John's Journal

We asked five different interior designers to style their autumn tables using our Fall tabletop collection and the result was five very different, and very beautiful tablescapes. 1. Eddie Ross at Maximalist Studios @eddieross    @maximaliststudios Eddie’s company Maximalist Studios combines 9,000 square feet of space into three studios and a prop house, where they help clients like Anthropologie, Lilly Pulitzer, and York Wallcoverings create fresh content for their channels. Teams can rent space and props or engage Eddie and his team to help execute their vision. Eddie is also a style editor for House Beautiful and Better Homes & Gardens.  Tell us about your inspiration for this tablescape. I created this table at our 1923 house on Philadelphia’s Main Line. I wanted it to be a casual, bohemian table using natural elements and traditional touches, like my favorite set of brown and white spongeware plates. I was going for a more subtle Thanksgiving vibe, so I kept it more to the season of fall. I’m in love with those lavender and eggplant tones in the placemat, napkin and tablecloth. The mercury glass picks up the silver of John's napkin rings and complements my bamboo flatware. To give the table a natural, bohemian look, I kept the floral arrangements to simple elements clipped from my backyard. The begonias add a fresh green look and pick up that dark purple in the tablecloth as well as the lighter tones of the fall hydrangeas.  2. Elly P. Cooper of Elly Poston Interiors @ellyposton  Elly Poston Interiors is a full-service interior design firm based in Richmond, Virginia with current projects on both coasts. Since opening her firm in 2014, Elly Poston Cooper has been recognized for her fresh take on design, pairing her innately Southern aesthetic with a modern sensibility to create homes that are both beautiful and functional. She credits her eye for designing well-layered and edited interiors to Meg Braff and Ashley Whittaker, with whom she trained prior to her time working as the Decorating Editor at Southern Living. Inspired by her Charleston roots and world travels, Elly’s projects are thoughtful, livable reflections of the clients who call the spaces home.  Tell us about your inspiration for this tablescape. As much as I have missed travel the past few seasons, Fall in Virginia is simply divine and truly an inspiration on its own. Thank goodness my husband is a clever chef and like so many, we have really leaned into entertaining within the comforts of our own home. For me, there's something very cathartic about setting a table. It's like creating a room for a client, but without nearly as much pressure. The new linen collection from John Robshaw made it a delight to create a warm and elegant evening for friends. With the simple addition of cozy throws, a roaring fire,  and s'mores - you've got the perfect evening under the stars! 3. Shawn Bridges & Juliet Feehan of Blackthorn Interiors @blackthorninteriors Blackthorn Interiors founded by Designers Juliet Feehan and Shawn Brydges and based in Upstate New York and Manhattan. Fueled by doing projects we love and loving what we do. Tell us about your inspiration for this tablescape. Dutch Still life and Maine Lobster Shacks.  4. Ariel Okin at Ariel Okin Interiors @arielokin  Ariel Okin Interiors is a New York based, full-service interior design firm specializing in luxury residential, commercial, and hospitality projects across the country.  Ariel’s signature style can be interpreted as “traditional with a twist” – warm, livable and elegant spaces, with an edited, contemporary and practical approach. A deft use of color, emphasis on clean lines, and mix of bespoke and antique items are hallmarks of her aesthetic, yet no two projects are alike; Ariel believes every home should reflect its owner.  Ariel established her firm in 2016, and has since been featured and profiled in Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Domino, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, House & Garden, and New York Magazine, among others. In 2021, she was named a House & Garden Gold List Designer. Tell us about your inspiration for this tablescape. Autumn Colors. 5. Brittany Bromley @bittybromley  Brittany Bromley Interiors is a luxury, full-service, interior design firm with offices in New York and Palm Beach. With a devotion to classic proportions and scale, Brittany’s layered and collected aesthetic reflects her love of antiques, pattern and color. Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Veranda, House Beautiful, Luxe Magazine, and Cottage & Garden.
 Tell us about your inspiration for this tablescape. I love a layered, eclectic vibe for my tablescapes, so I mixed JR’s newest table linens in hand blocked batiks with my favorite Casa Gusto Caprichoso plates, Mottahedah’s Vista Alegre salad plates, Aubergine Morocan glasses, and rattan and bamboo. 6. Whitney McGregor @whitneymcgregor Whitney McGregor Designs is a South Carolina based design firm currently working on projects all over the East Coast and Midwest. Whitney McGregor has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Southern Living, Country Living and housebeautiful.com.
