We met the super sweet Nettie Kent in the middle of February at our hotel in Gramercy Park. We were in NYC for the markets and Nettie had contacted us several months previous to introduce us to her jewelry. I was particularly taken with the really cool organic shapes and the brilliant thay gold she uses for several of her pieces. Notable trivia: Nettie worked for Philip Crangi, Jill Platner, and Pamela Love before striking out on her own. Anyways, we’re happy to announce that our NK fall order has finally arrived and is now available on the shop!

I’m hugely excited to finally make this little announcement today. The shop now offers a very limited, special edition piece by Erin Considine created only for Pour Porter. Erin and I had been discussing doing something like this for several months and I was bowled over when she sent pictures of the completed necklace. I think my emailed response contained an offensively large number of exclamation points and caps! The necklace’s simplicity coupled with the variety of textures and subtle colours perfectly captures what I feel is the shop’s aesthetic -simple but interesting. (All pictures below by Erin Considine)

Now, no special edition piece would be complete without a backstory, and this necklace has a really wonderful personal angle to it. Erin was able to vacation near the Catskills in the early summer and went mushroom hunting in between rain storms. She uncovered a cluster of what she believes were a species of the genus Boletus, and transported them back to her studio.

Erin is fascinated by the boundless diversity of natural dying, and is always looking for ways to integrate what she discovers into her work. A batch of mushroom “liquor” was in order and after pulverizing and boiling them, she added iron sulphate and silk fiber, letting it steep overnight. The following day, the silk emerged a beautiful silvery grey, green. Dyes made from mushrooms are each wholly unique because the colour they produce is completely dependent on weather, soils, region, and age upon harvest. So now Erin had a lot of subtly tinted silk but its use wasn’t determined until Erin paid a visit to her grandfather’s garage-cum-workshop in Illinois.

In what most people would have seen as a garage stuffed with useless junk, Erin found an abundance of things she could incorporate into her creative process. While her grandfather has Alzheimer’s, he was able to share a story for each tool in the garage and what he had made with them over the years. With this newfound historical knowledge of the things she helped her grandfather sort through, Erin collected a hammer, copper washers, rivets, and other creatively promising objects to take back home.

This special edition piece is Erin’s response to the materials she’d gathered over the summer, and a wonderful reworking of old items from family storage. The necklace is constructed of vintage brass snake chain, her grandfather’s copper and steel washers, and that beautiful silvery mushroom dyed silk. I don’t know about you guys, but I love knowing the story behind an object, and this necklace certainly has one. Only three available. Thanks Erin!

It was pretty exciting to be able to see the sculptural work of FAUX/real in person during a showroom visit earlier this year – so even better now that their pieces are stocked at the shop. This season’s theme, digitalDECO, playfully references the genesis of the world wide web (snicker) and our now ubiquitous computer culture and reminds us that, ‘Too much computer is not good for you.’ There is no such thing as too much FAUX/real!

Remember when I first posted about metalsmith, David Neale? Well, I started following his blog, The Golden Smith soon after, and it’s quickly become one of my favourite reads (really like his animated gif illustrations). A few months back he also opened his own Big Cartel webshop so you can buy directly, and there are some fantastic offerings. Keep an eye on his blog (he’s a frequent updater) and shop!