Some of the turned objects are bona fide works of art. Vogel’s work is represented by galleries in New York and East Hampton, and he does commissions. One of his larger pieces is on display at the club room of the Grand Hyatt Hotel located at Grand Central Station. A woman from Rochester recently visited his workspace to commission a wooden ball after reading about his work in American Craft Magazine. Blackcreek is run on inspiration, intuition, and ingenuity — as well as sweat and perseverance. The oil, for example, was inspired by a beekeeping class Vogel took in Cottekill, and the “smalls” evolved as a way to utilize scrap wood.
Kathy Nealis and Gabe Cicale of Monkey Joe's. (Photo by Nancy Donskoj)
Their products, which blur the line between art and craft, function and aesthetics — some of Vogel’s carved utensils are so lovely you want to find a function for them, just so you can incorporate them into your kitchen — are clearly striking a chord among boutique stores whose selection of handmade products are carefully “curated,” as Zaneto puts it.
In contrast to America’s throwaway society, “our philosophy is that you buy something you love and have it for generations,” she said. The prices are high — the small cutting boards cost from $100 to $300 and the turnings run from $600 to $3,000 — but reflect the fact that each item is hand-crafted and meant to last, she added. “We want to establish longevity as a value.”
Originally from New Mexico, Vogel studied architecture at the University of Oregon before moving toNew York City in 1995, where he and a partner did interior architectural design and contracting work before founding BDDW, an heirloom furniture business with a shop on theLower East Side. When they outgrew their workshop in Brooklyn, they moved in 2005 to a larger manufacturing facility in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Soon Vogel left the company to go out on his own.
His pieces, clustered on shelves, tables, benches, and tree stumps in his 1,800-square-foot work space, are crafted mostly from wood obtained in the area, including downed trees on the property the couple owns in Esopus. They are eye-catching — pure shapes, in subtle shades of beige and brown ranging from ivory to espresso. There are hollowed-out cylinders, crock-like containers, elegant, amphora-like vases with straight necks, vases with a pinched center, resembling an abstracted female figure, and bowls with a curvy, rough-cut edge. Half a dozen lidded urns are arrayed on the concrete floor, suggesting a mysterious, silent drum circle.
It was the availability of industrial space — they moved into their current location in October 2011 — that brought the couple to Kingston. Zaneto said she expected to be hiring people later in the year, given the boom in oil and cutting-board sales. In the meantime, “we’re bringing people to Kingston.” Their visitors have included the executives of a Japanese company, who traveled up from New York City with a translator.
“We’re a very methodical company and are putting down our foundation in Kingston,” Zaneto said. Blackcreek is also a company that gives back: a certain portion of sales are donated to charity, which so far have included Smile Train (which funds surgery for cleft palates), Breath of Hope (which funds people suffering from congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a genetic disorder), and Animal Kind (an animal shelter in Hudson).
Monkey Joe’s: Roasting in Midtown
A fixture of the Broadway corridor in Midtown for 12 years, Monkey Joe Coffee Roasting Company is more than just a place to pick up that morning cup in a charming setting from the ragtime era. Owners Gabe Cicale and Kathy Nealis (who are married to each other) are coffee aficionados, akin to boutique vintners in their impassioned dedication to the bean (which is really a seed, as Nealis demonstrates by plucking a red cherry off one of the store’s three live coffee plants). Indeed, they believe coffee has gotten a bad rap, most recently in the fixation on dark-roast brews, which Cicale said can ruin the flavor and is often designed to disguise a mediocre coffee.
Contradicting its workaday associations, coffee is an incredibly complex beverage. It has 850 flavor elements — twice the number found in wine — and can’t be replicated in the lab, he said.