 Tell us about your inspiration for this tablescape. John Robshaw linens were the inspiration that drove the rest of the scheme. Love the color and the scale of the pattern. It made it so easy to build from.

My wife Rachel is friends with this great couple up in Ipswich, Massachusetts who are big collectors of textiles and Asian antiques. Tom Arsenault and Paul Morse met in the blizzard of 1977 in Boston and started a lifelong relationship, as well as an antiques business. They are also good friends with designer Michael Trapp (who I profiled earlier last year) and served as the inspiration for his imaginative style. Their stories of their travels throughout Tibet, Nepal, and all over southeast Asia are only second to the adventurous style in their home, which was mainly built in the 1600’s (with an addition built in 1808). Tom is also a lauded artist. Rachel took some lovely photos on our last visit, and we thought it would be nice to share a bit about them with you. Here's my conversation with Tom. The Red Room. Tom’s painting entitled Albino Deer. Quilt is Indian.   Tell us a bit about yourself. What kind of house did you grow up in? I grew up in a Victorian house in Newburyport, Massachusetts, known for its many antique and elegant Federal Period homes built with Clipper ship trade money. It’s all very ‘hoity toity’ now, but when I was growing up it was a bit shabby and run down. I remember exploring empty houses and playing in my neighbor’s barn full off old family possessions. My mother was an artist and teacher. She was constantly repainting rooms and rearranging the furniture. This is probably where my mania come from. More of The Red Room. Tom and Paul hang art and tapestries on doors out of necessity as they’ve run out of wall space. American Tiger Maple chest of drawers from the 1820’s. How much has evolved since you began decorating? Paul and I used to go to Asia every winter and bring containers of antiques here. I would have to display everything in our house and barn. Sometimes in a large tent. Things were very ‘chock-a-block’. I pride myself on fitting lots of things in small spaces. Layering is a great skill of mine. We would have great open houses and sell lots of stuff. Those days are since past, but I still sell antiques here. So things by necessity get moved around. Robbie, Tom and Paul’s dog, enjoying himself in the main living room, which was called ‘the keeping room’ in the 1600’s and 1700’s - where people would sit and eat. Hunsinger rocker. Antique ikat on ceiling. Do you alternate artwork? My artwork is probably what moves around the most here. I like to hang recently completed pieces to see how I feel about them. Pieces get sold and go out for exhibition. I think it’s good to move things about. It can re-energize a room and make you see things differently. Tom’s abstract and collage paintings in a guest bedroom. The center diptych is comprised of items found in Tom’s parents house. Sleigh bed from Michael Trapp. Quilt is American, rug is Persian.   Do you have any advice for beginning a personal textile / art collection? My advice for would-be textile collectors is to find something that makes you happy. Do your research. Go to shows to see how things feel in person and museums to see great pieces. The internet makes everything so much easier to study. I enjoy finding something I’ve not seen before and trying to figure out what it is. So much art, they use one of the guest bathrooms as a gallery of sorts. Tom collects sculptures of hands and paintings of hands. His collection is on a 17th century Tibetan storage box. Tom’s painting he made the year of the tsunami in 2004. Collection of seashells on an altar table from Java. Tom’s painting in the background. Chest is from Tibet, 18th century.   Any stories behind specific pieces, like the chandelier over the dining table? My “chandelier“ over my dining table is made of Nepali bronze temple lamps 19th century. Hung with chains and various lamp prism crystals I have collected. This part of the house is probably very early 18th century with ceilings so low you can touch them . Necessity is the mother of invention. Also speaks to my obsession with making collections. The house is full of them. Chandelier of Nepali temple lamps. Hand woven silk tablecloth from Assam, India. Tell us about where you find your textiles. Almost anywhere. Embroideries, weaving, ikats and tie dyes from Central Asia, Middle East, Africa, India, Southeast and East Asia, Europe.. I am attracted to color and design. I sell and sometimes collect antique textiles. Main bedroom. As Tom says, ‘Everything looks good in lavender.” Suzani on the bed is from an Istanbul trip when shopping with Michael Trapp. Ritual Cabinet from Tibet. The four masks are from Bhutan and represent a couple when married and then in old age.   