Don’t touch

What is it: “Thorny Bowl.” Bronze bowl with a base of porcupine quills. 5 in. wide, 3 in. tall. Price: $395.

Who makes it: Joy Raskin, Concord, New Hampshire. “I’m fascinated by porcupines,” says Raskin, “and their quills are quite challenging. Making the porcupine bowl was a different step for me. The longer quills add drama, which is what I was going for.”

Why we love it: The play between the lustrous, new-penny glow of the copper bowl and the organic wreath of spikes it’s nestled in. Use it to present something with the same unexpected dichotomy, like cayenne chocolates or fleur de sel caramels.

Metro Pendant. Photo courtesy of Vermont Modern

Hang it up

What is it: Metro pendant. Adjustable from 37.5 to 42.4 in. long. Available in several finishes. Price: $1,050.

Who makes it: Vermont Modern, Castleton, Vermont. “It delivers a design impact that doesn’t overpower a space,” says Sean Ruck of Hubbardton Forge, the company behind the VM lighting line. “Depending on how the tubes of the pendant are adjusted, it’s possible to have a very visually intriguing piece that still allows for open lines of sight within a space.”

Why we love it: The chic, urban styling and mass-transit-map inspiration created in the land of green mountains and covered bridges. The ability to change up the look with a twist here, a turn there, or a different bulb style assuages our design commitment issues.

Schon DSGN Pens. Photo by John Polak

Write tastefully

What is it: Schon DSGN Pens, Classic Collection. 4 in. long when closed, 5.75 in. long with cap posted on the back. Price: $58–$178.

Who makes it: Ian Schon of Schon DSGN, Boston, Massachusetts. “Materials like leather wear in, rather than out,” says Schon. “I think the raw metals used in these pens have a similar effect of wearing in, making them reflect the amount of use and care that one would have for an object that travels with you all the time.”

Why we love it: A sleek, modern addition to our bordering-on-obsessive collection of beautiful writing supplies. The varying weights of the metals—from 1 oz. for aluminum to 3.3 oz. for bronze—create different writing experiences for the user.

Joy Raskin – Silversmith
Concord, New Hampshire
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Vermont Modern – Lighting
Castleton, Vermont
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Schon DSGN – Pen Makers
Boston, Massachusetts
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Top Image: Thorny Bowl by Joy Raskin | Photo by John Polak

The post Take It Home: Sleek, Spiny, Shiny appeared first on Take Magazine.

 “You wanna talk dying trades? I was 20 years old, and I learned to barber from guys in their 70s. The things I learned. . .the people I met. . .”

This article originally appeared in our November 2015 print issue. 

These are the things you can learn while you wait to get a shave and a haircut at Lucky’s Barbershop and Shave Parlor in Concord, New Hampshire: Particles pulled toward a black hole compress and heat to more than 10 million degrees. There are more than 750,000 words in the Bible, and a monk can spend years making one copy. The car on the cover of Hot Rod magazine in July 1961 was the same car that was on the cover of the Beach Boys record Little Deuce Coupe.

You’ll pick up nifty minutiae like this from the hundreds of antique and kitschy books that line the huge, dark wood bookshelf in the back of the barbershop’s bright, retro-chic waiting area. You’ll have written your name on the dry-erase board, so now you’re waiting for your name to be called. You’re totally aware that it could be a long wait—maybe 45 minutes—but you’ll have those books. Plus there’s a chance you’ll fall into conversation with the person sitting next to you. If you don’t know him, you probably know someone he knows.

Good morning! We’re back at it today from 7-12.

A photo posted by Luckys Barbershop&Shave Parlor (@luckysbarbershop) on Nov 26, 2016 at 3:27am PST

You’ll hear old-school punk (The Replacements, Mission of Burma) and chill pop electronica (Lana Del Rey). At some point, one of the easygoing, soft-spoken guys with elaborately tattooed arms and a comb in his back pocket will look at the board, walk into the room, and call your name. He’ll extend his hand for a shake and lead you to one of the nearly century-old barber chairs; drape you with a cape; ask, “Whatcha need?”; and get to work.

