ISSUE FOUR
Stories
Discover more about the creatives featured inside FAIRE : Issue 4
Ad Libitum, France
Alchemists and artists who paint with words, objects and atmosphere, Valérie and Sébastien are a restless creative couple who have been collaborating for more than 24 years. Their creativity has many outlets and encompasses antiques and interior decoration, fine art curation, fashion deconstruction/reconstruction, jewellery-making and writing. They live in the heart of the Ardèche region of France in a heritage home-turned-boutique with adjoining workshops where they have the space to create annual exhibitions and an atelier/boutique for their fashion label, Revers de Fortune.
Photography by Ruth Ribeaucourt
For more information, follow Ad Libitum on Instagram and on Revers de Fortun
Sofia Bodovic Olsson, Sweden
Sofia Bodovic Olsson developed a love of food from a very early age. She spent her childhood foraging, harvesting, hunting, fermenting, canning and baking in the countryside surrounding her grandparents’ home in Romelanda, Kungälv. After the birth of her first child Sofia found her creative voice in a professional kitchen, working her way up the ranks and earning a reputation for herself in Michelin-star restaurants across Europe. Today she is head chef and operations manager at the celebrated VRÅ restaurant in Gothenburg, Sweden, where sustainability and traceability are at the core of her cooking. Sofia is an important advocate for women’s rights in the food sector and she enjoys nurturing and supporting talented female artisans, including Linnea Sjögren, a pioneer in local seaweed, Lotta Klemming, an oyster diver, and Malin Kumberg, a cheesemaker.
Photography by Olivia Thordén Rubie
For more information, follow Sofia on Instagram or visit the VRÅ restaurant website and Instagram
Shannon Clegg, U.K.
South African-born Shannon Clegg is a designer-maker and part-time educator whose work embraces the principles of biophilic design, creating as a means to connect us in a deeper way with nature for wellbeing. She embraces a broad range of craft-based materials and processes to create objects.
Photography by Aloha Bonsar-Shaw
For more information, follow Shannon on her website or Instagram
Ruth Steadman
Ruth Steadman is a writer and storyteller. She authors the column for ‘Stories of Salt and Starlight’ for Faire Magazine. Ruth has also been published in Oh Magazine, while her poetry can be found in the anthology Poems For The NHS, and Popshot Magazine, as well as in a variety of poetry journals. She is currently working on her first non-fiction book, and building a performance storytelling practice.
Photograph by @gary.eason
For more information, follow Ruth on Instagram and on her website
Kaitlin & Alan Slattery, U.S.A.
Dreamers Supply Co.
Kaitlin Slattery is an illustrator and Alan Slattery is a leather craftsman who designs and creates luxury leather bags and accessories. They have been collaborating – on creative work, life and raising a family together – for more than a decade. The last 18 months have been the most challenging for them as a creative business, forcing them to close their beloved storefront and adapt and evolve, proving their resilience in the face of adversity.
Photography by Moe Kite
For more information: Dreamers Supply Co. website and Instagram
Aimee Pradel, Australia
Aimee Pradel is a botanical artist who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She creates Old World treasures such as botanical crowns, trophies, potted plants and wreaths from copper and clay, using her skills as a florist and painter to bring each work to life. All her pieces have been created as future heirlooms to bring a sense of history and beauty into your world.
Photography by Mandy Couzens
For more information, find Aimee on Instagram or visit her website
Marin Montagut, France
Toulouse-born artist Marin Montagut describes himself as an ‘antiques dealer, illustrator, aesthete, director, collector, author and adventurer’ and is beloved for the magical Wes Anderson-esque universes he creates through his illustrations and his new ‘cabinet of curiosities’ boutique on Rue Madame in the heart of Paris.
Photography by Romain Ricard
For more information, follow Marin Montagut on Instagram or visit his website
Sennelier, France
We share a chapter about the famous Parisian artist supply store, Sennelier, from Marin Montagut’s new book, Timeless Paris: Ateliers, Emporiums, Savoir Faire (Flammarion, 2021).
Photography by Pierre Musellec
Gee’s Bend quilters, U.S.A.
Gee’s Bend, Alabama, is where women have been quilting since the 1800s, crafting the fabric of their lives with patterns passed down for more than a century, surviving slavery, the antebellum South and Jim Crow. We share the portraits of five contemporary Gee’s Bend quilters: Doris Pettway Hacketts, Doris Pettway Mosely, Katie Mae Pettway, Sharon Williams and Stella Mae Pettway.
Photography by Stacy Allen
For more information, visit Doris Pettway Hacketts’ Etsy, Doris Pettway Mosely’s Etsy, Katie Mae Pettway’s Etsy, Sharon Williams’ Etsy, and Stella Mae Pettway’s Etsy
Sharon Flynn, Australia
Sharon Flynn is the owner of the Fermentary, an award-winning, small-batch artisanal food company that uses native Australian botanicals, herbs, barks, local organic vegetables and spring water to essentially capture the unique tastes of her region. Sharon is considered Australia’s foremost expert on fermentation and spent more than two decades immersing herself in the flavours and techniques of the ancient art of slow fermentation in Malaysia, Japan, Europe and the US before setting up her own space in the regional Victorian town of Daylesford in 2013. Sharon is a much-loved educator and advocate for good gut health and is the author of the best-selling book Ferment for Good (Hardie Grant, 2017).
Photography by Marnie Hawson
For more information, follow Sharon on Instagram or visit The Fermentary’s website and Instagram
Con Alma, Mallorca
Álvaro and Maria Antònia left behind the bustling life of London for the village of Binissalem, Mallorca, in search of a slower, better way of living. They have made a commitment to building their lives together, raising their children and founding a fulfilling creative business. Their design company, Con Alma, was created in 2013 as a way to fuse Mallorcan craft traditions and contemporary design with sustainable creative processes that are kind to nature.
