The Antiques at the Armory Show - January 23-25 09 Americana

The armory show reflected "Americana Week". As stated in the Stella Show
Management website: "Featuring 100 select exhibits of fine and affordable American & European antiques, period furniture, Americana, folk art, garden & architectural artifacts, fine art and prints, and the list goes on..."
I spent some time with Elemental Garden's husband wife team Tracey Young and Dennis Kaylor. Tracey's clean and focused discipline is reflected in her selections at this show.
Several items stood out in the Elemental Garden booth, a pair of conical French urns, stone carved stepping stools, and a rare matched pair of stone carved life sized greyhounds.
The French garden urns, despite being concrete seemed light and delicate as they balanced on a their raised plinth. As Tracey pointed out "they are very French, you won't see this kind of form anywhere except France". We commented on the mutual grace and respect of the line evident in the urns, the step stools and the stone finials sitting prominently center stage.
I asked Tracey whether she sees any particular trend happening in today's gardens. Without hesitation she explained that all too often gardens are overrun with flowers causing an "expected" result, measured and tailored she explained they can be boring. Instead, Tracey sees gardens that celebrate texture as much more interesting. Much in the way that Chinese botanists developed a love of the orchid's leaves more than the orchid itself, Tracey has a love for the garden's many textures regardless of whether they are summer flowers or simply oceans of shimmering leaves, varied and changing as one proceeds through the garden.
Dennis explained that the pair of greyhounds in their booth were genuine pairs. According to Dennis not only are large stone figures often misrepresented as antique, they are not always matched pairs. A tip, Dennis says, is to look at the details of the animals, if there are opposing directions in the paws or tails for instance they are a matched pair, otherwise they are simply "alike", and not as valuable.
The Elemental Garden is located in Woodbury Connecticut

Michael Bruno - Founder of 1stdibs.com in the New York Times

Sinotique is a proud "pioneer" dealer on www.1stdibs.com, the industry standard website for antiques in America and Europe. Michael Bruno, the website's founder has been highlighted in the NY TIMES Magazine on line T Magazine.
Before 1stdibs.com there were a smattering of poorly designed websites for the antiques trade, often slow and cumbersome and more often than not a mish mash of unvetted merchandise thrown together haphazardly.
Michael Bruno brought a sophistication to the online antiques marketplace by making it easy (finally) to search for and locate the exact piece a busy decorator needed to find in a jiffy. With only 500 dealers on the site and a waiting list of over 800 more, 1stdibs.com maintains the kind of standards that their clientele expect.
Many dealers, Sinotique included, are the same dealers you would find at the Armory Show in Manhattan, numerous shows in the Hamptons, and Connecticut. What Michael has done has brought a level of confidence to buying online by vetting out dealers who do NOT have a brick and mortar location. Decorators and the public at large know that there is much less risk in buying from someone they can visit in person.
There are items on 1stdibs.com that range in price from $250.00 to 125,000.00 and over. It's common to hear of sales from 1stdibs.com in the $5000.00 to $20,000.00 range based solely on what a client sees on the site. That would never happen before on the net prior to 1stdibs.com, at least not so in the antiques world.
Today assistants who work for Martha Stewart , Sills Huniford, and Peter Marino are combing 1stdibs.com daily with efficiency, clarity and dare we say - fun?

a teak bench for a client's shower room

This bench was made for a shower room. It is made from teak that I procured while in Thailand. Thai farmers had used this particular teak in the rice field to thrash the rice plants upon to release the rice from the plant. After decades of use and exposure to the weather the teak has great character and we left the "raw" edge showing on the end of the bench to accentuate the rustic nature of the piece.
The natural oils inherent in the teak will protect the piece from constant exposure to water and moisture in the client's shower room.

Teak bench for a shower room

I made this bench from reclaimed teak I procured in Thailand. The wood for this bench was originally used by rice farmers in Thailand in the field. The original shape was slightly curved, and very rough, I cut it, then milled it so it was flat, and glued up the pieces to form the top and leg "slabs".
This client requested a bench that would withstand repeated exposure to water as it would reside INSIDE her shower enclosure which is large.
Teak was the natural choice as it has natural oils which repel water.