​NOT OPEN ON FRIDAY, NOV. 25!
We’re hoping you can come to our Artists’ Open Studios! We’ll be open on Saturdays and Sundays only this year: Nov. 26 + 27 and December 3 + 4, 10am – 5pm.
Sixty-six artists are showing their work and working methods, all around the Quiet Corner of Connecticut, so check out our website and flyers! This is a fabulous day trip: visit some studios, get a bite to eat, see more studios or a group show…
Open Today Signs will take you from Susan Morisette’s Sober Camel Pottery Studio, #42 (great work, totally worth checking it out!) at 200 Pole Bridge Rd., Woodstock, CT 06282 -- out to our place, Meb’s Kitchenwares, #39.
Park near the workshop, the first building on the right as you drive in.
Indoors: Masks please. We have extras… Meb has cancer, Tom is 81… If you came to the new shop last year, or to our old workshop in earlier times—please visit again. Lots of changes!
Downstairs: You can tour our off-grid systems: the workshop machinery, the inverter system and dust collection/expulsion. We’ll demo how we make our work—and also how Meb teaches spoon-making classes. I sincerely apologize that our space is not handicapped accessible—we’ll try to make it so in 2023. I’ll be happy to bring pieces downstairs or to your car for perusal.
Upstairs:  It’ll look like a working show—drying racks of work, our work displayed for sale or just for air-stirring in preparation for a spoon class! Also, a hangout with chairs and puzzles and stuff for kids to do. And lots of pieces and parts of trees, large and small, cool explorations of wood. Plus I have give-aways-- stuff I just can’t keep around anymore (from file folders to gloves to hankies) and extra flyers for the Open Studios tour. Also I’ll have gift certificates for spoon classes—a new class format is available!
Outside: If you like, you can tour (walk or just drive around) the homestead (Meb may or may not have the energy to guide you). 10 solar panels as you enter on the left, 4 panels in front of the house, SOO many projects underway: a roof over the cistern, a new roof for the original outhouse, the sawmill (maybe in operation!), the house’s south wall heat storage area underway, firewood piles everywhere, a shower (actually inside the house!), pathways through the Mountain Laurel*, a campfire to burn all the sticks that have blown down (depending on the weather). Just remember, this year, nothing is as neat or dust-free as we’d wish!
Hope to see you one of these weekends! Meb and Tom
*come back for an Open House in early June to see the Mountain Laurel in bloom. It’s quite a sight!

Two years ago, in a quick, 7-week preparation for the tv show, PBS’s Weekends with Yankee, Steve, Pat, Tom and I took the empty shell of a new workshop and added in just enough equipment and adornment to make it look like a working shop for the show.
After the filming, we continued clearing out the old workshop and eventually, just stuffing everything in the new shop. We’d go to look for something, thinking of where it was it the old shop, then had to resort to excavating layers of stuff just dumped in assorted piles around here and there. 

Downstairs
Recently, patterns have been found, sorted and banded together for ease of communication. Blanks (hardwood parts that are cut out and ready to carve) have been boxed and labeled. Everything has lids on to keep the ever-present sawdust from infiltrating. This is so much easier on my chemo-addled brain—I can just desire to make something and Voila! Here are choices! Ready to go!

Upstairs
While the downstairs of the workshop is very useable (except for dust collection), the upstairs is a mass of paperwork (custom orders, correspondence, bills, filing, returns) that MUST be dealt with. Six months of ignoring is quite astonishingly scary. Also many technical issues that keep me from moving on: Internet/Verizon, Etsy problems, Microsoft’s new mode, my Android phone, technology in general…
 I’m still looking for someone strong and smart enough to help me tackle this horrific mess. Yes, With the holidays coming, I’m apprehensive of Etsy especially becoming overwhelming. there is payment involved, and I realllllly do need help! Please email me (mebskitchenwares@gmail.com) if you know anyone who fits the bill.
Meanwhile, we are so, so, so grateful to Corlis, Rachel, Mary, Leslie, Dan and of course, Ethan for helping the workshop to come back to life.

