Sneak Peek: What We’re Working On Now
Photo by Victoria Pearson
Happy New Year! As we leap forward into 2022, we’re looking forward to a year of creativity, collaboration, and joy. We’re thrilled to be working with some incredible people—artists and chefs, florists and foragers—to create beautiful, inspiring books. Today, we’d love to introduce you to three of them, and to give you a sneak peek at what we’re cooking up together.
Silk & Willow
Ribbons by Silk & Willow
You’ve heard of slow food, slow travel, and perhaps even slow flowers, but have you heard of “slow-craft” color? Hudson Valley–based designer and artisan Shellie Pomeroy—the mastermind behind Silk & Willow—specializes in the practice, of extracting dyes from roots, foliage, nuts, berries, and flowers, and then using those dyes to imbue natural fabrics with rich, luscious colors, ranging from brilliant scarlet to softest lilac. Using this ancient technique, Shellie creates silk ribbons, sheer table linens, elegant napkins, and handmade deckled edge papers that are coveted by brides, grooms, and wedding planners everywhere. (Shellie’s beautiful work has been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, The Knot magazine, and Vow magazine, among others.) We’ve long been admirers of Shellie’s beautiful work, and we’re excited to be agenting her upcoming book, Natural Tables: Nature-Inspired Tablescapes for Memorable Gatherings—out this spring—in which she’ll share ideas on creating beautiful tablescapes using textiles and flowers.
Preorder the book here.
Rose Story Farm
Photo by Victoria Pearson
Danielle Dall’Armi and Bill Hahn both grew up around serious gardeners—she around her gardening-mad grandmother in the San Fernando Valley, and he with his potato-farming family in Washington state. It’s no surprise, then, that when the couple bought a former olive and lemon farm in the Carpinteria Valley, they started gardening. Inspired by their grandmothers (both rosarians!), Danielle and Bill planted roses. But they don’t grow just any roses. Instead, the couple cultivate big, old-fashioned roses, voluptuous blooms that traditionally thrived in France, England, and Italy. Today, Rose Story Farm is a glorious country idyll, home to some 30,000 bushes covered in blooms of lemon-yellow and pale peach, bright coral and cotton candy pink. The farm ships their sought-after flowers to buyers nationwide, and the roses show up in centerpieces and bouquets, and even atop cakes! Want to create a rose story of your very own? You’re in luck—we’re currently hard at work with Danielle and Bill, producing a book speaking to everything you’ve ever wanted to know about roses: The Color of Roses, coming spring 2023.
For rose inspiration, check out the farm’s Instagram.
Samuel Price
Collage by Samuel Price
Where other people see simply a stack of old magazines, San Francisco–based artist Samuel Price sees the makings of his next masterpiece. Some two decades ago, inspired by the perspective-based work of artists such as David Hockney and Pablo Picasso, Samuel started experimenting, using a Chuck Close–inspired grid technique to create collages using paper from old magazines. Using this method, he made a striking black-and-white portrait of James Baldwin; the piece sold the very day that it was hung. Samuel hasn’t stopped creating collages since. Today, he’s made hundreds of pieces, featuring everything from pugs to peonies, a Stubbs mare to a study after Matisse. Samuel is now writing a book, Paper Collage Workshop, in which he’ll teach readers how to create beautiful collages of their very own. The book, published by Quarto, is slated to hit shelves this fall.
To learn more about the book—and why making a great collage is like running a race—check out our interview with Samuel here.
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