“There’s a new resurgence of people who want their money to go a long way, and that’s brought notice to old-school things that would’ve gone away,” muses Josh Craggy, who opened Lucky’s in 2008 across from a florist who’s been there 100 years, on a quiet road a few blocks from Concord’s main street. “You wanna talk dying trades? I was 20 years old, and I learned to barber from guys in their 70s. The things I learned. . .the people I met. . .In the past almost-eight years since I opened, I could tell you thousands of stories. When you think about how many people sat in those chairs. And the chairs are 80 to 90 years old. If chairs could talk. . .”

Barbershops and salons hold a very significant place in American culture. Historically, barbershops in black communities have served as meeting spaces and centers of social life, much like churches, especially during the Great Migration. In 2013 Vassar professor Quincy T. Mills published Cutting Along the Color Line, a book that chronicles black barbershops from before the American Civil War—when black men had to serve white men exclusively—to their contemporary impact as both democratic social spaces and business opportunities in small communities. And who can forget the 2002 movie Barbershop with Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer, a poignant cultural commentary in its own right? There’s similar cultural heft to American salons, particularly in the South, where they have been known to provide therapeutic value and emotional support networks. (See Steel Magnolias.)

Craggy, a Concord native, has slick black hair that evokes the greasers of the 1950s and a tattoo on his neck of a five-card spread—four aces and a card that says “Lucky.” Inked letters on his knuckles spell out “stay” on one hand and “true” on the other. He modeled Lucky’s on an entirely different version of the institution: the grand Victorian-era barbershops of the late 1800s, which were often located in hotels. The chairs, he pointed out, are from the 1920s, a Craigslist score. The shop’s color scheme—yellow, sandstone, creams, and red—is a nod to the warm, earthy palate of the Midwest of that era. Alabaster-white wood frames around the mirrors hark back to the way barbershops signified cleanliness. Gorgeous sinks are set in countertops at each station, most of which are strewn with scissors, razors, old-timey bottles of Bay Rum, tins of powder, and shiny steel shaving cream dispensers.

“If a customer is sitting in a chair, you have to ask: What’s comfortable and relaxing? You have to take that into account,” he says of the way he designed the space. “I want customers to come in and hang out.”

And they do. Haircuts, after all, are a great equalizer—there’s no judgment or hierarchy in the business. On a Wednesday in July, customers include men in Tevas, Converse, hiking boots, and wing tips. There is a priest (a regular), a fireman, a 19-year-old studying finance at a nearby college, and a waiter, among others. Around 3:00 p.m., Craggy looks at the board and calls, “Isabella.” A 10-year-old with long brown locks comes running to him. “You ready to rock and roll?” he asks as he gives her a high five. Isabella is accompanied by her grandmother, Deb, whose son, Isabella’s father, went to school with Craggy; Craggy was his best man.

“People come here, hang out. Everyone comes to Lucky’s,” Deb tells me. “Since this started, it’s been Josh’s heart and soul. It’s a small town, so people come in with their whole family. Lots of times everyone talks to each other. Everyone knows each other. All it needs is a couple of benches out front.”

A photo posted by Luckys Barbershop&Shave Parlor (@luckysbarbershop) on Jan 29, 2017 at 5:18pm PST

Ask Craggy how he got into barbering, and he’ll tell you a story seemingly composed for a Norman Rockwell illustration. It goes like this: His dad was never much of a patient man. He had an old clipper that rattled a lot. As Craggy recalls, he’d “hose the thing down with WD-40 to get it to purr.” One day when Craggy was 12, his dad took off his shirt, pulled a towel around his shoulders, and commanded his son to “cut!”

