Speaker 1: You know, you can't be afraid. You know, fear gets
Speaker 1: in the way of so many of us, so many oftentimes,
Speaker 1: and you just got to push that aside and be like, no,
Speaker 1: not today, We're gonna face this. Sitting across from me
Speaker 1: today is a very good friend, UM, a colleague and
Speaker 1: many similar pursuits. His name is Christopher Spitzmiller. I've known
Speaker 1: Christopher for how many years? Christopher six or seven years?
Speaker 1: I think six or seven years. We're both interested in
Speaker 1: the following. We're both interested in backyard animal husbandry. We
Speaker 1: both have lots and lots of different kinds of foul birds, chickens, geese, um, peacocks.
Speaker 1: We love gardens, we love all kinds of landscaping, we
Speaker 1: love interior design and decoration, and we love many many
Speaker 1: other things like cooking and entertaining and building. So we've
Speaker 1: our paths crossed in many different in different ways. And uh,
Speaker 1: and it's so nice to have you here at my
Speaker 1: farm today. I made Christopher drive all the way down
Speaker 1: from his farm in Millbrook, New York, because I thought
Speaker 1: it would be nice to interview him right here institute.
Speaker 1: But were you okay? Oh good? Christopher gets up early,
Speaker 1: and he stays up late, and he's a hard, hard worker.
Speaker 1: And he is as I said in the introduction to
Speaker 1: his beautiful book, which is called A Year at clove
Speaker 1: Brook Farm, I I think the best adjective to use
Speaker 1: for Christopher is industrious, because he is industrious in many
Speaker 1: different fields. So I want to get down to the
Speaker 1: to the basics here. I want to know about your education.
Speaker 1: I want to know when you first got interested in
Speaker 1: your big profession, which is I think your main profession,
Speaker 1: which is pottery and the making of some of America's
Speaker 1: most beautiful lamps that are on tables in houses everywhere
Speaker 1: and even in the White House. So how did you start? So?
Speaker 1: I grew up in East Ahore, New York, is this
Speaker 1: little country town outside of Buffalo where Fisher Price toys
Speaker 1: are made, and Albert Hubbard had his movement of arts
Speaker 1: and craft's work. And I love the idea of making
Speaker 1: something that could enrich your life in some way, that bowl,
Speaker 1: or something that could put your change in or an
Speaker 1: order of could be served from it. I love that,
Speaker 1: um But I thought that I would have a normal
Speaker 1: job like everybody else in my family were bankers and lawyers.
Speaker 1: My grandfather had his own business, and I always aspired
Speaker 1: to have my own business, which was what what was
Speaker 1: your friends? He was in the aerospace business. He did
Speaker 1: pneumatic breathing systems for the Alvin that found the Titanic,
Speaker 1: and then in the end he did the whole breathing
Speaker 1: system for the Space Shuttle. That's a big thing. Wow.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that in Buffalo and Buffalo and you know,
Speaker 1: my mother's family was also in Buffalo, that's right, and
Speaker 1: my grandfather was He was an artist. He was a
Speaker 1: decorative steel worker and he made the big, beautiful decorative
Speaker 1: steel gates for many of the Catholic churches in Buffalo.
Speaker 1: He was honored when he was nine nine years old
Speaker 1: by the by his union for his artistry, and U
Speaker 1: and I got. I used to visit Buffalo a lot,
Speaker 1: and I did not know about some of these other businesses,
Speaker 1: but it has been that was a very industrial It
Speaker 1: was the biggest industrial city of I think New York
Speaker 1: State forever, and a lot of it was built at
Speaker 1: the turn of the century. So there's really great architecture
Speaker 1: there in these big vass houses. And people complain about
Speaker 1: the snow there and I'm like, it's just part of
Speaker 1: the deal. You get six or eight inches and you
Speaker 1: go to work and you don't let it slow you down.
Speaker 1: The planes take off at the airport and it's life.
Speaker 1: So you went to school, Grammar school and I went
Speaker 1: to school in Grammar's glam Buffalo, and then I went
Speaker 1: to boarding school in New Hampshire, went to a little
Speaker 1: boarding school called Procter Academy, and then after that I
Speaker 1: went to St. Lawrence University way up in New York State,
Speaker 1: and they had a ceramics program and they would give
Speaker 1: me a four oh and let me do sort of
Speaker 1: whatever I wanted. And I wanted to go to Rhode
Speaker 1: Island School Design. I had taken the summer program there
Speaker 1: and they offered for me to go. And my mom
Speaker 1: was determined for me, the dyslexic and me to get
Speaker 1: a live arts to grade shows. Just stay there and
Speaker 1: I'll pay for you to go to graduate school wherever
Speaker 1: you wanted. And I figured I could go back to
Speaker 1: Rhode Island School Design is what was called the visiting students.
Speaker 1: So I went back there from my senior fall and
Speaker 1: it was a real kick, you know, And it was
Speaker 1: they signed the same projects year after year, and they
Speaker 1: also told us if you can do anything else, you
Speaker 1: probably should think about it, because it's a hard career
Speaker 1: to make a make a go out of so in pottery.