Chemo
I still have hair (patchy and thin)! This bout of chemo is much milder, less devastating. I also still have skin and nails on hands and feet. And a prickly feeling (not so much numbness) in my fingertips. How much is due to Tom’s meticulous diet, acupuncture, chaga tea, immunotherapy, L-glutamine powder or yoga I can’t say, And maybe this will change when the weather changes, but for now, I’m pleased to be able to continue working and enjoying this beautiful fall. I’m having tests this month, so before the December holidays I’ll have more news. Fatigue, though, is always nearby, demanding several (sometimes sudden) naps a day…

Open Studios
We’re holding Artist’s Open Studios here in the workshop soon. For the days of the show (November 26 + 27 and December 3 + 4), we’ll shut off Etsy so we don’t accidentally sell something that has already been sold and don’t have the panic of Real Time! Etsy will turn back on the Mondays (28 and 5) following the weekends.

Open Studios is like having a party—clean up everything and make it pretty—not a bad thing! And for us, that means cleaning up the 4 acres of developed property out here.
A friend asked why I put my limited energy into Open Studios and I realized that this off-grid PLACE is my MISSION.
*Teaching and making woodenwares with Solar Power.
*Showing off our systems—water, batteries, composting toilet, heating with the sun, heating with wood.
*Encouraging young people to see how they can fit into environmental issues.
*Living the life—peace and quiet, privacy, self-sufficiency.
*Exposing the difficult side of off-grid life—it’s not always fun.
*Working hard physically and staying young!
 
Services
Since we are so far down the dirt road, services don’t come out our way. We’re also grateful to neighbors on our road for help with daily functions. ¾ of a mile away, we have trash pickup! And a mere mile away, our packages are delivered to a large dry box (we’re still trying to train some delivery folks to actually PUT packages IN the box…) at another neighbor’s house. And when we’re having water issues, several neighbors allow us to fill our gallon water jugs. Sometimes we just go out with a coffee in our robe and slippers to pick up and drop off!

The Hankie Project
Now that I’m older, I have a drippy nose just like my grandmother. Instead of constantly throwing away paper, I’ve taken to keeping a hankie tucked in my pocket. What a good thing for the environment! I think! I was able to find some pretty, vintage-looking handkerchiefs online (and delivered to the box). I liked them so much that I got more and am giving them away to everyone (friends, nurses, receptionists, my pharmacist, our helpers). I’ve been truly gratified at the response. Here’s a link to the ones I like. They’re not very manly, so I’m considering finding more for the guys.

Birthday Gift
I turned 70 recently and was able to watch the total Lunar Eclipse from my pillow! What a gift!
 
I hope you all have happy birthdays and a great Thanksgiving.

Meb and Tom
 

As promised, here's an old article from probably 10 or 15 years ago.  When we still lived in the cabin, before cancer for either of us, before strokes, before Tom turned 80. Before we built the house! It's called:
                                                  ARE YOU POOR?
The frozen earth crunches under my slippers, the forest nightlife hoots and howls, stars twinkle, crisp and clear through the leafless trees, my breath smokes out in puffs, and my headlamp sparkles the frost on the drooping mountain laurel as I shuffle along the path to the outhouse at 2am.  
 
When I tell people how we live—off the grid, no running water, tiny space-- the thing they’re most concerned about is the outhouse in winter.

