Beverages gift basket has the perfect warming drink for every winter warrior. ($70)

What are your favorite cozy New England gifts?

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Faced with a row of garage doors in an innocuous-looking business park in Eliot, Maine, it’s easy to riff on the classic Monty Hall question: What’s behind door number 20?

Frankly, given its anonymous nature, it could be anything. But on this particular day, the door is flung up to the blue sky, and birdsong accompanies my entrance into a cavernous studio overhung with an air of expectation. Rows of wooden shelves sit heavy with unadorned ceramics: bowls, serving platters, planters. Blank canvases, waiting for Elizabeth Benotti to continue her experiments in clay.

The pale, almost ghostly forms are a hint of things to come. Benotti’s eye for shapes—whether she is hand-building, casting in molds, or throwing clay on the potter’s wheel—is cleanly aesthetic. Her feel for color seems equally surefooted, relying on a palette of glazes she creates from scratch in signature shades of bluish-gray, green, yellow, and pink that complement food to dramatic effect.

Simple and strong. And the reaction was positive right from the start, Benotti says. Lifestyle behemoth Remodelista took note. And Anthropologie. And Erin French, at the Lost Kitchen, Maine’s restaurant equivalent of a unicorn, where you can find Benotti’s ceramic hand-pinched baskets (think updated bread baskets) in deep ocean blue, or a herringbone butter dish. “Once I began building more work and posting more, my Etsy shop started getting noticed, too,” Benotti says.

Chalk it all up to her particular world of stripes and those classic herringbones. Great colors. With a few grids, and some oval smudges for good effect. These vulnerable, hand-drawn elements feel like direct outreach—proof of the artisan’s hand.

“Me and words don’t really make good friends,” she says. “Which is probably why I communicate through my hands, you know?” She then confesses, “I don’t sketch a lot—it’s all in my head. Then I just have to make it. It goes back to not being a good two-dimensional artist. I’m not somebody who wants to sit down and draw.” She pauses, hearing herself. “Even though I draw on all my work!”

Those wavy surface textures reach out and communicate, too—they’re Benotti’s actual finger marks. They look like ripples.

Which brings us to Maine. Once Benotti and her husband moved to Eliot, she took up surfing. When she names her ceramic colors, it’s with an eye to the sea. She tells me about a line of work she calls Ebb and Flow—“I was thinking about the push-pull of water, and the shapes coming in and going out.”

When surfing, she says, “you literally forget about everything else that’s going on in your life. You’re in the ocean, you don’t have to care about anything else. You’re just looking for waves.” And when she talks about pottery, she observes, “There’s a lot of holding your breath. I just made a bunch of work that’s black and white—black stripes—and I have to hold my breath every time I’m pulling the brush down the piece.”

Benotti grins. Maybe the same focus hones both endeavors. “I don’t have a grand story for where my inspiration comes from,” she admits. “It’s just seeing colors and color stories that I like, and trying different things.” That, and surfing, makes her happy. elizabethbenotti.com 

Ideal Settings

In studios, barns, and basements, potters dig deep into the earth itself, and work that clay into dishes that enliven seasonal feasts.

1. Jane Herold Pottery

The list of restaurants using Herold’s pottery just keeps scrolling, all with identities as diverse as her dinnerware. But no matter the style, these sleek stoneware plates, platters, and bowls dress up a table as surely as a Michelin star confers honor. “It is the spirit of the maker, and of the materials, still visible in the fired clay, that gives each pot its character,” Herold says. It certainly adds fuller flavor to our food. West Cornwall, CT; janeherold.com

2. Gabrielle Schaffner Ceramics

As a college student, Schaffner spent a year in Florence studying ceramics, art, and language, and she is still inspired by Italian culture—it shows in the colorful, intricate images that adorn her pots. Also, she says, “My studio work is very much influenced by my love of cooking: I like a plate that looks good with food, a large cup to hold plenty of caffè latte, and a pitcher that doesn’t drip.” Boston, MA; gabrielleschaffnerceramics.com

3. James Guggina Ceramics

Who doesn’t love the idea of a dedicated ice cream bowl? Or carved patterns, wood firings, and earthy glazes that translate into handmade dinnerware, coffee filters, whiskey cups, and the random tagine pot? Guggina has been a full-time potter since the early 1990s, and says he’s still learning about pottery making every day. Northampton, MA; coolpots.com

4. Three Wheel Studio

Dwo Wen Chen describes his work as “fun, eclectic, and functional,” with a range of patterns that encompasses cheery birds, intricate flowers, and the elegant River Rock collection, looking very much like a table setting that just washed ashore. Providence, RI; threewheelstudio.com

The post Dishing It Out | Maine Potter Elizabeth Benotti appeared first on New England.