Speaker 1: In pottery, well you've done extremely well. Christopher has I
Speaker 1: just visited the other day, UM, because I really wanted
Speaker 1: to see what he was really up to in his
Speaker 1: in his lamp business. UM. I went and visited his chilier,
Speaker 1: which is on thirty and it is the penthouse in
Speaker 1: an industrial building away on the west side of Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and I was very impressed. You have the nicest group
Speaker 1: of people working up there, nice artists. They're all artists
Speaker 1: because they are all working very diligently on the perfection
Speaker 1: that you exemplify in your lamp basis. Christopher makes lamp
Speaker 1: bases on which you put lamp shade, and these are
Speaker 1: table lamps. Primarily you do some floor lamps, I guess,
Speaker 1: but describe your lamps. So there Asian and influence. I
Speaker 1: find shapes all over, mostly at at auction websites and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'll take a photograph or I'll buy something and
Speaker 1: I'll make a sketch of it, because I believe it's
Speaker 1: our job, is product designers, to take something and make
Speaker 1: it our own in some way, to not just repeat
Speaker 1: what is out there. I think that's our big obligation.
Speaker 1: And all those different jobs that you see being done,
Speaker 1: I taught myself. I taught myself how to turn the
Speaker 1: wooden bases, how to do the water guilding, and then
Speaker 1: eventually I could afford to have different people in the
Speaker 1: different parts of it. And so there's three potters who
Speaker 1: work working the molds, and I sit down and make
Speaker 1: about eight lamps when I start, and I pick out
Speaker 1: the best one and we use that one is the
Speaker 1: one that goes into a mold and we produce out
Speaker 1: of there. How often do you make a new shape
Speaker 1: about I would say about like maybe one or to
Speaker 1: a month, you know. And how many lamps do you
Speaker 1: have in your catalog? Now? It's an awful lot in
Speaker 1: there that we offer, and we we discontinue things occasionally,
Speaker 1: but mostly if I make them, they sell, thank God.
Speaker 1: So I'm happy with that. And your your customer base
Speaker 1: is it's mostly decorators. We sell through two stores, and
Speaker 1: we have stores all over from Los Angeles to Palm
Speaker 1: Springs to Boston and Dallas and everywhere in between. I
Speaker 1: was just in the store in New York in the seventies,
Speaker 1: k RB, k RB. If you haven't been to this store,
Speaker 1: it's a very fun and colorful decorating store. You go
Speaker 1: there for your lamps, you go there for your tabletop,
Speaker 1: you go there for yeah, pretty much everything. It is
Speaker 1: a beauty and you have a whole wall of your work.
Speaker 1: It was very impressive and um, and I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: some of those lamps before. She had just gotten the
Speaker 1: shipment in and she just opened right well, she was
Speaker 1: open before she had She's moved around town. She was
Speaker 1: on seventy nine Street, and then she's on seventy four Street,
Speaker 1: and now she's right on Lexington, and she was literally
Speaker 1: you around the block on seventy. But there's a whole
Speaker 1: new wave of people who were like, oh, I had
Speaker 1: no idea you were here. And Kate's the new sort
Speaker 1: of only game in town. She's got a great color
Speaker 1: sense and a great style sense. Yeah, I was. I
Speaker 1: was very impressed with the color film. I can't go
Speaker 1: in there without coming home with something. I have to
Speaker 1: be very disciplined about. Like I wanted to buy several
Speaker 1: glass things in there, and I cut my I kept
Speaker 1: my wallet shut for for now. I'm sure I'll go back,
Speaker 1: but a beautiful store. But I love seeing your lamps
Speaker 1: all in one place too, because when I visited your studio,
Speaker 1: I got to see a whole lot of different size
Speaker 1: and shaped basses. Um and these, as I said, our
Speaker 1: table lamps for the most part, with beautiful beautiful wooden
Speaker 1: or metal bases and um and then and beautiful middle um, middle,
Speaker 1: what do you call the tops of the line clusters.
Speaker 1: It's a double cluster there that has two lights so
Speaker 1: you can run one on or both of them are right.
Speaker 1: And then do you also design the finials? We don't
Speaker 1: get the finals a sort of I picked it out.
Speaker 1: It's a ball finial that you have to be careful
Speaker 1: when you take it on and off because it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a little bomb, so you gotta be like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've got it in my hand. Now it's a pottery ball.
Speaker 1: It's brass, and it's crappy brass ball. Okay. But I
Speaker 1: I love finials and I've always collected them for lamps,
Speaker 1: so I'm always looking for the old old finials that
Speaker 1: you can find sometimes. But um, but see here I
Speaker 1: am building Christopher's business. I want you to do more finials.
Speaker 1: I want you to do more here. You should do birds,
Speaker 1: and you know you should. You should do some of
Speaker 1: you know, fantastic chicken finials. I'd buy some of those,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty pottery you could, you could make molds
Speaker 1: in your shop right there. Yeah, so maybe it's maybe
Speaker 1: he's going to go making making some finials, but you're
Speaker 1: doing so many other things. Christopher's now not only maintaining
Speaker 1: this very lively business. Who manufactures your your lamps in
Speaker 1: quantity for the marketplace. So we do them through Visual Comfort.
Speaker 1: They're my sort of business partner in it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I realized that we got the main living room in
Speaker 1: the library and the main rooms, but they were sort
Speaker 1: of extra bedrooms and stuff that didn't always get my
Speaker 1: lamps in it or people who were just starting out.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be more available, and Visual Comfort does
Speaker 1: a very good job of making them more accessible, affordable,
Speaker 1: and more affordable. So a basic lamp through Visual Comfort
Speaker 1: would be about how for a lamp, and then your
Speaker 1: custom made lamps are about twenty five apiece without the shade.
Speaker 1: But no, the shade comes with it a paper shop.