Since June of 2000, my husband Tom and I have homesteaded 21 acres in the Connecticut woods--a mile past the last power pole. Before that--our first three years of marriage--we lived aboard a wooden sailboat in the Caribbean. Definitely off the grid. We enjoy the challenge and independence of a freeform lifestyle-- depending solely on ourselves for employment and entertainment; taking our safety and happiness into our own hands.
Now, we're not youngsters--during our time together, one or the other of us celebrated our 50th, 60th and 70th birthdays. We stay healthy by eating well and using our daily chores as quirky fitness regimes.
Between us we have 5 kids and 4 grandkids and vastly different former careers—Tom designed astronaut gloves for NASA, and built a successful injection molding business. I did union acting work and a cappella vocals in Boston. No residuals or annuities keep us going—we’ve started from zero many times. These days, together, we make hardwood kitchenwares and sell them at high end galleries and craft shows across the US. 
Compared to everyone we know, we live simply—a young friend asked boldly, “Are you poor?”
We’re certainly not rich, but we’re definitely not poor. And best of all—we’re not in debt. We don’t have a mortgage. We don’t have any credit cards and our savings fluctuate according to the project at hand. We just don't buy things if we can't afford them. We make do without the latest fashions (I actually prefer thrift store clothes and hand-knit sweaters traded for spoons), and we drive elderly, coddled vehicles. We grow organic produce when we can outsmart the hungry forest creatures. We're building a house with our own hands and sweat-- and we’re milling our own trees on a neighbors’ sawmill in exchange for work on their homestead.
And we’re rich in other aspects of life that can’t be bought: freedom from the abundance of rules, schedules and accepted schools of thought. Independence from the grid. The time and ability to explore our Selves and our relationship on our own terms. A freeform life.
But just because we live in the woods and off the electric grid doesn't mean that Rustic is our only option. We’ve made leaded diamond-pane, stained glass windows for our tiny cabin and because we worked on boats, our painted trim is high-gloss, marine-quality. We can watch movies streaming live and get emails using an air card and a power inverter. Our small space is filled with functional creations traded with friends in the craft world.
This is an honest lifestyle. As homesteaders, we have daily evidence of what we’ve accomplished and what we’ve avoided. If we're happy, it's because we've made fun situations happen. When we're broke, we neglected our business. If our gardens are invaded, we missed a hole in the fence. And when we're cozy and warm all winter, we stacked the hay around the cabin for insulation and chopped enough firewood.
At an age when our contemporaries are retired, resting on their previous careers, Tom and I are still exploring new territory—modern-day adventurers. We have a connection with the minute aspects of our daily lives. Friends and families watch our adventures with amusement, condescension, dismay--and some, I think, with a bit of envy.
We’ll never be rich in money, but, oh, we’re so rich in other ways: freedom, deep emotions, dreams and endless possibilities. It's not for everyone, our lifestyle, but it's the one that works for us.
And the 2 am trek to the winter outhouse? Honestly, it’s not a hindrance: It’s an ancient connection to primary functions; it’s a link to other outhouses around the world. And it’s an opportunity to track the stars, appreciate the moon-lit beauty, catch up with the owls and coyotes and add to our ever-growing packet of dreams.
Back in the cozy cabin, I refill the woodstove, snuggle into Tom’s warm body and head back to dreamland. 



 

Recently I got a teabag saying, An overnight success usually takes around 15 years. Well, that’s how long Meb’s Kitchenwares has been in operation and we’re rounding out our overnight success by traveling across the continent and around the globe.

Wesleyan Potters in Middletown, CT hosts their Annual Sale—3 weeks of above average craft sales in a creative setting. This is our 10th participating year.

Connecticut Magazine December issue. The feature article spotlights Meb’s Kitchenwares and four other CT craftspeople.

If you know of any craft artists affected by the fires, help is available through CERF+, an amazing organization that has aided many artisans in trouble.

CERF+ helped Tom and me through 2 bouts of cancer and a house fire. We urge you to donate to these folks.

Work on the homestead continues as always, though more in the background now as we dive into the holiday season.

Our Defiant woodstove is already pumping out the BTUs and firewood is stacked on the elegant new porch. The now-protected bird-feeder is ravaged daily by entertaining tufted titmice, downy woodpeckers and nuthatches.

Our root cellar is stocked with beets, onions and turnips. We had a failed (way too salty!) batch of pickles and the pears and apples are eaten.


The future "sun room" is even now collecting heat as evidenced by our new experimental toy--a surface thermometer that measures heat on--you guessed it--the surfaces of the insulated cement floor, tubs of water, various ceramic tiles and the woodstove.

Keep on learning!

Photos below:
Connecticut-shaped board highlighting our beautiful town of Woodstock.

Melbourne, Australia! We’ve made custom dabbers for sustainable beauty cream applications. See Aesop.com

Custom orders:
Subject to our stamina, the delivery time crunch and availability of special woods, we’ll take custom orders as long as we can this year.

No real deadlines—just get in touch at mebskitchenwares@gmail.com.

