New England artisans create sense of home in their shops
If you feel at home in DaVallia 39 North Gallery and DaVallia Art Boutique, the artisans/owners have met their goal.
If you feel right at home in Michael and Jessie Alon’s DaVallia 39 North Gallery and DaVallia Art Boutique, sister shops in Chester, Vermont, the artisans/owners have met their goal.
“It’s like walking into a home filled with one-of-a-kind art,” says Peter Healy, a frequent DaVallia customer. Indeed, there is an immediate sense of welcome, of dropping in on a family — one that lives in a particularly art-infused setting.
“It’s a combination of their expression combined with other artists,” says Healy. “I cannot go into their shops without finding something I think I need to own.”
The couple’s artful approach to life was born of sticker shock. In 1997, Michael Alon was working as a graphic designer in Southern California when he realized he couldn’t afford the desk of his dreams.
Rather than settling for a less-than-ideal version, he went shopping for woodworking tools to whip up his own. No matter that Michael had never attempted a carpentry project before; he forged ahead. Twelve hours later, he hadn’t supped or slept, but he had crafted a perfect desk — and turned a career corner.
“I realized that I loved working with my hands,” he says.
A dresser, dining table, and ultimately a house followed. Most projects incorporate reclaimed wood (“that’s 15 years of dumpster diving,” he says). If a local barn is coming down, Michael is often on the receiving end, and a unique piece of furniture follows.
“The warmth and patina of the wood start the wheels turning,” he says. The result might be a table, chair, or desk but always a “statement piece” bound to spark a conversation.
Meanwhile, Jessie was teaching art at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica, California, but was edging toward becoming an independent artist.
“Art has been rooted in me forever,” she says. “I’ve been a ‘maker’ ever since earliest childhood.”
With the goal of moving back East, the couple, who are originally from New Jersey, took a road trip to visit a friend in Vermont, found Chester, and met a community that felt right. They married, Michael continued his furniture making, and Jessie became a jeweler, creating pieces based on terrazzo, the 15th-century Italian technique of recycling chipped marble and glass and combining them with silver.
“Like Michael, I’m working with salvaged material, making one-of-a-kind creations,” she says. Their son, Hayden, who launched his own wood-burning business last year at age 10, also dabbles in many facets of design.
“We gave Hayden his own set of business cards for Christmas but left the specifics open-ended,” says Jessie. “He’s an active part of the art community here.”
Finding themselves on this fortuitous design tangent, they simply couldn’t keep it to themselves. In 2009, the Alons opened DaVallia Art Boutique on the Chester village green, representing the work of other artists and artisans, and became missionaries for incorporating art into everyday living.
The venture expanded in 2015 with the opening of DaVallia 39 North Gallery just up the road. There, in an 1830s barn, the Alons gather the works of 65 (plus or minus) artisans in a homelike setting.
“‘Gallery’ is such a loaded word,” says Michael, and one that can be intimidating. “We want art to be approachable,” he says. “We hope to extend people’s comfort level to embrace objects that come from craftsmen’s hands.”
The ceramic garden vessels, iron and bronze candlesticks, braided rugs, 100-year-old wormy chestnut bird sculptures, carved wooden whale wall plaques, frosted blown-glass vases and bowls, wheel-thrown porcelain containers, and mixed-media bird sculptures are intermingled to create the offhanded ease of a home setting.
To achieve that comfortable eclecticism, the couple cite their own yin/yang relationship: He’s a minimalist, she’s into comfy with roots. He leans toward sleek recycled industrial-era re-purposing, she favors texture, multilayering, and, she says, “the warmth that materials bring to a space.” The result is a marriage of functionality and inspiration that is transformative.
There are no stultifying shelves queued with items, no numbing lineups of artists’ works. Their carefully selected antiques and wares are “set up so someone can envision this art in their home,” says Jessie. There is nothing self-conscious about it.
“It just sort of unfolds,” she adds. “To keep it fresh, I’m constantly seeing it from different angles and rearranging.”
Design derring-do overflows to their art-filled garden, created with the help of Chester landscape architect and artist Scott J. Morgan. A perfect spot to host outdoor events, it is arresting, inspirational, and groundbreaking.
“It’s an extension of us,” says Jessie.
DaVallia 39 North Gallery, 39 North Street, Chester, VT, 802-875-8900 and DaVallia Art Boutique, 78 Common Street , Chester, VT, 802-875-1203; thedavallia.com.
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