Speaker 1: If you want to get a fancier shade, which I
Speaker 1: know you're a fan of then that's another Oh I
Speaker 1: love fancy shades. But it's getting harder and harder to
Speaker 1: find shade makers. UM. I have one friend who makes
Speaker 1: beautiful shades and her business is called Shades of the
Speaker 1: Midnight Sun, and she has a small workshop on the
Speaker 1: Hudson River. UM, and she's in Bronxville. But to go
Speaker 1: to visit her and see the shapes of the middle
Speaker 1: shapes that she designs for the lamps, it's very complicated
Speaker 1: and they have to be the right size and the
Speaker 1: right high eat and the right with for the bases,
Speaker 1: like you're beautiful, You're beautiful, um, pottery basis. So it's
Speaker 1: it's lamps are hard, and that's why I'm here to
Speaker 1: make it easy. But that's why you're successful because you
Speaker 1: make it well. That's That's the thing is when I started,
Speaker 1: I was making plates and dishes and I sort of
Speaker 1: steered away from that. Richard Keith Langham came to me
Speaker 1: at MeCOx Cards that first summer that I was up
Speaker 1: there when I started. He's like, I need you to
Speaker 1: make these, And in the very beginning I just made
Speaker 1: him the vase and Keith would have a base made
Speaker 1: for it and have it electrified. And that's when I
Speaker 1: learned how to do those difference parts of it of
Speaker 1: turning the base but fit just so and the best
Speaker 1: of everything so well. They're beautiful. And I watched the
Speaker 1: water guilding the other day. You're at your tell and
Speaker 1: it was so pretty to see that. And a very
Speaker 1: pretty girl is sitting in a little room all by herself.
Speaker 1: Just happen, you know. She just came along like as
Speaker 1: people ask of, like how do you get people to
Speaker 1: help you? And she has a basic pottery experience, but
Speaker 1: really not enough to be a potter. But I thought
Speaker 1: she can be a guilder. We'll teacher how to old
Speaker 1: and we've taught her what she needs to know, because
Speaker 1: you can't just largely hire a guilder. They're kind of
Speaker 1: hard people to find out there. But if you get
Speaker 1: a person who's got a good attitude and basic hand skills,
Speaker 1: you can teach them anything. Which I'm a big family.
Speaker 1: I may send Alexis Stewart here because Alexis is busy
Speaker 1: raising her kids right now. But she was a fantastic guilder.
Speaker 1: She took it up as a hobby. Um, I guess
Speaker 1: during during college. And uh, I remember I remember building
Speaker 1: a room for her at East Hampton that was air free,
Speaker 1: no current, no air current, completely still room because that's
Speaker 1: what you really have to have, right, can't have any drafts,
Speaker 1: it'll blow the gold gold leave around. But um, I
Speaker 1: think I'll suggest to her that she come work for
Speaker 1: Christopher's fitz Miller. So the lamp business is thriving, and
Speaker 1: you spend how many time, how much how much time?
Speaker 1: But with the lamps during the week, I'm in the
Speaker 1: city three to four days a week, and then I'm
Speaker 1: up in Millbrook the rest of the time. Up in Millbrook,
Speaker 1: we have a studio that makes plates and dishes and
Speaker 1: accessory pieces up there. Um, when I've been the lucky
Speaker 1: recipient of a beautiful set of pinkish, pinkish painted plates
Speaker 1: the marble of the marble. Yeah, and I use that
Speaker 1: in Maine on my table in Maine because the table
Speaker 1: is pink granite and it looked just just looks so
Speaker 1: perfect there. And uh, and how many people are working
Speaker 1: in that studio too right now, work out there and
Speaker 1: they have the molds, they have the kilns, they have
Speaker 1: everything you're making. We have a silhouette of the bottom
Speaker 1: part of the plate, and then we roll a slab
Speaker 1: out and attach it to the mold, and then the
Speaker 1: lever comes down and cuts back the foot and stuff,
Speaker 1: and then the plate dries on the mold and we
Speaker 1: take it off and when we put on one coat
Speaker 1: of the white all over it, and then we splash
Speaker 1: the color on and move it around, get the right
Speaker 1: amount of movement in it and stop or then we
Speaker 1: have a whole series of dahius that I've grown at
Speaker 1: the far And my rule about plates up there is
Speaker 1: I have to grow the flour in order for it
Speaker 1: to get on the plate. We have a group of
Speaker 1: peany plates, a group of sweet pea plates, and I've
Speaker 1: done some mushrooms. And then I collaborate with friends like
Speaker 1: my friend Kathy Graham has some um woodland plates that
Speaker 1: we do with her and Marion McAvoy. So very pretty, Yes,
Speaker 1: and I like your collaborations too, not only on the
Speaker 1: plates but also on your lamps. You're us You're working
Speaker 1: with one of the best, best, best porcelain flower makers
Speaker 1: in the whole. Their porcelain writers flowers, the most beautiful
Speaker 1: porcelain flowers you have ever seen. This is museum quality
Speaker 1: stuff and and she is just exquisite. How did you
Speaker 1: Clara Potters who who has been a friend of mine
Speaker 1: now for quite a long time, and you know she
Speaker 1: and her name is Clara Claire Potter, And so when
Speaker 1: we do things together, it's called Potter Spitzmiller, which is
Speaker 1: a nice little anagram to have. And We'll make either
Speaker 1: vases or lamp parts, and I'll give Claire the wet
Speaker 1: vase and Claire attaches sweet peas or hella bores or
Speaker 1: whatever gets her fancy. And she'll ask me sometimes what
Speaker 1: do you think should be on here? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's your bestiness. I don't. I don't get into that,
Speaker 1: so she doesn't. She does the picking of the thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, the client has something to deal with that
Speaker 1: the clients could say, I like sweet peas, right. I
Speaker 1: have looked at Claire Potter's fingers and they are so delicate.