Wishing you all peace and joy and good health throughout this year and into the next!

Happy 2019 dear friends!
​
It’s really Meb here, two months cancer-free after a year of treatments! Many thanks to Allie, who kept communication going throughout: telling you about upcoming shows and other news of “importance”, keeping the website current, plus plugging us into the social media circuit.

At the end of 2017, we’d made a 5-year plan. For several years, I’d been anxious to retire or move on to a different career or sell my business or… something! Now that my chemo-brain is lessening, I’m able to see more clearly what’s really been nagging me; a year of illness brings slow insights.

What I realized during my enforced rest is that I LOVE making spoons, I ADORE teaching and I truly ENJOY meeting you all at shows. I don’t want to stop!

But I don’t love my cold, dark office at the workshop, nor the paperwork that ties me to it. I really dislike the frenzy before shows, prepping lots of work in too short a time. We both get exhausted setting up and breaking down shows. I’m truly not fond of production work (same thing over and over…). And I need to spend more time at our homestead—my life’s work, I feel. My purpose.

Over the year, we’ve come up with several solutions.

Now I’m doing more office work at home in a cozy sun-lit nook next to the wood stove. Here I can keep an eye on the exciting projects going on, lend a hand to Tom when needed and do my part in between the dratted paperwork.

Both Ethan (workshop assistant since 2006) and Pat (final inspection, oiling expert and bill payer since 2015) are taking on more responsibility, easing me out of many organizational roles so I can spend more time doing what I LOVE!

We’ll be doing fewer shows in 2019 and hope to hire more assistance for set-up and load-out. Our newly-indoor-accessible and temperature-regulated root cellar makes gardening a priority.

We’ve begun a schedule of more regular workshop hours during the week, building up stock to prevent the back-up just before shows. And we both want to make more funky, fun, elegant, unique, original work, maybe using some of the bits and stumps and knots and ….. that we’ve been saving for years!

With Allie’s help, I hope to make it easier to order on-line (yes, I know I said that last year....) if you’re not near a show.  

But our big news is that in 2019 we finally hope to build our workshop at home! We’ve had the foundation boulders laid since 2001, so we’re more than ready! We’re not sure when we can begin, therefore when we’ll finish, but that’s another reason for doing fewer shows.

​Of course the new workshop will be off-grid, necessitating more powerful systems than we have in the house. But this will make teaching, Open Studios and workshop visits more exciting as we’ll be able to show how amazing sustainable power is!

So that’s it! Our dreams for 2019. We hope you’ll be part of our future as we continue to explore the beauty of New England hardwoods and sustainable living!

With love and gratitude,
​

First up, 
American Artisan Show, Wilton, Connecticut
We're returning to beautiful Wilton for this wonderful show in their historical buildings, starting with a ticketed Preview Party, Thursday, November 1st. The show is open to the public with $10 admission:

Friday, November 2, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday, November 3, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

For more details and directions, visit the event page here. 

Next up, we're in our home workshop for
Artists' Open Studios of Northeast Connecticut
Visit us at 134 Bradford Corner Rd, Woodstock Center, CT

Friday, November 23, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday, November 24, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday, November 25, 10:00 am- 5:00 pm

For more details and plan your visit to our neck of the woods, visit the event page here.

Our last show this month takes us into December in NYC!
Crafts at the Cathedral, New York City
It's a divine craft show hosted at St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Ave. Architectural details pictured above!

Thursday, November 29 -  preview 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Friday, November 30, 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
Saturday, December 1, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday, December 2, 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm

For more details and plan your visit to NYC during the holiday season, visit the event page here.

​See the rest of our 2018 Show Schedule here. Can't wait to see you!

The leaves have barely started turning, but we're already thinking about the holiday season...

We want to make sure you have the best gift giving experience so you can relax and enjoy quality time with your friends and family.

So if you've been considering a custom design or a personalized gift for a loved one this year, please email us today!

We need to hear from you before October 31 - Halloween! - to make sure we can make and ship your gifts on time for gift giving.

Look around our catalog pages for ideas, then use the contact form here to work with us on designing your special piece.