Miranda Thomas has a voice made for a good chat. There’s a complexity to it, with vowels and inflections shaped by both her British parentage and her years spent living in Australia, England, Italy, and America. There’s a warmth, as well, that flows from her love of bringing things into the world, be they children or gardens or works of art. It’s a voice of someone you could imagine welcoming into your home.

Her pottery has a voice, too. From the blue and white of the Netherlands to the lustrous gold of the Middle East, it carries the accent of many lands; at the same time, its techniques speak of centuries of human culture. But to really hear what it has to say, Thomas believes, you need to touch it.

“Imagine you have a mug, and you’re putting your lips to it or your hands to it or just sort of resting it against your cheek,” she says. “And if it’s been made by hand, you can feel those very slight variances in the surface. It’s just as if you’re having a conversation with it. It’s another form of your senses being coaxed alive.”

Making things by hand—and putting them directly into the hands of others—is a calling that Thomas has long shared with her husband, the furniture maker Charlie Shackleton. After having met at an art and design school in England, the two crossed paths again in Vermont, where they worked for the famed Irish artisan Simon Pearce. Before long they were married and working for themselves, and today they preside over their joint workshops, ShackletonThomas, which has been headquartered in the same 19th-century mill building in Bridgewater for much of their company’s three-decade-plus history.

The couple’s mediums are different, but their designs are complementary—in the showroom, her quiet, elegant pottery sits alongside his classic wood furniture. And their point of view is a shared one.

“We both love putting life into an inanimate object,” Thomas says. “[Handcrafting] takes a particular sort of mixture of material, observation, skill, many things that culminate from your very hands, and it’s something the machine can’t do.

“There’s a famous saying, I’m pretty sure by Pascal: What is it that puts life into an inanimate object? For is that not what man is? And if you think about it, we’re the same as the rocks and the trees and everything around us, but there’s a little bit of magic that we instill [in the clay and the wood], and that’s what gives them life.”

Thomas first realized her affinity for pottery (which she affectionately calls “cooking with rocks”) when it was introduced at her high school in Australia. “It was the most surprising thing, at the age of 16, to look down and see a bowl just appearing underneath your hands,” she recalls. “I loved it immediately, like I loved surfing. So I just kept doing it.”

She honed her craft with a bachelor’s degree in ceramics as well as learning directly from master potters in England, notably Michael Cardew. Thomas’s distinctive style emerged early on: strongly decorative but not ornate, with an emphasis on universal symbols of nature, like fish and rabbits, trees and flowers, painted or carved onto the clay.

Thomas was already well into making pottery under her own name—which she had begun doing in 1984—when she found herself taking commissions from, of all places, the White House. In 1998, on a whim, she had sent President Bill Clinton a “rudimentary, really simple little pot” as a gift in appreciation for the country’s recent and notably long stretch of peace. What came back was a thank-you note … and then a request for 16 turquoise and gold pots to be given to Middle Eastern dignitaries … and then a request for a very large white porcelain bowl carved with a peace dove design, to be Clinton’s personal gift to Pope John Paul II.

(About the Pope’s bowl: Because of the tight deadline, Thomas actually made six of them simultaneously in hopes that just one would sit absolutely true, its glaze pristine and incandescent. And just one did. As for the rest, she says, “President Clinton heard about the bowls that didn’t come out perfectly and he wanted them anyway, because he felt he himself wasn’t perfect. And he gave some of those as gifts as well.”)

Thomas has had several other high-level commissions since then, including bowls for the United Nations to present to Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, but much of what she makes is meant for everyday people to use in everyday life. And for Thomas, her lasting legacy isn’t about who buys her pottery, anyway. It’s about the next generation who are working alongside her.

“We have this incredible flow of people across our workshops here who want to learn to be either craftsmen or designer craftsmen, and we’ve created a home or a sanctuary for them for a while,” she says. “When you teach somebody skills, it’s like passing the torch. It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. And human beings need those skills to be happy. So it’s the one thing I can do for the human race, I think. Working with people and working on those skills and sharing that language—it really places you on a long, long timeline.”    

Editor’s note: Like many homes and businesses across Vermont, the historic mill building in Bridgewater that houses ShackletonThomas was flooded by record rainfall as this issue was going to press. As repairs continue, the web store featuring Miranda Thomas’s pottery and Charlie Shackleton’s furniture remains open for orders, via shackletonthomas.com.

The post Open Studio: Vermont Potter Miranda Thomas appeared first on New England.