Speaker 1: And that she makes these flowers that she fixes to
Speaker 1: your lamps. And she also just just does individual flowers
Speaker 1: for for her artwork that that are display flowers and
Speaker 1: you put them, you know, down the center of the
Speaker 1: table or something. These are exquisite things. So and now
Speaker 1: because of Christopher and because of people like Claire Potter,
Speaker 1: I have been looking online on Instagram. I somehow got
Speaker 1: into the algorithm of pottery sends these pottery things pottery hole,
Speaker 1: you know, and I get the ba weird times and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh gosh, she's not asleep. She I've been
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning looking at pottery being made.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's so interesting. Really, I love that.
Speaker 1: I love the techniques, but when I saw at your
Speaker 1: studio is the most interesting. Really. Um, those heavy le
Speaker 1: textured lamp bases that you're making are so exquisite, so
Speaker 1: sharp everything. So yeah, there's as that I like to
Speaker 1: have in them, which is sort of my version of perfection.
Speaker 1: That things aren't perfect because they're handmade, but the lines
Speaker 1: are really crisp and the bases are perfect, and it
Speaker 1: all sort of comes together and gives you gives you
Speaker 1: a really good look. But I did give you an
Speaker 1: indication that Christopher is multifaceted. He's not just a lamp
Speaker 1: base maker or a lampmaker. He is also an interior designer.
Speaker 1: You did you ever work for Albert Hadley or is
Speaker 1: he know? He was just a really good friend and
Speaker 1: mentor and was really very inspirational, and he was a
Speaker 1: good client. He ordered lots of my lamps and would say,
Speaker 1: I want you to do this for this person and
Speaker 1: that for that person. And so he got behind a
Speaker 1: lot of young talent like myself and pushed us forward.
Speaker 1: Kevin worked there, Kevin Kevin Sharkey loved working for Albert Hadley.
Speaker 1: He idolized him. Everybody did. You can't find anybody who
Speaker 1: says anything bad about Albert Hasley. He was. I met
Speaker 1: him a few times because he lived in Fairfield. He
Speaker 1: loved you, you know, he had those those bumper stickers,
Speaker 1: made the Martha for President stickers. He thought you were
Speaker 1: the cats me out in a lot of ways. He was.
Speaker 1: He was a charming and very talented man. And Sister
Speaker 1: Parrish he worked Parrish Hadley. Um, did you ever meet
Speaker 1: Sister Parrish. I was gone by the time sister was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't on the scene. But by the time Sister
Speaker 1: Paris came at around miss meeting her. That's too bad.
Speaker 1: She was. She was something. She did a lot of
Speaker 1: houses up in Mount Desert Island and Universe for some
Speaker 1: very illustrious citizens up there. I've been and stayed at
Speaker 1: her house in Ailesboro, and it's like she's alive because
Speaker 1: everything is like in its right place, and she comes
Speaker 1: out at night and Apple and her daughter or Susan
Speaker 1: take really good care of it and lies there. So
Speaker 1: it's like a little little dream. That's nice. But but
Speaker 1: you love interior design, I do. I love all kinds
Speaker 1: of juxtaposition of colors and rooms. I like to be
Speaker 1: the pop of color. They're like in my own library,
Speaker 1: I have some merrow goold lamps with some light blue
Speaker 1: ground in there so that we sort of jump out.
Speaker 1: That's what I like. But um, but when you go
Speaker 1: through your rooms with when you travel with Christopher through
Speaker 1: his own beautiful house, which is a eighteen one eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty federal kind of farmhouse, uh set in a set
Speaker 1: in a field in Millbrook, New York, with a pond
Speaker 1: and a pool and a pool house and a walled garden. Um,
Speaker 1: you think, oh my gosh, you know this this house.
Speaker 1: But you're surprised when you go inside because every object
Speaker 1: has a story. It does. But first of all, the
Speaker 1: house wasn't like that in the beginning. It was falling down,
Speaker 1: there were big holes, there were baths living in it,
Speaker 1: there were honey bees. Then there there was all this
Speaker 1: stuff I had just straightened out, and I could only
Speaker 1: do it as my finances allowed, and I would get
Speaker 1: so far and things like the recession would come along
Speaker 1: and I'd have to stop working. But you know, it
Speaker 1: was like five or six years of hard, expensive restoration,
Speaker 1: like new fireplaces and new bathrooms. In when beating and
Speaker 1: architectural DIGESTI concert we want to photograph the house, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, if you want to photograph the new
Speaker 1: chimneys or flues, I just put in your welcome to
Speaker 1: But there's really nothing interesting to see here yet. So
Speaker 1: the declaration part was sort of easy. That took about
Speaker 1: a year and a half. And now it's nice because
Speaker 1: all the projects are outside of the house, like gardens
Speaker 1: and building the barn and getting that all together. So
Speaker 1: it's nice. When you walk around your house you say, oh,
Speaker 1: that comes from that auction, that comes from the estate
Speaker 1: of so and so so, who else what other designers.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Albert Hadley in the house. Every
Speaker 1: room has something of his and at my desk in
Speaker 1: the living room was Keith Irvine's desk. There's um, there's
Speaker 1: there's pieces from sister parish. There's pieces from everybody in
Speaker 1: there are the pieces from you. I like to have
Speaker 1: a collection of things that my friends had made or
Speaker 1: have been a part of their life at some point.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a little bit more meaningful to integrate
Speaker 1: them into your your house and have them be there.
Speaker 1: But you have your stuff in a lot of houses too.
