Match Gabriella Flatware

As promised, more about a favorite company - MATCH. Their pewter products are handmade in northern Italy. Our first find years ago was a candleabra (see previous post). Since then, when given the opportunity to furnish a home we've designed, this is a company we look to for high quality tableware. There is something special about products with clean, architectural lines that retain the mark of the hand that made them. We'd love to hear your comments and suggestions of other companies with similar qualities.
http://www.match1995.com/pewter.html

Pond Hockey

The photos in this album probably induce more homesickness than any I've taken recently. Ellis is playing ice hockey on the frozen Lake Michigan amidst a sky worthy of a John Constable painting. I was raised with the sport, (my father played goalie until the age of 86) so perhaps I'm a bit biased, but I feel that something of the core of the American North is wrapped up in its bold lines and immediacy. Our family immigrated from Belgium and England to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to work in the iron mines, trading poverty in the old world for poverty in the new. My father would always wear these LL Bean boots while shoveling the driveway or getting a rink ready for a neighborhood game of pond hockey.

Now Ellis has his own pair and is down on the lake playing after school. Though I will betray a bit more regional bias, I've come to feel that the austere winters of the north have done a lot to influence my design aesthetic. When I worked with Dansk International Designs, our products were expressly influenced by the clean lines of Scandinavian design. Later, working in architecture and product design, we created simple board and batten home furnishings based on the brightly colored seaside homes of Norway and Sweden, and built cabinetry of white Baltic Birch. Since these experiences, I've inevitably kept these influences present in my work. It's really about an emphasis on elementality. Nature gives us the sky, the water, the trees, and the ice. This is the palette. What we create emerges from who we are.

KWD Interiors

It occurs to me that it might be good to post a little of our studio's work on the blog from time to time! This still life is from an interior by Kathleen Wills Design for a project on the Old Mission Peninsula. The candelabra is pewter, made in Italy by Match, - found at Barneys New York. (Their pewter and stainless flatware is lovely as well - see next post.) The loveseat is slipcovered in cream canvas from Crate and Barrel - perfect for a beach house with summer coming (we hope)! Additional interiors and original furniture can be found at www.kathleenwills.com