“He had super-short hair, and this woolly white hair just fell to my feet. I was like, ‘Wow. I love this,’” Craggy reminisces. “Pretty soon I was calling everyone I knew and offering to cut their hair.” It was nothing more than a hobby as he coasted through his teenage years, playing in punk bands and driving across the country. In the late 1990s, when he lived with some friends in a creaky Victorian across the street from where the shop sits, he set up a space and provided services. It never occurred to him to make a career of it.

“My buddy said, ‘Don’t you gotta be an older guy for that?’ And I thought: those older guys musta been younger guys at some point,” he says. “And a lot of guys who started cutting hair in the 1950s were starting to pass away.” Once he realized it was nothing short of a calling, Craggy went out to find training—an ordeal that still exasperates him. Since the late 1970s, there hadn’t been a barber school in New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine. Instead of fulfilling the 1,500 hours of school required by law to get a license, he’d have to apprentice for 3,000 hours or move out of the state. His pipe dream ended quickly. Instead, he got a job in a local coffee shop. But he kept seeing a commercial about a barbering program that had just launched in a cosmetology school in Manchester, New Hampshire.

“I went to check it out, and there was a super-heavy, Tina Turner–like white Italian woman, and she was like, ‘You gonna be the next generation of barbers. You got that?’” he recounts, impersonating her no-nonsense tone and shrill accent. He completed his schooling there, passed the boards, and got a job with a pair of Korean War vets back in his hometown. Under their tutelage, he not only honed his skill; he became an accidental sociologist of sorts.

“If you wanna start a fight, talk about The Beatles,” Craggy notes, explaining that the Fab Four were terrible for the barber industry. “In the early 1960s, people wanted to grow their hair out. When I got into it, people were wearing their hair shorter. There were a couple mullets still standing strong, and a lotta bowl cuts.” But in the grand scheme of things, those quibbles represent changes in attitude, not revolutions.

“Styles come and go. Sure, we have electricity now, but implements in this business are all the same,” he says, picking up a simple straight-edge razor and examining it like a jeweler inspects a diamond. “It’s still a little piece of history. By my watch, no robot will replace me. Even with all the technology in the world, you can’t imitate this.”

Remarks like that aren’t just an expression of pride in his work. If he had his way, Craggy wouldn’t even use electricity. He’s a member of what you might call the holdout culture—adhering to a retro lifestyle not just as a fashion statement or a trend validated by the New York Times’s Sunday Styles section, but as an unassailable philosophy rooted in simplicity and sincerity. He doesn’t have a computer, and he doesn’t like to use them either (“My brain is like a gerbil when there’s too much information.”). He has a smartphone, but he doesn’t use it to its full capacity (“You buy apps?”). And he gets noticeably upset when social media comes up in discussion (“The social media world is nothing I belong to.”). But social media also astounds him: he marvels that a company in Orange County, California, that makes vintage-style pomade found the shop’s Instagram account and sent free product samples.

What it ultimately boils down to for Craggy is community—a facet of life that was fundamental decades ago, but a goal to be worked toward today. Community, in the world of Lucky’s, isn’t just who’s playing at the local club. It’s about what happened in living rooms, classrooms, and backyards in the past. Craggy has photos of the local Little League teams Lucky’s sponsors on the wall by the cash register. He played baseball in that same field when he was a kid. He wanted to hit a homer behind the sign in the background of the photos.

His infatuation for community is driven by his deep-seated pride in his hometown. Get him talking and he sounds like a local historian, chronicling how the people who revolutionized the railroad followed the Merrimack River, and going as far back as when the King of England’s constituents would come to Concord to cut the region’s giant pine trees to make masts for ships. The granite from quarries five minutes from the shop was used to build monuments to the Founding Fathers in Washington, DC. New Hampshire has the longest continuously operating legislature in the United States. The iconic Concord Coach was made down the street and shipped around the world. And so on.

It’s all nifty minutiae Craggy’s picked up from chatting with people.

“If you take the haircuts out of a barbershop, what you have is people getting together to bounce ideas off each other and share common sentiments. It’s a congregation. You can take an airplane from any point to any other. You can e-mail someone you might not ever meet. People love tools that connect us,” he says, picking up his smartphone. “Life, in some way, gets a little more interesting with everything at your fingertips. But does it really matter if you can’t see people’s faces?”