Speaker 1: And most most impressive is that lamps got into the
Speaker 1: White House. Now, how did that happen? I wrote, Well,
Speaker 1: it happened by I was an intern there in I
Speaker 1: believe when I moved to Washington by chance. My roommate
Speaker 1: at the time was um friends with the director of
Speaker 1: the White House intern program, and she was waffling around
Speaker 1: looking for a job, which was an appearance, said why
Speaker 1: don't you come be an intern? And so I went
Speaker 1: to work for the Clintons. And I could see then
Speaker 1: how magnificent that house is and how incredible it was.
Speaker 1: And they made a big effort to move Crass from
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian over so a table in the executive office
Speaker 1: might have a Delta Juli sculpture on it or a
Speaker 1: Native American thing. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: incredible to make something for this house? Someday. And when
Speaker 1: the Clinton's left, I made a lot of things for
Speaker 1: the house in Chappaqua and their house in Washington, And
Speaker 1: when the George Bushes moved in, I made some things
Speaker 1: for the upstairs to the White House for them. And
Speaker 1: then when the Obama's were elected, I wrote Michael Smith
Speaker 1: a letter and said, hey, I'd like to make some
Speaker 1: some things. Yeah, you can't wait there likes talking about industriousness.
Speaker 1: You've got reach out and say I can do this.
Speaker 1: Can I help you with this? You know, you can't
Speaker 1: be afraid. You know, fear gets in the way of
Speaker 1: so many of us, so many oftentimes, and you just
Speaker 1: got to push that aside and be like, no, not today,
Speaker 1: We're gonna face this. And Michael wrote me right away,
Speaker 1: and he came to my studio in the midst of
Speaker 1: that two thousand and eighth Recessions showed me a picture
Speaker 1: of the oval office of my lamps at the end.
Speaker 1: When I volunteered to make it, I never thought that
Speaker 1: I would get such a prominent spot as that, So
Speaker 1: I felt really, really lucky and very thankful. So you
Speaker 1: do you have you thought about why you focused on lamps.
Speaker 1: It just seemed to be the thing. You know. It
Speaker 1: worked for me for a lot of years, but I've
Speaker 1: I've started to make plates again and more accessory things
Speaker 1: and catchpots that you can put flowers in, like we're
Speaker 1: we're doing. We do some mirrors, we do all kinds
Speaker 1: of different things, anything for around the house. But the
Speaker 1: lamps are sort of like the main and bread and
Speaker 1: butter of the business. Catchpots, um and those cash poll Yes,
Speaker 1: but is that the way Americans say catch pots? Sort
Speaker 1: of is I should I should you make it for fun?
Speaker 1: Or do you make it for fun? You say it
Speaker 1: for fun? Little bit tongue in cheeks that I think
Speaker 1: is a cash po is a is like a tall
Speaker 1: bowl in which you put a potted plant or um
Speaker 1: or flowers or so I like. I like that you
Speaker 1: call them catch pots. I like that because they are
Speaker 1: catchy catch the different thing. But all of you out there,
Speaker 1: they're really cash po So, Christopher, before we leave the
Speaker 1: subject of your beautiful lamps, what are the dues and
Speaker 1: don't um that you should pay attention to when choosing
Speaker 1: a lamp for a room. You gotta think where the
Speaker 1: lamp is going to be, Like if you're gonna sit
Speaker 1: next to the lamp. You don't want to stare up
Speaker 1: into the the light fixture of it. So that the
Speaker 1: shade is just high enough that you can get some
Speaker 1: light down on your reading, but isn't too too tall. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to think about how much light it puts off.
Speaker 1: My lamps have double clusters, so you can put two
Speaker 1: different bulbs in there, or have double heights for it.
Speaker 1: You can see about a dimmer, which is a very
Speaker 1: important thing. I love it. Dimm er either on the
Speaker 1: cord switch or on the switch itself. And shade come
Speaker 1: down how far onto a lamp depending on the height
Speaker 1: where it's gonna, say, like if it's going to go
Speaker 1: on your bureau, it can be up a little bit higher.
Speaker 1: But maybe you won't want the lamp to be so high,
Speaker 1: so maybe like a sixteen inch lamp for up there
Speaker 1: in your libraries to maybe you have like an eighteen
Speaker 1: inch lamp in there. But you don't want to see
Speaker 1: You don't want to see the middle party, you don't
Speaker 1: want to see the metal part. You want the shade
Speaker 1: to hit right across thing. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: I think, you know, our electrical parts are very pretty
Speaker 1: and people like to see them, but I like it
Speaker 1: to just sort of be right resting in the shade
Speaker 1: height where the cap height. This it rests right across
Speaker 1: there is I think the proper height right. So what
Speaker 1: are some emerging interior design trends that you that you observe? Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge trend follower, but I'll tell you
Speaker 1: things that I admire. I admire people who can mix
Speaker 1: like my friend Ashley Whittaker, who can mix a lot
Speaker 1: of different patterns together and have them look right. Everybody
Speaker 1: thinks you can only have like one pattern or one this,
Speaker 1: and ashually will layer in three or four or sometimes
Speaker 1: five different patterns in a room that she's creating. And
Speaker 1: what it's about is making somebody feel comfortable. Like, That's
Speaker 1: what it is about, more than anything about even more
Speaker 1: important than the visual impact. It's that you can sit
Speaker 1: down in your sofa, put your feet up on it
Speaker 1: and be like, I'm at home. I want to relax here,
Speaker 1: I want to spend some time in this room. Who else?
Speaker 1: Who else do you do you admire in the world?
