Friday Favorites 5/10/2013

Cheryl Katz, Contributing Editor
If you’re lucky enough to find yourself touring the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill next week, be sure to include a stop at Good, 133 Charles Street. To celebrate the Beacon Hill Garden Club’s annual event, Paul Niski, the proprietor of Good, has invited New England native and Farmhouse Pottery founder Zoe Zillian for a visit to his shop. Zillian’s delicately crafted pieces, which reflect her desire for simplicity, usefulness and quality, will be on view that day from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m..

(For more information on the tour, see our May 6 Notes From the Field.)

Paula M. Bodah, Senior Editor
The Boston Design Center’s Studio 534 has added another star in the firmament of its fabric offerings with the addition of the Suzanne Tucker Home Textiles collection. The showroom is one of just a handful around the country to offer the fabric collection Tucker, a 2012 AD100 designer, first debuted in 2010.

Being a total fabric-phile I pretty much love everything in the collection, but a couple of Tucker’s most recent designs called out to me.

This rich silk/polyester floral jacquard in a gorgeous persimmon hue was inspired by the exotic flora and fauna of northern Africa and by the vibrant colors of the spice stalls in the local markets. I’d love to use this to upholster a lounge chair or make sumptuous draperies for a cozy library.

I’d use this fabric in an entirely different house (maybe that seaside getaway I fantasize about owning one day). Celestria, a blend of linen, cotton and rayon, has an exquisitely detailed embroidery pattern that recalls ancient celestial maps and the origins of astronomy. Can’t you just see it framing an ocean view, rippling prettily in the soft breath of the sea breeze?

Kyle Hoepner, Editor-in-Chief
Asher Dunn of Rhode Island’s Studio Dunn was one of our 2012 5 Under 40 Awards honorees, and he continues to show why. The company’s existing complement of cleanly elegant furniture, lamps, and accessories will be joined shortly by two new lighting fixtures, to get their first public airing at the upcoming International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) from May 18–21 in New York.

The brass-and-steel Sorenthia was inspired by images of kelp taken from below the surface of the sea, according to Dunn. “Watching the dramatic quality of light shining through the plant, my mind made a link between the natural characteristics of the kelp and its appropriateness as inspiration for a lighting piece.”

And the second fixture? It’s called Radiata and is also inspired by sea life (in this case a kind of moon jellyfish), but I can’t show it to you just yet. It will be unveiled next Wednesday—check in at studiodunn.com if you want a peek. Or, design professionals can stop by the Studio Dunn booth at the ICFF the following weekend to see the real things (everyone, trade and public alike, is welcome on Tuesday the 21st).