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