Author/blogger Grace Bonney is the founder of Design*Sponge, a website dedicated to the creative community that reaches nearly 2 million readers per day. (photo by Christopher Sturman)
Tickets to the event cost $35, which includes a copy of Bonney’s book and a totebag made especially for her book tour. Tickets may be purchased online at www.oblongbooks.com. (Update: The event is sold out!)
Bonney’s website, Design*Sponge, currently reaches up to two million readers per day. Launched in 2004 – and updated three to five times per day – Design*Sponge is all about encouraging the do-it-yourself divas everywhere. Bonney has worked as a contributing editor at House & Garden, Domino and Craft magazines, and she’s passionate about supporting up-and-coming designers, even offering an annual scholarship for new talent. She writes a free business column for creatives, and is the host of a weekly radio show, After the Jump. Bonney lives in the Hudson Valley with her wife Julia and their three pets.
Featured speakers at the Morton Library event include a graphic designer, two restaurateurs, an interior designer and an emerging-business consultant. Paula Grief is a graphic designer whose work spans the fashion and music worlds, and currently runs a ceramic workshop in Hudson.
Sheila Bridges was named “America’s Best Interior Designer” by CNN and Time Magazine. She founded her interior design firm in 1994 and has designed spaces for many prominent people, including former president Bill Clinton’s Harlem offices. She hosted four seasons of Sheila Bridges’ Designer Living for the Fine Living network, and her line of furniture and home furnishings is produced as Sheila Bridges Home, Inc. Her design work is represented in collections of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Art and Design in New York City and most recently the Musée de la Toile de Jouy in Jouy-en-Josas, France.
Elise Kornack and Anna Hieronyimus are co-owners of Take Root, a 12-seat contemporary American restaurant in Brooklyn. The restaurant is run solely by the two, with Chef Kornack in the kitchen and Hieronyimus running the front of house and the wine program. This year and last, Take Root was awarded a Michelin Star. Tracy Kennard is the founder of Kennard & Daughters, a consultancy that provides brand and business strategy to designers in the fashion and lifestyle space. Kennard & Daughters serves a range of clients with a focus on independent, niche and emerging brands. In addition, Kennard and her husband Jamie own and operate Brunette, a wine bar in Kingston.
Bonney’s book, In the Company of Women, profiles more than 100 creative women spanning all age groups, backgrounds, races and industries. Those looking to forge their own career paths will find practical, inspirational advice with interviews detailing the keys to success, which include maintaining meaningful and lasting relationships, staying true to what you believe in and having patience.
