Jun 8, 2007

Cynthia Webb Launches New Home Series

Few images evoke as many strong emotions as that of home – it’s where the heart is, after all. And as American poet Robert Frost has told us, it’s the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Now California artist Cynthia Webb, known for her signature handcrafted in the U.S.A. pewter, has brought her highly personal style to a new Home series that recreates the charm of houses of another era, when generations lived together under the same roof and friends were always welcome to stop by. The homes – the series includes nine individual designs – come in three sizes and an entire collection is enough to create a village of cottages on a tabletop or mantel.

“My inspiration was Miller Park in Chautauqua, New York,” she explains, a reference to the charming community that has hosted a series of educational and entertainment programs since 1874. “My family would go there in the summers to hear the lectures and the music and I remember the little cottages surrounded by trees with lots of kids playing in the park. Each tiny house was different, they had beautiful porches for visiting and each one seemed to reflect the personality of its owner.”

Webb’s pewter cottages begin as sketches, which are then carved, signed and titled in jeweler’s wax before being cast and a mold created so that duplicates of the original can then be hand-finished, oxidized and polished. The back of each piece features a relevant quote, such as “Home is where we learn our stories and the traditions that shape us.”

In keeping with Webb’s desire to give back to the community, a charitable donation to organizations fighting homelessness will be made for each piece sold in the “Cottage” series. Other Webb designs now support non-profit organizations working with seniors in need, child abuse victims, breast cancer patients and children with autism.

Cynthia Webb Designs opened its doors in San Diego in 1992. For more than a decade, her work has been showcased in many Niche Top 100 galleries, prominent mail-order catalogs, museum and independent gift shops such as the Washington National Cathedral and at handcrafted wholesale gift shows, including The Buyers Market of American Craft in Philadelphia, the handmade divisions of the New York International Gift Fair and Atlanta AmericasMart as well as the new ACRE – American Craft Retailers Expo in Las Vegas.