Speaker 1: And that sort of bright sort of color way. Miles
Speaker 1: read is another favorite, and Nicholson who worked for him,
Speaker 1: Like they're big in that sort of color sort of
Speaker 1: juxtaposition that I like so much, where there's a contrast
Speaker 1: trim on all the different pieces. All that kind of
Speaker 1: like pizzas and glamour. That's what I'm a fan of. Now,
Speaker 1: how many years ago did you start writing? Because your
Speaker 1: book came out in what your two thousand and two
Speaker 1: thousand and it was during the pandemic. It was in
Speaker 1: March so and in the book is called A Year
Speaker 1: at clove Brook Farm. It is a big, heavy book
Speaker 1: published by Riz Soli. And there's a picture of Christopher
Speaker 1: with his two dogs on the front porch or is
Speaker 1: that the side porch. That's the kitchen porch essentially our
Speaker 1: front door. Yeah, with lots of topiary, uh and beautifully
Speaker 1: potted plants and um. And how long did that book
Speaker 1: take you to write? It took three years for me
Speaker 1: to write it. You know a lot of the publishers
Speaker 1: wanted me to do a book about the rooms that
Speaker 1: my lamps go into and about what they look like,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to do something more like you would do.
Speaker 1: You know when your book Entertaining Cab Style, I was
Speaker 1: eleven years old and I still remember seeing it on
Speaker 1: my mother's kitchen table and looking at it and being like,
Speaker 1: this is the life that I want to live someday,
Speaker 1: you know, not not exactly Martha's like, but that abundance
Speaker 1: of a table with cornercopia of things and the copper
Speaker 1: pots everywhere, and there was just a lot of love
Speaker 1: and a lot of warmth, and like this is a
Speaker 1: place that I said before, like I want to spend
Speaker 1: some time, I want to hang out. I never imagined
Speaker 1: that one day I would be spending Thanksgiving in her
Speaker 1: kitchen and cutting the turkey open with her one day,
Speaker 1: but it's just all sort of evolved that way. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to do it. We had a lot of
Speaker 1: mutual for we have a huge amount of mutual Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many and our interests merged so so in so
Speaker 1: many different areas. So that's really I think. What happened?
Speaker 1: Um and it's uh and now you are happily married
Speaker 1: Anthony Bolo? When did you meet Anthony? And how I
Speaker 1: met Anthony? Four years ago? A friend fixed us up,
Speaker 1: and she initially tried to fix him up with me,
Speaker 1: and he went home and googled me and was like, no,
Speaker 1: he's far too fancy for me. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go with him. He thought you were fancy. It was fancy.
Speaker 1: I cleaned the cat litter box myself, and I do
Speaker 1: all of this really kind of gross things myself, which
Speaker 1: it is part of having a farm, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to roll your sleeves up and and do it all. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it was Thanksgiving and Emily said to me,
Speaker 1: why don't you reach out to Anthony and I did
Speaker 1: and we went and had a dinner at Florida Bar
Speaker 1: in New York, which is a favorite of both of ours,
Speaker 1: and um, sadly closed, sadly closed, sadly no longer. But
Speaker 1: I went to the Corner It was so good. Corner Bar,
Speaker 1: that's his. Oh you'll love it, you'll love it. And
Speaker 1: he made me the omelet the other night that since
Speaker 1: Ino with the caviare. It was very good. So um,
Speaker 1: so you so you. We had our day and things
Speaker 1: went well and it just kept going. And um, I
Speaker 1: realized that he had become such an intellgral part in
Speaker 1: the farm and what was going on there, Like this
Speaker 1: morning he was up early feeding the chickens, even before
Speaker 1: I was out of bed. You know, he's really a
Speaker 1: very hard worker, just like me. And I had never
Speaker 1: dated anybody like that who was more of a partner.
Speaker 1: And I remember when I did some of that online
Speaker 1: dating and stuff. I said to myself, I said, my description,
Speaker 1: I want, I want to find somebody who I could
Speaker 1: build something with one day. And I ended up through
Speaker 1: a friend finding that partner. How nice and you are
Speaker 1: building and Anthony started it. I guess the Arongjurie talk
Speaker 1: about the arrangerie because so in Covid he worked from
Speaker 1: the farm and he really loved spending most of his
Speaker 1: time up in Millbrook and he's a let landscape architect
Speaker 1: and friend of ours bought this building at the far
Speaker 1: end of town and it had been in atlant escaping
Speaker 1: business with a big greenhouse, and it's been divided in
Speaker 1: half and creeling Gow is on one part of it
Speaker 1: and Anthony is on the other part. And the owner
Speaker 1: called me up and said, do you know of anybody
Speaker 1: who would like to take this over? And it didn't
Speaker 1: occur to me to think of asking Anthony, and I didn't,
Speaker 1: And thank god, Larry called another time and said, would
Speaker 1: you let know of anybody maybe you or Anthony would
Speaker 1: like to do this, And thankfully I said to Anthony,
Speaker 1: do you want to do this, and he said yes,
Speaker 1: and he started a business selling topiary and flowers and
Speaker 1: all the things. I would go to Street and get
Speaker 1: and drag up there on the weekends. You can now
Speaker 1: get right in Melbo. Yeah, and it is a beautiful shop.
Speaker 1: So any of you who are driving around looking for
Speaker 1: an interesting place to visit, U certainly visit in Millbrook
Speaker 1: or Enerie. Uh. And the whole town has become a
Speaker 1: little bit more booming and and boisterous. I like Millbrook
Speaker 1: Now it was very very quiet for a long time.
Speaker 1: It still is quiet in some ways, but there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of retail going on, and we have a
Speaker 1: few good restaurants you can go to right now. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I like it a lot. And but I really like
Speaker 1: going to your to your shop and creol and Out
Speaker 1: and Out which is right next door, which has very extraordinary,
Speaker 1: very high end antiques and decorative objects. So it's it's fun.