Photography by Ruth Ribeaucourt
For more information, follow Con Alma on Instagram or visit their website
Dawn Sweitzer, U.S.A.
Dawn is the multifaceted creative and designer behind the brand Notre Monde, whose work encompasses mixed media, painting, woven textiles, furniture, glass and mirrors as well as home accessories. Dawn has created her atelier inside a vast early-20th-century industrial factory in the furniture hub of High Point, North Carolina. This is the story of a tenacious, self-taught entrepreneur who draws inspiration from her global travels and who is unafraid to take risks and throw herself wholeheartedly into creating a design business from the bottom up.
Photography by Addison Jones
Rachel Dangermond, 100 Men Hall, U.S.A.
Rachel Dangermond was conceived in revolutionary Cuba and born in Miami after her family fled Castro’s victorious march into Havana in 1959. She grew up mainly in Central America, Puerto Rico and New Orleans, but has lived in many places in between. Her writing career as a failed novelist, sometimes avid blogger and successful investigative journalist stalled somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, where she now calls coastal Mississippi home and lives with her 12-year-old son, Tin, in the back of a historical Black dance hall whose purpose and construction were themselves acts of revolution.
Photography by Ann Madden
For more information, visit Rachel’s Instagram. To read about100 Men Hall, visit the website and Instagram.
Mourne Textiles, Northern Ireland
For the past 60 years, Mourne Textiles has been handweaving exceptional textiles from a workshop nestled at the foot of the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland. Founded in the 1960s by innovative Norwegian textile designer Gerd Hay-Edie and now led by her grandson, Mario Sierra, this is a family company whose exquisite work has been coveted by designers from Terence Conran and Robin Day to Margaret Howell. Mario describes deciphering and deconstructing notes from the workshop archives, interpreting his grandmother Gerd’s vision and evolving respectfully to create an intentionally imperfect, contemporary cloth for future generations.
Words by Mario Serra
Photography by Tara Fisher
For more information, visit the Mourne Textiles website or follow on Instagram
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Ships from 12 January 2022
Our Contributors
STACY K. ALLEN
Photography for Gee’s Bend
Stacy K. Allen is an American photographer living in the South. She has worked in the photography industry for over 15 years, holding various creative positions such as photo editor, producer and prop stylist. She has a passion for connection and storytelling. She is best known for her unique approach to shadows and light.
ALOHA BONSER-SHAW
Photography for Shannon Clegg
Aloha Bonser-Shaw is a UK- based photographer whose work predominantly explores themes of nature, life cycles and grief. Aloha loves collaborating with artists from other disciplines and backgrounds and gaining insight into their practices.
MANDY COUZENS
Photography for Aimee Pradel
Mandy is an art, food, lifestyle and travel photographer who lives with her family on the coast of Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne, Australia. She does most of her work in
her sun-drenched backyard bungalow, hidden among the overgrown ivy, with her assistant, Dusty the Frenchie Staffy, always by her side. Mandy loves natural moody light, fancy liquor bottles and eating what she shoots.
TARA FISHER
Photography for Mourne Textiles
Tara is a leading contemporary food photographer whose work has taken her across the world. Whether she is shooting on location or in her London studio, she brings a keen eye for composition, a sense of beauty and a human engagement to food. Tara is a regular contributor to Waitrose Food, Country Living Magazine, Sunday Times Style Magazine, Sainsbury’s Magazine and Food & Wine Magazine in the US.
ELISE DESMET FISHER
Photography for ‘Stories of Salt & Starlight’
Elise is a French photographer based in a seaside town in Wicklow, Ireland. Before the pandemic she used to focus on street photography, but in the past year she has found a more reflective practice of photography. Composition is a driving force of her work, acquired through her introduction to the medium through film photography in her teenage years. She has had work exhibited in Dublin and Nantes, France.
MARNIE HAWSON
Photography for Sharon Flynn
Marnie Hawson is a values-driven photographer based in the Macedon Ranges in Australia, increasing impact for those making a difference. She works with people who have a genuine commitment to the environmental and social impact of what they do.
ADDISON JONES
Photography for Dawn Sweitzer
Addison Jones is an American freelance commercial photographer and creative director. Through the lens of her camera, she translates what she sees into a universal language, crafting complex narratives without the need for words, and using light to help illuminate emotion.
ANN MADDEN
Photography for Rachel Dangermond
Ann Dinwiddie Madden’s photographs and mixed media pieces have been shown at galleries and museums all over the US. Born and raised in New Orleans, Ann has lived and worked in Washington, DC and New York City. She now splits her time behind the camera between New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Ann is perpetually on the hunt for potential collaborators, unexpected beauty and new adventures.
PIERRE MUSELLEC
Photography for Sennelier
After studying literature, Pierre turned to the École Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière, Paris, to learn photography. He experimented and tried his hand at many different fields before specialising in interior and decorative photography. His keen interest in crafts such as woodworking stimulates his eye for spaces and pieces of furniture.
OLIVIA THORDÉN RUBIE
Photography for Sofia B. Olsson
Olivia Thordén Rubie recently left a successful career as a photographer in Sydney, Australia, to return to her native Sweden. Back home, she rediscovered a strong connection to nature, wild edible plants, creative dining experiences and workshops and began to combine her photographic skills with exploring these passions. Her recent collaboration with oyster diver Lotta Klemming has been made into an award-winning book, Vilplockade ostron.
MOE KITE
Photography for Kaitlin and Alan Slattery
Originally from Pennsylvania and now living in Birmingham, Alabama, Moe’s photography is a collection of people she finds interesting and scenes that feel like a movie.