It is nearly impossible not to submit to the presence of driftwood. Smoothed out by the rhythms of time and water, twisted and rubbed clean by the wind, stripped to bare essence, these are the Rorschachs of nature. Forms that speak to a deeper part of our psyche. More primal. More imaginative. Definitely more elemental. They are, after all, literally sculpted by the elements.

Which is why it makes such sense that Michael Fleming calls his work at Designs Adrift “a collaboration with nature.” What else would you call this massive, bleached-bone, perfect tangle of roots sitting on a platform in his barn studio; this hunk of silvery beauty that he hauled from the northern reaches of Maine, then aged for months, smoothed and leveled, and cajoled into bearing a slab of glass, like some windblown Atlas? 

This is a table equally at home on a stretch of beach or in a city loft. He is, Fleming explains, “sculpting with the wind and sea, sun and sky.” And while many driftwood artists concentrate on smaller pieces—mirrors and such—Fleming works on a grand scale, crafting high-end furniture with an artistry that has gained him a following around the world.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day. A steady breeze is blowing on the Phippsburg Peninsula, one of a cluster of dangly peninsulas that grace the midcoast of Maine, and Fleming is delighted that it’s keeping the mosquitos—apparently insatiable gluttons—at bay. It allows a chance to really take in the strangeness and peace of the immediate surroundings. A gray-shingled Cape Cod–style house from the early 1800s melts harmoniously into an open clearing surrounded by conservation land that continues on to Popham Beach. An ell off the back joins the house to the barn, where Fleming dreams and shapes and hones his contemporary driftwood furniture and art in a workshop cloaked in old barn boards. Wood harboring wood. 

Which is all quite lovely, but I still haven’t gotten my mind around the heaps of driftwood in the yard, mountains of it, rising up through the grass and wildflowers. It’s staggering to see so many intricate, perfect pieces of driftwood all gathered in one place. A kind of outdoors workshop annex, where the wood continues to age and weather, except it’s really more like an elephant boneyard, wild and mythic.

“Now this one,” Fleming points to a long, sloping chunk of wood, “will be a bench, with a resin inlay and brushed steel legs, can’t you just see it?” And I can, as his excitement conveys a picture of something that already exists in his mind. Then he hefts a different piece of driftwood, about half the length of a telephone pole, as casually as a 10-pound hand weight. When I ask about his chiropractic bill, he chuckles. “Well, two trips ago, I blew out my back,” he confesses. “I’m getting older now—55, I can’t believe it. I’m very strong, but I’m like, OK, now I have to start stretching.” He grins. “So I stretched, and you know what? My back straightened right out!”

Fleming is rangy, as you’d expect from someone who routinely wrestles large, heavy pieces of wood. (How heavy? We’ll get to that in a minute.) He looks a little like Hal Holbrook, gray hair curling out from under a ventilated baseball cap, with a dash of Crocodile Dundee. And that actually seems about right: amiable, with an underlying restlessness, and a skill set that includes years of experience as a fine woodworker and furniture maker, while the rest is a Tom Mix combo of explorer, treasure seeker, wood wrangler. 

Fleming and his wife, Jennifer, met 25 years ago, in Tortola, where she was vacationing and he was surfing, after delivering a boat from Rye, New Hampshire. They’ve been in this setting for 19 years, together with their son, Finn, 12, and rescue dog, Dee Dee, but before that they spent years traveling—sailing and surfing around the world—while they both worked, he as a carpenter for hire. Later, after settling in Maine, they continued to surf the world: Australia, all through the South Pacific to South Africa. His wanderlust and observations of other cultures began to influence the carpentry skills he carried with him. “All these other countries had this type of furniture that used natural materials,” he says. “And I’m like, wait a minute. I live in the most beautiful state in the world, with the most beautiful material. And nobody’s really refining it.”

Make a bed, said Jenn.

That’s how it began. Fleming crafted a beautiful queen-size bed, with columns of driftwood at the four corners. 

They still have it in their home. And as he tells it, the response to his new work was practically instantaneous. First, it was friends. Then his first show, in East Boothbay, where he exhibited chairs, lamps, mirrors, a few tables. Everything sold. They set up a website around 2010, and from there it just grew. Jenn takes care of the business; he does the rest. “We don’t come from money,” Fleming says. “We did it all with hard work and Yankee ingenuity. I got out of building houses, doing fine furniture. I knew this was what I wanted to do.” 