Speaker 1: But but Anthony seems to be a really good partner
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, yeah, he is really into it. And
Speaker 1: what a nice thing to to find. How old are you?
Speaker 1: I'm fifty one, he is fifty one years old. How
Speaker 1: How old is Anthony? Anthony is forty three. Oh, so
Speaker 1: he's a little younger, but not not that much. Um.
Speaker 1: And the name or Ingerie came from, you know, the
Speaker 1: glass box sort of English, not English but French, sort
Speaker 1: of long, sort of greenhouse. You know. He wants to
Speaker 1: have sort of specimeny things that are sort of different
Speaker 1: from what every other place will have. So he doesn't
Speaker 1: have your sort of regular geraniums. He has like pellegroniums
Speaker 1: or weird leaf geraniums that have a rough leaf to them,
Speaker 1: and all kinds. And a single camuleia, not a nice
Speaker 1: fluffy um um, you know, multipeddled camelia, a single camulity.
Speaker 1: How's you're doing? Mind sting? Pretty well? They didn't like
Speaker 1: it in the house. I try and bring these things
Speaker 1: in the house for a little bit to enjoy them
Speaker 1: when they're in. Yeah. I will show you mine and
Speaker 1: hopefully get some advice about it. So your book was published,
Speaker 1: and you have worked, I think harder than most authors
Speaker 1: to promote and to take that book all over the country,
Speaker 1: and people love, They have responded so favorably to how
Speaker 1: you do it. You give talks, said garden clubs, you
Speaker 1: give talks said antique shows, and then you sell your book. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's been a very very successful book launch. So
Speaker 1: when's your second book going to come out? Well, we
Speaker 1: haven't started working on the second book, but I'm going
Speaker 1: too soon. I think I'm going to do a book
Speaker 1: on entertaining will be the next one, and breaking it
Speaker 1: down and showing all the different parts of it, which
Speaker 1: this one breaks down things from gardening, things with animals.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a broad scope sort of book. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to impart in the reader different things that
Speaker 1: you can take away from it and do yourself. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about our livestock interest. You have the most beautiful,
Speaker 1: fluffy Sebastopol geese, thanks to you because in COVID you
Speaker 1: came over and you brought me eight goose eggs and
Speaker 1: I didn't really want gee. Gees are alloud, dirty, dirty, smelly.
Speaker 1: But you know, when Martha gives you something, you smile
Speaker 1: and say thank you very much. You know, good matters.
Speaker 1: And I thought that I would hash these because I'm
Speaker 1: a hatch aholic and I love to hatch all kinds
Speaker 1: of little babies and raise them and um find homes
Speaker 1: for them. So I hatched these geese and when they
Speaker 1: were big enough to walk, outside of the house. They
Speaker 1: followed us around like we were their mothers. And we
Speaker 1: gave them names like Joan Rivers and Paddle Shall and
Speaker 1: Caroline Rome and Bill Blasts and they're really fond. Were
Speaker 1: Martha Peacock. Yeah, so there's a you got me going
Speaker 1: on peacocks as well too. That was another hole that
Speaker 1: you led me down. And you know, four peacocks have
Speaker 1: now led to like twelve peacocks. And have you seen
Speaker 1: my blues brothers. How beautiful they are, aren't they amazing?
Speaker 1: They're so fat, and you know what they thought about
Speaker 1: how loud they are and how obnoxious they are, and
Speaker 1: they're not all made a noise since the massacre we
Speaker 1: had a we had a coyote massacre of some of
Speaker 1: my nicest peacocks. But since the massacre, these guys are
Speaker 1: so quiet. I don't I haven't heard them make any noise.
Speaker 1: I try to talk to them and they're not talking back.
Speaker 1: The geese talk back, but these guys do not talk
Speaker 1: back to me. So um, so you have you have geese,
Speaker 1: and those are beautiful because they're so fluffy and white.
Speaker 1: They go into your pond, they go into your swimming pool.
Speaker 1: They follow us around and just really are really really
Speaker 1: really it's really more like labradors than they are like
Speaker 1: piece I think, you know, if you spend enough time
Speaker 1: with them and bond with them, they can be your
Speaker 1: friends and they can be really like a nice you know,
Speaker 1: the chickens and the peacocks I haven't spent enough time
Speaker 1: with so we have really got that bond. It's whatever
Speaker 1: you invest in you can see or return from. And
Speaker 1: that's the nice thing about what I've done with the keys.
Speaker 1: And you're interested in cooking when the bets start. It
Speaker 1: started when my mom was pregnant. She had a set
Speaker 1: of twins when I was fourteen years old, and I
Speaker 1: was hungry. So I like learned to cook for for
Speaker 1: myself and for her and for anybody who was around.
Speaker 1: And um, it's something that I love to do. I
Speaker 1: love to share and bring a table together and have
Speaker 1: people like you over. And sometimes that can be a
Speaker 1: little bit scary, but I know that I burned the
Speaker 1: chicken for you and you've enjoyed it just the same.
Speaker 1: You know, look burned, but it didn't taste burn you know.
Speaker 1: I just think that you've got to entertain and bring people,
Speaker 1: you know, offer them something and you know, all of
Speaker 1: us want the phone to bring but you've got to
Speaker 1: make some phone calls in order to get that to
Speaker 1: happen and and sort of make your life be what
Speaker 1: it is. And you also like to travel. I love
Speaker 1: to travel. Yeah, where's your favorite places to go? Um,
Speaker 1: we're going to go to Nashville to the antique show
Speaker 1: to see the chicken coops that you And so somehow, somehow,
Speaker 1: Christopher's fitz Miller allured me into yet another project um
Speaker 1: and asked me to design a simple chicken coop that
Speaker 1: would be auctioned off at the Nashville Antique Show. Um.
