Antique & Design Center Adds Exhibitors

April 19, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in High Point on April 20, 2012

The Antique & Design Center at Market Square has added a number of new exhibitors for this week's High Point Market.

With a focus on antiques, original art and one-of-a-kind objects, Karen Luisana, managing director of the Antique & Design Center, and Amanda Kinney, partner, handpick each exhibitor in a juried offering that is not only unique to the High Point Market, but unlike anything else in the world of regional antique and design shows. While each season's exhibitor roster reads like a who's who of antique dealers, designers, artists, trend forecasters and design bloggers, the partners also make it a point to showcase both undiscovered talent and companies that have never shown in High Point. 

Among the new faces this Market is Ken Farmer, principal of Ken Farmer Auctions & Appraisals and an appraiser for PBS', "Antiques Roadshow." Farmer will offer free appraisals on small objects for marketgoers Sunday, April 22, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Antique & Design Center event space on the Mezzanine Level of Market Square on a first-come, first serve basis. 

Farmer is coming to High Point Market for the first time interested in connecting with what he calls "a whole new demographic of collectors. What most people don't realize is that the antiques and collectibles business is changing very fast," he says. "We've moved from largely printed materials to the Internet, and we are seeing a growing number of young collectors who are interested in more minimalist designs that are representative of mid-century classics. They aren't interested in big, dark brown pieces of furniture or their grandma's Victorian sofa, but they are gaga for classic Knoll and Herman Miller." 

At Market, Farmer himself will be exhibiting a collection of 100 original paintings spanning a lifetime of work by outsider-style artist Theodore Turner. 

"Ted Turner was a highly trained artist who ran the art department at the University of Virginia for some time, but his career went through several stages," Farmer said. "We have lots of paintings from different periods in his life, including beach scenes in which he built up the canvases with a heavy impasto, as well as what I call his French period, which will remind the viewer of Impressionist works from the turn of the century up through the '20s and '30s. However, what I find most interesting about the collection are the more free-form works he painted in what I consider the outsider style. Toward the end of his career, Turner was paying absolutely no attention to academic training and painting what he wanted to get on the canvas, hanging them around his studio and working on several at one time." 

Other new faces at the Antique & Design Center this spring include Mike Bauer, a specialist in antiques culled mainly from Northern China. Among the must-sees in this space are a five-foot tall, late 18th century statute of Guanyin, goddess of mercy and compassion, sitting cross-legged, as well as a pair of elaborate entry doors. 

Tom Delcambre, meanwhile, will be showing a selection of 18th and 19th century glassware, porcelain, miniatures, portraits and furniture, mixed with mid-century items. "My goal is to show people that you can do a great lamp from the '60s with a wonderful 18th century chest or desk," Delcambre said. 

Yet it's the full-size, hand-made paper dresses that Delcambre is set to have on hand that will likely be the talk of the trend watchers at Market. Collected by celebrities like Faith Hill, as well as private clients, and coveted by museums, the Nashville-based artist and antiques specialist says he is "looking forward to exhibiting in High Point for the first time."

Another young artist  is Paul Clements. The Lynchburg, Va., native started blowing glass at the age of 20, and is equally adept in metal. Fifteen years later, he is gaining a worldwide reputation for mixed media sculptures that "take glass off a pedestal and put it up on the wall." Or hang it from the ceiling, as the case may be, given Clements' experiences working with lighting equipment in a chandelier factory. Indeed, he has created a stunning chandelier for the Antique & Design Center itself, utilizing reclaimed wood and powder-coated aluminum, which will hang front and center at the show.   

Those seeking eclectic, fine quality antiques and architecturals of integrity should check out Joseph, Joseph, Joseph. The Charlottesville, Va.-based firm (named for three generations of antiques dealers) offers an ever-changing mix of unusual, period and Continental antiques from England, France, Sweden and the Americas dating from the 17th century. Specialists in locating, relocating, disassembling and reassembling historic buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, the Josephs will have on hand pieces like a huge Kramer Bros. cast iron garden urn, a pair of 19th century cast iron lions and a pair of eight-foot tall, 19th century French limestone gate piers that once graced a chateau in Provence. "These are the real thing," said Phyllis Joseph. "We deal a lot with stone and we care about the provenance." 

Del Ray Simmons principal of Atlanta-based Antique Decorative Arts is exhibiting for the first time in High Point too. Known as a "dealer's dealer with an historian's knowledge of marks and hallmarks," Simmons specializes in European antiques, oil paintings and smalls of every description from sterling to porcelain, crystal and tortoiseshell. Those who know him best say he will key in on 19th century American and European antiques in High Point, including furniture, paintings and lighting.