Kingston Design Showhouse

The Kingston Design Showhouse is an annual production which brings together the talents of designers, makers, artists and tradespeople of the Hudson Valley. The mission of the Kingston Design Connection, the non-profit organization which produces the Showhouse, is to “build community through design” by bringing creatives together and fostering networking opportunities to amplify their work and to create platforms for collaboration and innovation. I am the proud Executive Director of KDC, and have benefitted from the merits of my participation both personally and professionally as a designer and a volunteer. One of the real joy’s of being a participant designer is the complete creative freedom you have to express your aesthetic visions without limitation. Designing from a place that is more conceptual — and perhaps also academic — is a rare opportunity. Below are some of my most favorite spaces precisely for these reasons.

2019 “The Garden Room”

The very first space I showed publicly, “The Garden Room” was a small sitting area within the kitchen of the 2019 Showhouse. The house itself was a beautiful, historic home in Uptown Kingston and boasted many stunning architectural details. My small space featured enormous floor-to-ceiling windows and a fireplace with its original mantle and marble hearth. The design was inspired by the room itself as it was flooded with light from nearly an entire wall of windows. The room felt like an atrium. Leaning into a minimalist interpretation of a Victorian conservatory, I played with the idea of frames and silhouettes as the ghostly remnants — the memory of this imagined space. The thin frames of the cast iron garden furniture situated in the center of the space almost disappears against the dusty sage green wall of the same color. A custom metal mantle piece, powder coated that same sage green again, was a collaboration with local fabricator Terraform. A planter box which seamlessly mirrored the curves of the mantle, was backed by a lattice that doubled as a frame, inviting climbing plants to trellis up and around the image and surround it in natural foliage. The piece emerges out of the wall, creating a quiet yet grand statement. Glass shelves were installed inside the frame of the windows, backlighting curated objects to create the silhouette of their shapes, floating, curiously displayed. A moss covered coffee table houses a playful tea set suggesting a surrealist garden party. The room was adorned with the artwork of Katie Westmoreland, whose textile paintings capture the impression of the movement of dappled light, and the dreamy shadows of dancing branches.

2020 “The Listening Room”

2022 “The Forest Floor Boudoir” for Hinterland

Perhaps the bloodiest of all spaces I've designed is the Forest Floor Boudoir - a dank, heavily layered space inspired by the regenerative rot happening in the moist, shadows of the mycelium level of life. It was about dirt. It was about dew drops. It was about death. And yet the room could not be called macabre. In fact the room was truly luxurious, fit for a Woodland Queen... Let's be honest - she was also probably a witch. But the point the room was trying to express is that there is *something* in the process of decay that should be celebrated. Aging is the luxury. The cyclical process of life with all of its complicated, entangled phases is beautiful and weird and worthy of noticing. *Note the room's little mascot - a giant lime green slug positioned comfortably on a fine Irish linen duvet (dyed with dead botanicals no less). The room itself, while expressing an overt mushroom motif (@williammorriscollection inspired hand-painted wall pattern via @marciepaper + custom stained glass with mushroom image via @willowdeepstudio + chanterelle side table via @ericarecto.art) the creation of the room emerged through a design process very much like the information and nutrient sharing systems of the florist itself. It was a true experiment with a result beyond my individual imagination. The Forest Floor Boudoir was the collective creation of 10 makers, artists and designers with nearly every element made specifically for the space, down to its own fragrance "Hinterland Petricore" via @phoeniciasoap Custom everything!