The other takeaway from his years as a traveling carpenter? Travel light. With a minimum of tools. This, too, translated well into Fleming’s new passion. “When I did fine furniture, I had every tool under the sun,” he remembers. “But when I traveled with my carpentry in developing countries, I had two tools, and sometimes I even had to make the tool. That really resonated with me.” He shows me the two most essential tools he uses now: a hand grinder that helps him shape the wood, and a small Japanese handsaw, about the size of a boomerang, that opens to reveal a row of hungry teeth. “I can cut a massive tree with that,” he says, admiringly. I have no doubt.

And now, to the treasure hunt. 

“It’s so private where I get the wood,” Fleming says. His voice grows quiet. “I was just up at the lakes, way up north of here, for a week. I call it ‘the field,’ where I have wood that’s drying. I camp on a teeny island; it’s completely pristine.” Traveling within a 200-mile radius of home, always in Maine, he haunts the lakes and ocean shores, often camping for a week at a time. It is where he gets much of his inspiration, where he recharges from his studio work. “It helps me connect back to nature, and gives me so many ideas of what’s coming next.”

He tells me about the reality-TV show that wanted to follow him on one of his treasure hunts. Fleming refused. He’s protective of his resources, the way a truffle hunter might be. “People would just come in and grab it all up,” he says. “And the thing is, everybody thinks when I get wood, I just pick whatever. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s a slow process. I don’t just go in and grab, grab, grab. It’s a little piece here, a little piece there. I ride for days. I row for miles. I drag it out.” Always with permission. Always doing everything by hand.

It’s very clear why a reality-TV show would want to tag along. There’s drama in driftwood. Fleming points to a small metal boat sitting off to one side in his yard, so unobtrusive it’s nearly invisible. The battered little aluminum skiff is his workhorse, a 1957 Crestliner, that he even takes out to sea, to the offshore islands. “It’s very small,” he admits. “I could use something bigger, with pulleys, but I have to tread lightly. I’ve gotten stuck. This boat, I can handle by myself.” That’s important when you go out into the wilds. “I go beyond,” he says. “If I get stuck, nobody knows I’m there.”

“How did you haul this one out?” I point to a large mass that looks like a tangle of moose antlers. Fleming grimaces. “Oh God, on my back. Even the guys that deliver my firewood are like, ‘How do you do it?’ I have a backpack that I modified that I can strap on a piece and haul it out.” He adds, as an afterthought, “It’s grueling.”

Fleming goes out in all seasons, but the best time to pick up driftwood is the end of summer, because everything is dry and water levels are low. Out among the islands, or exploring Maine lakes, he will carefully plant a vertical stick to flag the driftwood he’s considering, then come back to revisit. Some of these pieces weigh 400 to 500 pounds when wet, and he has to wait. “I had pieces I tried to get in the boat a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t get them out. They’ll have to dry for a while longer and then I’ll go back.”

He camps under the stars, gathers more driftwood, watches moose stroll by. Gradually he fills his truck, a small Toyota. Then his boat. Hitches them together like train cars, and begins the drive home. It’s easy to imagine the surprised look on people’s faces when they pass him on a Maine highway, trailing this romantic cargo behind him, a tumble of majestic ocean flotsam.

And then he’s home, confronting the possibilities. 

Because finding driftwood is just a beginning. “There’s no way I can include all the time that goes into making a piece—finding the wood, bringing it back, cleaning it, weathering it,” he says. He’ll sand for days, mostly working with hardwood, like oak and maple. His favorite for tables is cedar, because of how it weathers from the minerals in the water and the sun. He points out a piece of spruce, also destined to be a table. And here is “a gorgeous piece of ocean sumac.” 

It’s such a Maine material, he says more than once. “And the colors—there’s no other color like it, it’s so pleasing to the eye.” As if to demonstrate, his eyes skim over the wood. “The natural forms complement any room. That’s what I love—the curves and the color.” It’s so different, he says, from when he was doing fine furniture, and would go to a mill yard to pick out conventional wood. “I like enhancing what’s been done by nature, and continuing that into its final piece.”

Which might end up being anything, from an elongated lamp topped with a drum shade, to an installation, to artwork that incorporates rippling strands of found lobster warp. But one thing is certain: It will be clean and sleek; it will emphasize the wild beauty of this wood, and then some. “When it’s finished it will look nothing like this,” he says, pointing to a weathered stump. “I might add a piece in here that you won’t even notice, and then a piece of metal, because I like incorporating metal-glass-wood. It all marries together.”

So successfully does he blend these elements that his appeal runs the gamut of clients. Fleming has fashioned a 15-foot “tree” to hide a metal post in the Rolls-Royce showroom in Virginia. Installed a huge bald eagle on the exterior of L.L. Bean’s flagship store in Freeport, Maine. Created three loggerhead sea turtles for the town of Marco Island in Florida. His glass-topped tables are coveted from Portland to Paris to Saudi Arabia. 

