NORTHAMPTON — Cara Taylor and Kim Rosen, a married Florence couple who each carry decades of experience working as ceramic and textile artists, respectively, have combined forces to open a joint studio and showroom.
The years-vacant, roughly 1,400-square-foot site of the former Green Mountain Power Equipment store at 187 Locust St. has been transformed. Taylor’s side holds a full display of woven ceramic bowls, vases and salt-and-pepper shakers. On Rosen’s side, intricately designed fabrics and wallpapers hang on the walls.
While Taylor and Rosen previously worked near one another in side-by-side studios on Cottage Street in Easthampton, they have never worked in their own shared space before.
“I have been in my own space there for maybe 12 years. But this is our first brick-and-mortar store, and it’s not really a store; I would say it’s more of a showroom and gallery,” Taylor said. “We’re by appointment only, so people have been emailing us or calling us to come in, either to do shopping or look at fabric and wallpaper, take-home samples.”
Despite sharing a roof, Rosen explained that she and Taylor maintain separate businesses — Fayce Textiles and Taylor Ceramics. She said her textile business has a wider-reaching customer base through online sales, while Taylor’s ceramics have attracted a substantial local customer base.
Still, both artists expressed interest in collaborating in future work if the opportunity and the right project arise.
“One is messy and the other one isn’t as much — clay and fabric and wallpaper don’t exactly mesh, but when we collaborate with pattern and ceramics, that’ll be nice eventually,” Rosen said.
Ever since she first picked up a slab of clay, ceramics have been Taylor’s passion. She now produces a variety of products, ranging in price from her $24 tea light holders to her larger $2,000 woven ceramic baskets.
“If you’re a ceramic person, as soon as you pick up clay, you don’t want to put it down again — that’s my story. After I got a degree in ceramics, I worked at a pottery studio in Maryland, and I learned about basically being a production potter,” Taylor said. “I knew that I didn’t want to do that, so that’s when I went back to school for art education. I prefer making more sculptural pieces and not making the same thing over and over and over and over again —it’s a little bit more creative.”
Taylor explained that while her clay products vary in size, shape and price, they all share simple styles and color schemes. She likes to focus her product line on functionality, simplicity and unique design features.
Her woven ceramics series, which features slabs of clay woven together with yarn, was inspired by techniques she learned taking basket-weaving classes and later applied to her ceramics craft. Other popular designs, such as her flat salt-and-pepper shaker sets, combine creative design with utility, Taylor explained.
“A lot of it comes out of necessity. We were having lunch and we didn’t have salt-and-pepper shakers. This is like a miniature version of my pillow vase,” she said. “I thought ‘I’m going to turn this thing that I’ve already done into a miniature version and poke some holes in it.’ I love thinking about design — how do you get the salt and pepper into the form without it being obvious and visible?”
Rosen, who studied design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and later went on to study illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design, said she takes inspiration from traveling and reading about history.
One of Rosen’s fabric designs, which depicts a series of ancient Greek pottery, was inspired by her residency in Greece two years ago. Her lines of wallpaper, drapes, monoprints and upholstery — such as her depiction of sailboats in the distance or wallpaper featuring dogs’ heads against a pink background — vary in theme and texture, but aim toward simplicity and timelessness.
“I really like to be as simple and minimal as possible without the subject matter screaming at you. Some are definitely more figurative than others, but I like to be subtle,” Rosen said. “I think it gives it sort of a timeless aesthetic because it’s not glaringly obvious what things are.”
Walking through her portion of the studio, Rosen pointed to another one of her designs featuring a series of small embroidered sheep, inspired by wildlife she saw on a hike along the Cotswold Way in England.
Another design, she said, was inspired by the ornamental and intricate patterns of the Gilded Age.
“Every stitch, on corsets, or the suiting of men had to be beautiful — even just utilitarian things were often thought of. That was inspiring to me,” Rosen said.
The couple hope to begin hosting community arts events, such as authors’ readings, at the studio and in a courtyard out front during warm weather.
Taylor and Rosen will host an open house tour of the studio on Saturday, Nov. 14, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., where they will sell fabric remnants, pillow covers and archived fabrics.
Those who wish to visit the studio are encouraged to make an appointment by calling or emailing Taylor at cara@carataylor.com or Rosen at info@faycetextiles.com.
“We just feel very lucky — we’ve created the lives we want to live and strive to continue to do that,” Taylor said. “This feels like a total dream. It is a dream. It’s not Main Street, which is good because we don’t have regular hours, but still there’s a public visibility, which is perfect.”