What advice would they give a traveler who’s never gone anywhere except Europe and the Americas? My advice for traveling is familiar: Get off the beaten path. This takes time, I know and is harder to do than when I started going to Asia. I count myself so fortunate to have traveled to places like Tibet, Laos, Cambodia and Burma when they first opened up to tourists. We would spend two or three months in Asia every winter. At least a few weeks or more shopping in Kathmandu shopping. Also a great way to meet people and get a different understanding of a culture. Bronze vases from Nepal with dried flowers in the mud room.   If there was a fire and you could grab just one item, what would you grab? If there was a fire here I think I would just grab my little dog and run. Mudroom with collection of faux Greek pottery.   If you could go anywhere (or any time period) where would it be? Like everyone I think, I would probably choose to return to my youth and be able to act with all the wisdom I’ve acquired. Hah! Embroidered sash from India on door, and Persian embroidery on the left. Exterior of house with Tibetan prayer flags. You can find Tom on Instagram at @tomarsenault1. Tom sells directly, and can be contacted at arsenault310@gmail.com. He is also a seller at The York Antiques Gallery in York, Maine, and he sells textiles & jewelry at the Antique Textiles Vintage Fashion Show. Some of his paintings are viewable at Michael Trapp’s West Cornwall, Connecticut store. Tom Arsenault (left) and Paul Morse in Bali. Photo by Michael Trapp. SHOP VINTAGE All photos by Rachel Robshaw.

I had heard about “Jon from Woodstock” for many moons. He was a mythical figure who would descend on our sample sale and buy whatever crazy things I had made, from fabric covered bicycle rickshaws to huge walls of patched fabric. When we had something out of the ordinary, his name was muttered immediately, and I found out he was building a Shangri La Barn House / Rock & Roll compose-a-record-in-seclusion sanctuary in Woodstock. How did you find out about John Robshaw Textiles? Summertime, 2012, I was living in the Garment District. Walking home I turned onto 29th Street and a long line of good looking, stylish people stretched down the block. I asked someone what was going on, and got in line when told it was a sample sale.  I was headed in my VW Camper to Bonnaroo the next day. I bought a few tarps John had used while print making. They had the perfect vibe. I'm sitting on one of those Robshaw Tarps on the beach writing this right now. Radiohead played a great set, but 8 years later that’s only a memory. What’s your favorite thing about John’s fabrics? His signature fabrics seem to have their own language. John’s fabrics are a fail-safe for me. From curtains to coasters, every property is entirely distinct from the next, but each is full-on Robshaw.   How did you come to work on this project? This house started as a trade. A worker who helped on another house with me wanted a chain link fence for his hunting dogs. He was a metal scrapper and had paper on an old dairy barn, meaning he could take the barn’s contents. The roof on the barn was compromised and the owner didn’t want to pay to fix it or continue to pay insurance for it, so he gave the man the barn, and he traded it to me for the fence. Voilà. The barn frame is hand-hewn hemlock and over 150 years old. We labeled the posts and beams, disassembled the barn and moved it from Gilboa, NY, which is about 30 miles from Woodstock. The barn sat stickered in piles under tarps for 7 years while I looked for the right land to build... and financing.  Have you hit any bumps along the way? It’s been a long road. One of the weirdest things that happened was when we were fixing a ceiling at another house in Zena, Woodstock. We opened the ceiling and discovered the rafters were old tree limbs, and one was completely COVERED with black ants. The rafter was loose, so I thought I could pull the whole thing out to throw outside. I couldn’t free the rafter but ants started to pour down like water; It was an 8 foot ant stream that hit the floor with an expanding aqueous ant puddle. It all swept-up in less than 30 minutes but it was quite a horror.      What would you say you’re most proud of about your home? I’m proud that all 3 Woodstock homes of mine were created from tear-down buildings and reclaimed and discarded materials; I’m proud of the salvaged stained glass and the visual details in the old wood. For instance, I pulled 200 year old barn siding that had been eaten through by insects leaving 1/2 inch holes randomly scattered. It looks like cartoon buckshot. I used it for the paneling in the pool cabana‘s kitchen and backlit the wood; At night, it’s a star-wall.   Any advice for someone looking to do what you’re doing? Consider a kit house.