Lucky’s Barbershop and Shave Parlor – Josh Craggy, proprietor
Concord, New Hampshire
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All photographs by Natasha Moustache Photography

The post Tattoo and a Haircut appeared first on Take Magazine.

Our hearts sank, listening to Trump’s inaugural speech. It was dark and bleak, not-so-subtly dissing Obama as he spoke of the current “carnage” in our country, while offering nothing remotely inspirational or unifying in return. But the massive outpouring of strength and hope across the world, and our little corner of it, has truly bolstered us. Montpelier, Vermont? Your march doubled the population of your entire city! Portsmouth, New Hampshire held two rallies, and the state hosted four more: Concord, Keene, Francestown, and Wilton. Thousands came together in front of the Rhode Island statehouse—they will not. be. silenced—and PVD’s Mayor Jorge O. Elorza took his talents and constituents to DC itself. There aren’t too many people out there tougher than Mainers; they gathered up and down the rocky coast in powerful numbers. A plentitude of pussy hats were seen across Connecticut, from Hartford to Stamford. In addition, 80 buses packed with Nutmeggers headed down to the nation’s capital to be heard. New England had at least 200,000 people get out for Women’s Marches in our big cities alone. Bravo!

Boston Women’s March, 10:30am | Photo by Henry Amistadi

What a sight—what an inspiring day! We all needed that. Take made the trip to Boston to witness and capture some of our most creative voices, which we’ll bring to you shortly. The enormity of this march can not be understated; it’s reaffirmed our commitment to featuring and amplifying, our cultural response to the political climate we now find ourselves in.

Optimism is billowing, strength is gathering, the artists are coming. . .and we’re listening.

Time to get to work.

Boston Women’s March | Photo by Henry Amistadi

All images by Henry Amistadi

The post #TakeAction New England Numbers appeared first on Take Magazine.

Nine years ago, Desi Van Til and Sean Mewshaw, the husband-and-wife duo behind Rusticator Pictures, sold all their stuff, hopped in a car, and drove from Los Angles, California to Portland, Maine to make what they thought would be a small indie film. After over seven years of production, they wound up with a fully fledged, critically acclaimed film featuring big movie stars, an expanded storyline, and a new place to call their creative home.

“In the course of living in Maine and putting the film together, we fell in love with being here,” says Van Til, writer of Tumbledown. “When we left LA, all of our friends would say, ‘You’re coming right back right? You’re gonna go make this movie then come back right?’ We didn’t know. We just sold our stuff, packed up our car, and left.”

Sean Mewshaw on the set of Tumbledown |Photo courtesy Huffington Post

Tumbledown, written by  Van Til and directed by Mewshaw, is a romantic…comedy? Drama? It’s hard to tell when the trailer shows the main character, Hannah, played by Rebecca Hall, intensely grieving over the death of her iconic musician husband while the “brash New York writer” Andrew, played by Jason Sudeikis, blythely cracks jokes as an attempt to endear Hannah to him and win permission to write about her deceased husband. Either way, the film was released earlier this year to much critical acclaim, specifically about the picture’s thoughtful performances and precise sense of place, as pointed out by Shipra Harbola Gupta on Indiewire: “Lensed by Seamus Tierney, the film makes wonderful use of the stunning Maine scenery, and the influence of nature is felt in every frame.”

The story takes place in rural Maine, based on Farmington (where Van Til grew up). Originally, the couple wanted to shoot the whole film in Maine, but the financiers insisted upon shooting in a place with better financial incentives. The filmmakers often receive feedback about how well the film captures Maine’s “Maine-ness,” which is an ironic testament to their expert filmmaking, since most principal shooting was done in Concord, Massachusetts. (Note: The Indiewire reviewer cited above is feasibly correct with their compliment, since some scenes, particularly the opening sequence and some establishing shots, were done in Maine.)