Up in the hayloft, over the barn, he’s got a stash of smaller, exquisite driftwood, all carefully chosen, a reserve of raw material. Perfect little trees, columns, shapes that resemble antlers, horns, flames, and tusks. Faces peer out of knotholes. Eyes stare off to the sea. Softened and smoothed, this one looks like a heron. This one could be a gull. There’s a dancer, and a whale, and an acrobat. The loft feels alive with motion. And this, in the corner—a wind-knotted twist of beauty. It’s just waiting.  

To see more of Michael Fleming’s driftwood creations, go to designsadrift.com.

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In a massive brick mill building seven miles west of Portland, Maine, in the town of Westbrook, I stumble into a world of symbols, the domain of a man who dreams and designs in ancient patterns. Ebenezer Akakpo’s jewelry—wide cuffs, slender bangles, dangling earrings—is adorned with tiny characters called adinkra, strong graphic symbols that appear on fabric, pottery, and artwork throughout his native Ghana. They embody some of the most powerful ideas in any language: hope, unity, bravery, and friendship, among others. 

These traditional Ghanaian characters also dance across his stainless-steel goblets and tumblers, felted trivets, and coasters. And, after 24 years in Maine, Akakpo has even begun to play with the Maine figures familiar to us all—lobsters, moose, lighthouses, chickadees—uniting them in fresh combinations to adorn tote bags, travel mugs, and pint glasses. 

“Which symbol speaks to you?” I ask, as we stand in the midst of his sprawling studio, four large rooms spilling over with proof of an almost hyperactive creativity, with a range of equipment that is dizzying. In the jewelry corner, a simple vise waits to clamp onto something; pliers hang at the ready. He shows me a molded form he dreamed up to make it easier to add a curve to the earrings he crafts of bronze and 22-karat gold plate. 

These old-time tools wait close to three high-tech laser printers, a 3-D printer, and a computer that runs sophisticated design programs. Felted trivets sit stacked on trays like colorful baked cookies; nearby, pillows sport symbols proclaiming Hope; and a tabletop holds cardboard constructions that are the first step in imagining three-foot-tall sculptures to bring his vision to larger life. 

Which symbol indeed? It is a good question, a deep question, a question Akakpo answers quickly.

Endurance. The symbol resembles two hearts, mirror images reversed from each other, joined in the center.

“It takes a lot of endurance and willpower to be doing what I’m doing,” he says, with a deep laugh. “And a lot of patience.” 

He speaks to a life that folds a full day at the Maine Turnpike Authority, where he works as an IT specialist, into his artistic work in his studio until 2 or 3 in the morning. 

His story pours into each earring, each laser-printed water bottle—a lifetime of skills and experiences condensed in all that he makes, starting from his childhood in Ghana, growing up on the campus of a technical training center that taught everything from carpentry to refrigeration. “That gave me my initial interest in making things,” he says. 

In Florence, Italy, he learned stone setting and design at the jewelry school Le Arti Orafe while also drawing inspiration from the jewelry shops around the Ponte Vecchio. “Each artisan could interpret a simple heart shape differently,” he recalls. “That was the first time I saw or experienced innovation in terms of design. And I was like, wow, we have all these symbols in my native country. If I can make these symbols my own, how cool would they be?!” 

Each step brought him closer. From Italy to the Maine College of Art & Design, where he studied metal­smithing and jewelry, then mastering industrial design at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Along the way he learned how to take apart computers and put them back together. Simplified his designs. Streamlined production. “But at the same time, the other thing I learned from jewelry making is not to lose the integrity of what you’re trying to create.”

He presses a dangling earring in the vise, making a gentle curve, then holds it up to the light. The cutout pattern is Abundance—it looks like a sprinkling of flowers, and it gives off a shimmer. To some people, it’s a beautiful piece of jewelry. To others, the symbol might connect to the story of their life, not unlike a tattoo. There’s meaning beneath it.

“Once in a while, when people react in a very unique way to my product, I get curious,” he says. And then he tells me about a woman who visited his booth during a craft show. She didn’t wear jewelry, she told him, but then he brought out a goblet covered with the symbol for Hope. “She just grabbed it from me,” he remembers, “and when I asked her why, she told me she’d lost her husband a month ago. Then I told her the symbol for Hope means that God is in the heavens, listening to our prayers. And she started crying.” 

He looks right at me. “It’s little things like that. You know, it makes me feel like, well, I think I am in control of what I’m doing.…” He pauses, then gives another great laugh. “But I don’t think I really am. I’m just being a channel, and trying to do the work.” akakpo.com  

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