Speaker 1: I didn't really pay attention except that I, you know,
Speaker 1: I drew. I drew a model of it for you,
Speaker 1: and and then all of a sudden, it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what a big deal it was. Contractor
Speaker 1: Supply is paying for the construction. They're sponsoring the whole show.
Speaker 1: I love Tractors Supply. How Lawton is an old friend
Speaker 1: of mine from Home Depot, so so it was kind
Speaker 1: of weird that this whole thing came together. So Christopher
Speaker 1: of course designs a sort of a great revival chicken coop,
Speaker 1: and I designed a typical Martha simple farmhouse looking chicken
Speaker 1: coop with a lovely cupola. And they haven't sourced the
Speaker 1: fineal yet. They said they would get a local fineal
Speaker 1: down their copper. But they're gonna be nice and they're
Speaker 1: being auctioned off for charity at the Nashville Antiques Fair.
Speaker 1: But everybody's going down there. Stephen Gambril. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: good show for home stuff. It's good for garden stuff.
Speaker 1: And there's something you can buy there for twenty dollars
Speaker 1: or two plants too. They had beautiful plans everything. So
Speaker 1: if you're planning to go to the Nashville show, always
Speaker 1: take a truck with you because you have shippers so
Speaker 1: you can send things back with the show. Less sure,
Speaker 1: I less sure. I bought some beautiful iron chairs and
Speaker 1: I bought some plants which I brought home with me.
Speaker 1: And it was a great show. So and and it's
Speaker 1: been up going for how long how many years? I
Speaker 1: think it's been going for about twenty five or thirty years.
Speaker 1: You know. Albert started that show. Albert Hadley started it
Speaker 1: and it has had great momentum building around and they
Speaker 1: do a very good job of getting speakers in there
Speaker 1: and educating people and it's just a fun experience. And
Speaker 1: my friends from Alabama and all over the South come
Speaker 1: to it and it's a great, great time. And it
Speaker 1: happens in early February every year when none of us
Speaker 1: really have very much going on. So I really forward
Speaker 1: to it and and rarely come home without something. So
Speaker 1: oh good. So um, it's been so nice talking to
Speaker 1: Christopher as we always talk. We just got back last
Speaker 1: weekend from the Northeastern Poultry Love going to the poultry
Speaker 1: show every year. Every year. We get up and we
Speaker 1: go very early in the morning, and and the chickens
Speaker 1: I got are very happy, happy, They're they're happy. I've
Speaker 1: I've isolated them with with other like chickens so that
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty happy, getting very well fed and getting
Speaker 1: fatter every single day. Um. But it's um. But it's
Speaker 1: fun to spend time with you. It's fun to talk
Speaker 1: to you about all of this. And now that I've
Speaker 1: seen your lamp studio, it really really impresses me that
Speaker 1: that that the quality of your pottery. UM. I just
Speaker 1: want to tell you this from from Kevin Sharkey. He
Speaker 1: he's going to be so happy with this podcast because
Speaker 1: Kevin Sharkey said, you know, Christopher's always talking about other things.
Speaker 1: He's never really talking. I don't do a really good
Speaker 1: job of promoting my business, and I should do a
Speaker 1: better job. You know. I'm more into like showing people
Speaker 1: how to grow a auricula or something bizarre like that,
Speaker 1: which is not everybody. They're in sleep. They're an endormitory.
Speaker 1: Now we'll bring them in soon and we'll start to
Speaker 1: fertilize them and you start to feed them now and
Speaker 1: warm them up, and then they start to flower in
Speaker 1: the spring and divide them. You know. I sort of like,
Speaker 1: look at my business is sort of like the vehicle
Speaker 1: that pays for everything, like they pay for the urriculus.
Speaker 1: And it's very need to be a little bit better
Speaker 1: about the business that I'm going to take over our business.
Speaker 1: Instagram pushed it alone. When I when I saw your lamps,
Speaker 1: I thought about the lamps. I also designed a whole
Speaker 1: line of beautiful lamps, but also chandeliers, and I was
Speaker 1: remembering my kitchen green like a fire king chandelier that
Speaker 1: I designed and looks like a Venetian glass chandeler, and
Speaker 1: I gave one to Gail Tawie. I gave her the
Speaker 1: the inspirational one that was the antique, and I saw
Speaker 1: it in her house the other night and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I had to go back to designing chandeliers because people
Speaker 1: need chandeliers. Anyway, I digress. It's been so great to
Speaker 1: talk to you, um and you are inspirational. You are
Speaker 1: so encouraging to so many other people. Keep that up
Speaker 1: because I think people look to you for not only advice,
Speaker 1: but they also look for it for inspiration and thank you.
Speaker 1: That's been a great part of listening to your podcast.
Speaker 1: It's listening to pure friends like Charlotte Bearers and Dennis
Speaker 1: and imparting some of their knowledge and their wisdom out
Speaker 1: there and having people take away something right. Listen to
Speaker 1: Allan Legal Advice. He's so smart, very diverse group of
Speaker 1: people that you have. Has never written a thank you
Speaker 1: note in his life. I got one yesterday. So many
Speaker 1: people have colden to tell him how Grady sounded, isn't
Speaker 1: it nice? So so it's very fun to be doing
Speaker 1: this podcast talking to good friends, old friends and interesting friends.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, my pleasure. Thank you