Though the filmmakers were able to utilize the more deceptive aspects of their medium, they wouldn’t dream of offering audiences a disingenuous version of the place they love and call home. In fact, Van Til and Mewshaw feel that shooting outside of Maine made them acutely aware of the difference between the people and landscapes in front of them versus the people and landscapes at home. As Mewshaw explains, “There’s a very specific ethos to every tiny sliver of this region.”

Desi van Til and Sean Mewshaw at Princeton University | Photo courtesy the artists

Desi Van Til and Sean Mewshaw are artists living in Portland, Maine. Their new film Tumbledown is available for purchase or stream via these platforms. For more updates about the film, follow Tumbledown on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 

Top photo still from Tumbledown (2015)

The post Hollywood Comes to Maine…Sort of appeared first on Take Magazine.

What’s out there for a frustrated musician who’s mastered their guitar, bass, piano, violin, or xylophone and wants to do a bit more? According to David Kontak, the next step after mastery involves imagination and augmentation. Kontak builds and plays unique experimental instruments, reimagining, with gesture, light, and sound, what an instrument can look and sound like.

“This string assembly is played by a series of battery-powered glowing fans. When the structure is
twisted, the fans strike various points on the instrument. This creates a large variety of sounds.” | Photo courtesy the artist

Kontak is a rare combination of occupational therapist (OT), musician, and builder. Though most of his time as an OT is spent building adaptive equipment for for people with limited motor functions and improving wheelchair accessibility, Kontak also utilized his skills as a musician. He modifies instruments in a non-permanent way, making them more accessible to folks with a range of disabilities, “You can simplify an electronic keyboard just by attaching things to it,” says Kontak. “People who cannot isolate a finger to tap a particular note can have keys extended so they can pick that note and play it accurately within an ensemble.”

It was 20 years ago when Kontak started modifying instruments for himself, a fascination that would lead to the creation of his own signature instruments, “I got to the point where I wanted to make different sounds, sounds that weren’t available through many musical instruments,” he says. “So I started a process of building instruments that make very unusual sounds.” It’s not uncommon for Kontak to build six, eight, or even ten versions of an instrument before he’s ready to, as he puts it, “develop a repertoire for them. Songs is the wrong word,” he explains. “They’re more compositions that exploit the unique characteristics of those instruments.”

Kontak makes all kinds of instruments that do all sorts of things. Peruse his catalog of homemade musical tools and you’ll find some familiar forms, and other bulky, strange objects. Consider the noise made by a plastic percussion instrument with slits on the top, that Kontak runs water over and strikes. Imagine the tone of a “jellyfish-stringed” instrument, with strings that are slack instead of ridged, never fully achieving a fixed tuning. Perhaps the most surprisingly hypnotic sound comes not from one of Kotak’s modified slinkies, but from four of the instruments played together in his ensemble.

And yet, the sound of the instruments is not the whole story. For Kontak, the look of the instruments and the gestures the player makes are almost as important as the sound emanating from the object. Like a complex language, the player’s movement conveys additional layers of meaning. It’s through this visual aspect of his instruments that Kontak gets to play with audience expectations, offering viewers a unique and truly musical experience, “If I walk up on stage with an instrument that looks almost like a piece of exercise equipment,” says Kontak, “people are not going to expect it to sound like a classical piece. They’re going to be more naturally open-minded. It’s so important to have a visual or motion component to performances. I don’t want to just sit behind something and tinker. There’s a connection to, not really dance per se, but there’s movement that creates sound, gesture that creates sound. I think that makes for an interesting performance of experimental music.”

David Kontak is a teacher, musician, builder, and occupational therapist living in Concord, New Hampshire. 

Top photo “This guitar has a specifically tuned section of strings behind the bridge. When strummed, it excites overtones on the ‘normal’ side of the guitar.” | Photo courtesy the artist

The post David Kontak and His Experimental Instruments appeared first on Take Magazine.