We have been so honored in our creative journey to have had the opportunity to meet and nuture friendships with some of the most amazingly talented women on the planet.
Women who have blazed trails in our industry, who have been heroines and inspirations to us as we make our way. Role models and kindred spirits.
Celeste Shaw and Ki Nassauer certainly fit into these categories, and we were so incredibly fortunate to get the chance to visit with them this Spring at Round Top Antique Week. Celeste is a true force of nature and the sweetest person ever. We are totally smitten with her. Ki is gentle, with a wise look and an un-erring eye. The doyenne of junking.
So imagine our absolute, unabashed GLEE when they both agreed to be our very special guests at Spellbound this November!! Pinch us ladies, because this is going to be fabulous!
Here is a little intro to these amazing women, and their stories.
Celeste
This is written by Celeste herself, for an article in Where Women Create:
I was born and raised in a Montana two dot town, where the west has an enduring impression on the people who have lived there or been raised in it's possession. It’s a place where the prairie meets the mountains, the mountains meet the sky, and the sky goes on forever. It’s the home of our legends, our heroes, and our outlaws. It’s our romanticized past and present.
My earliest memory of life with my grandmother Selma, a Montana homesteader, was waking to the mouth-watering aromas of baked bread and fried summer sausage.
Simultaneously, those smells embraced the delicious aroma of a freshly boiled cowboy coffee. Slabs of smoke-cured ham steak toyed with my tiny nostrils like a siren song. I would lie beneath fresh clothesline dried sheets and dissect the air for scents that could only come from the magic of her primitive kitchen. Chokecherry preserves, creamy thick gravy, mounds of fried potatoes seasoned just so with a crunchy outer crust, oatmeal to ‘die for’, uh huh-comfort food. So as a tribute to my sweet Selma, Chaps was built and created in a 1912 original farmhouse.
Everybody has his or her own idea of what constitutes a comfort food. More often than not, foods described as such are conjured from memories of past times and places that were safe and inviting, warm and friendly, loving and nurturing. It isn’t comfort food unless it offers you contentment thinking about it, as well as of the person who made it for you. The food is straightforward and unpretentious.
Real comfort food embraces all of our senses. The enchantment of preparing food, which brings solace, is mysterious. We are all vulnerable to the sweeping affection we have within our memories of a personal story or experience told through delicious recipes and charming reflections of eating and sharing. It teases our noses and seduces our eyes. Taste buds are in suspense, which in turn triggers emotions and memories. I love to listen to the sizzle of my favorite dishes in a griddle or the crunch of that first anticipated bite. Comfort food has the power to commence imagination and to transcend us through time.
But the real truth is that by the end of my very first day I knew, sitcom moments notwithstanding, that creating Chaps would become a love story, and it has. I love it.
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Ki
Tell Ki Nassauer that her career is in the dumpster and she'll deliver a heartfelt "thank you" and an engaging smile.
As the original "junk lady," Ki has been dubbed the "Martha Stewart of vintage" and "America's most famous junker" in extensive media coverage, including a 2012 story and video in the Wall Street Journal. Since 1999, Ki has crafted a career out of junk. She scours flea markets, salvage yards and the occasional street-side pile of cast-offs for raw materials used to create tastefully inventive furniture and beautiful decorative accessories.
Ki was one of the first to realize the potential revenue possibilities of converting junk into cool stuff. After her "test" garage sale grossed $11,000, she founded JunkMarket, operating monthly sales that attracted thousands. With near immediacy, she became a national celebrity with a loyal base of like-minded fans.
What followed were a series of successes that included co-authoring Decorating JunkMarket Style and Junk Beautiful, Room by Room Makeovers; a regular column in Country Home magazine; guest spots on HGTV and the TODAY show and hundreds of public appearances nationwide.
Ki produces Junk Bonanza, the bi-annual shopping extravaganza held in Minnesota that attracts more that 12,000 avid vintage lovers. The three-day event showcases wares from more than 140 hand-picked dealers nationwide who must pass muster for the juried junk show.
Ki is editor in chief of Flea Market Style and Flea Market Style Weddings for Harris Publications. Both titles chronicle the beauty and utility of the vintage-inspired life. Each issue draws on her deep network of national vintage dealers, artisans and junk aficionados to showcase the best in how-to projects, décor and design and shopping for fans of the repurposed.
Ki's latest endeavor, FleaQuest, is up and running, and fulfills her longtime vision for a comprehensive nationwide online directory of the best vintage sales, antiques shops, flea markets, antique shows and architectural salvage centers.
Born and raised in Minnesota and now living in Los Angeles, Ki is a proud mother and friend to her two grown children. When she's not junking, she can be found hanging at the local taco joint with her kids or spending time at the barn riding her horse named Shameless.
Ki has enjoyed every step along the hike to the top of the junk pile and she preaches the gospel of junk through consulting, public appearances, interviews and magazine signings. She is happily committed to ensuring that repurposing remains sustainable, functional- and always fun!
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For a chance to meet Celeste and Ki, and hear more about their creative lives, please join us in November at the stunning Langham-Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, California for Spellbound 3... create your dreams!!
xoxo Debbie & Shea
