Friday Favorites 5/18/2012

Jared Ainscough, Assistant Art Director
Candles are an often-overlooked design element, and I think it is their standard shape that can make them so anonymous. These candles, by sculptor Niho Kozuru, take standard to the next level, making them into beeswax sculptures. Their turned spindle shapes evoke all sorts of furniture and design traditions, from finials and spindle-beds to furniture legs and…candlesticks. Available at Michelle Willey in Boston; Room 68 in Jamaica Plain, Mass.; Trove in Weston, Mass.; and The Emporium in Wellfleet, Mass.

Photo courtesy of Niho Kozuru

Kyle Hoepner, Editor-in-Chief
Last month the Library of Congress added to their website a collection of 1,100 colored glass lantern slides, images of American gardens by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Johnston was one of the first female professional photographers, noted for her portraits of the rich, famous, and powerful of her era. She joined forces with the Garden Club of America for a series of lectures on garden design and planning–a progressive, public-spirited exercise seeking to promote the “greening†of an American landscape severely affected by the industrial revolution.

250 of Johnston’s slides, created as illustrations for the lectures, have just been published by Acanthus Press, with text by California historian Sam Watters, who spent some five years identifying the gardens shown in the complete Library of Congress collection. Gardens for a Beautiful America 1895–1935: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston is available online or at bookstores throughout New England.

Stacy Kunstel, Homes Editor
Last Friday night I was at the kickoff gala for the North Shore Design Show at the Wenham Museum in Wenham, Mass. The thirty-some installations by a host of talented designers were so inspiring I felt the need to go home and rearrange all my furniture and consider calling one of those decor wizards to help. Out of nothing they created cozy, beautiful rooms like this one by interior designer Honey Collins. You only have until Sunday–May 20–to walk through and see the rest!

Another design event not to miss this month is the Junior League of Hartford Decorator Showhouse, which is open through May 27. Three floors of a grand 1921 brick home have been redone with wonderful furnishings and interesting wall finishes. Here’s one of the rooms, by the team from Galway Stallard of Avon, Connecticut.