Friday Favorites 7/20/2012

Kyle Hoepner, Editor-in-Chief
I’m happy to announce that nominations are now open for 2012 inductees into the New England Design Hall of Fame. Each year the Hall of Fame honors a small number of residential architects, interior designers, landscape architects–and, on occasion, top professionals in specialty fields such as kitchen or lighting design–whose work, influence and community involvement set them at the pinnacle of their profession.

We need your help to make sure we find and recognize, over time, all of New England’s most eminent figures. Do you know someone whose distinguished career and superior body of work makes her or him the perfect candidate? Let us know now! Click here for more information and an online nomination form.

But hurry: all nominations and supporting materials are due by Friday, August 3, 2012. And thank you for helping us achieve our mission.

Whose name should go on these awards in 2012? Help us make the selection.

Paula M. Bodah, Senior Editor
The work of Paco Camus, a designer from Valencia, Spain, who is earning well-deserved renown for his contemporary furniture, has a new home in the United States. Gallery owner Fernando Luis Alvarez has opened a shop right next door to his eponymous gallery in Stamford, Connecticut. Fernando Luis Alvarez Presents is the first (and so far, only) stand-alone store in the country that offers Camus’s work for sale. I adore this writing desk, called Voltaire, crafted of American walnut. The inside compartments are not only beautifully carved, but are cleverly designed to act as part of the hinge. When it’s closed, it looks like the top of the desk is levitating above the base.

Karin Lidbeck Brent, Contributing Editor
This week, my styling work brought me to Blue Hill, Maine, to produce a very exciting contemporary home project, designed by Elliott+Eliott Architects, to be featured in a 2013 issue of New England Home. Along the way, I made many stops looking for key pieces of art that we could work with. There was certainly no shortage to choose from–Maine is a haven for significant artists and sculptors. I was especially thrilled when architect Matt Elliott brought me to visit the studio of potter Mark Bell.

Bell’s studio gallery, comprising three cabins nestled in a pine forest setting, showcases his hand-thrown, museum-quality, high-fire porcelain vessels. Mark throws his organic shapes inspired by nature on his wheel, altering the clay to create natural forms reminiscent of shells, flowers and microscopic organisms. When unloaded from the kiln they reveal glazes of amazing depth, pattern and color, a result of his layering technique using special glaze recipes. The pottery is delicate, thin and beautifully smooth to touch. Mark graciously loaned us samples of his pottery to use on the shoot, and they were a perfect contribution to the open, contemporary space.

Photo by Ken Woisard