 
​This month, we're close to home!
 
The 36th Annual Roseland Cottage Fine Arts and Crafts Festival takes place at the National Historic Landmark home in Woodstock, Connecticut:

Saturday, October 13, 10:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. 
Sunday, October 14, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

We're joining 175 local artisans on the beautiful grounds of Roseland Cottage.

Bring your holiday gift list!

Enjoy live music, a food court, and first-floor tours of Roseland Cottage, in addition to hand crafted art and design from local makers

Free to Historic New England members and children under 12; $5 nonmembers
Buy tickets ahead of time here.

For more details and directions, visit the event page on the Historic New England website.

See the rest of our 2018 Show Schedule here. Can't wait to see you!

The 8th Annual Craft Festival at Fruitlands takes place in Harvard, Massachusetts:

Saturday, September 22 and Sunday, the 23rd
Daily 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

We're joining 40 New England artisans and craftspeople in this beautiful setting!

Quality juried craft, museum offerings, and stunning views has made the Festival a popular September destination for all. It’s the perfect opportunity to get a jump on your holiday shopping and find that original gift for the hard-to-buy-for!

For your entertainment, there is a food truck, the Café, and live music, courtesy of the Summertime Trio, on both days of the Festival.

The Museum has a spectacular view to the west of Mount Wachusett and, on a clear day, to Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. The view west overlooks the Oxbow Wildlife Refuge and the Nashua River Valley. There are trails through 210 acres of woodlands and meadows. 
​
​The Guests’ Festival admission also includes entry to the Museum exhibits and trails. It’s a fun day out with family and friends.
​
For more details, visit the event page on the Fruitlands website.

See the rest of our 2018 Show Schedule here. Can't wait to see you!

Meb: So there we were, my granddaughter Addie and I, at the homestead having a delightful time playing in what we call, “the little house”-- a two-year-old-sized house on stilts-- where every child is entranced because they fit right in.  There is a porch that is open to the woods about three feet up, and suddenly, I found myself on the ground. 

The good news is that I didn’t have bleeding in my head, but the bad news is that my right wrist (yes, I am right-handed), is fractured.  The emergency room said I’ll be four to six weeks in a cast/sling, no driving or typing and certainly no flying pig tail carving. 

Lisa:  I arrived this morning to take Meb to her first radiation treatment, and there she was with her arm in a sling!  Oh dear!  So, now I am the typist. 

Meb: I thought I was done with chemo on March 27th.  Then in May I had the mastectomy.  My hair came back--short, lush and (surprise!) curly.  My finger skin was re-growing, I even tried playing the violin and it worked!  My finger nails were growing back strong, my head was clearing again… and then! 

​In July, I was told that I needed six more months of oral chemo and two months of radiation!!!  What, I’m not done?   It was explained to me then that because I’m what is called “triple negative”, (you can look it up, but essentially the highest rate of recurrence), other treatments including hormones, were not effective on my cancer. 

Lisa: I arrived at the shop to work and Meb told me this news, saying she was shocked to hear the adjective “deadly” used in describing this type of cancer. 

“I guess I have been rather la-la about it” she said.  

Well, I don’t think that she has been “la-la” about it at all, but rather has had an amazingly “keep calm and carry on” spirit in the face of it, and that I think that it has been precisely this in her very positive character that has helped her get through it so well, and I told her so.  Also, always her sense of humor is at the ready and we have enjoyed laughing together often and recently over her special new “swimming boob”.

Today on the radiation table, when the radiologist was tagging her for the new tattoos to mark the specific radiation parameters, Meb said to him, “Ah, a new tat for tit!”… it took him a second or two, and then he and all of us burst out in real laughter together… and it felt good to hear it in that room.  It was a human healing moment.

Meb: I don’t know where I am right now with this new set-back.  I’m very frustrated, a bit depressed and just a little angry at myself.   We just returned from our lovely intense Nantucket show with depleted stock, and Chatham in about two weeks, and I’m in a cast!  Hopefully I will find out tomorrow for how long.    
 
Update: The cast comes off on August 29th! I'm driving myself to radiation every day. Almost ready for Chatham, and it really is raining every day...