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| 458 Main St. Melrose, MA, 02176 | home / gallery about events news / awards directions | |
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By
Dan Mac Alpine / Melrose@Cnc.Com
"Nathan loves Mary." Who's Nathan? Who's Mary? Who cares? Apparently many of the most hip Melrosians. The "Nathan Loves Mary" saying is one of 18 Melrose artist, and reluctantly budding business woman, Julie Kramer, silk screens onto sleeveless T-shirts. Since Kramer has had her T-shirts pinned to the brick wall at Starbucks, those who see clothing as personal, political and social statement have been flocking to buy them. The fashion conscious can buy them at Kramer's Web site and at the Hourglass gift gallery on Main Street. Customers select the T-shirt that best represents their particular personality/life situation. "I think it's the poetry. It hits everyone's life. I've sold them like gangbusters in here. I've sold so many different sayings for different reasons. For the marathon, we recently took an order for 'absolute grace and strength,'" said Lorrie DiCesare, owner of the Hourglass. Kramer's customers can choose any color they wish, as long as it's white or black, and can select from any of the 18 sayings. Other sayings include: "He seemed like such a nice guy."; "He was cute ... but shifty."; "Low Class Suburbanite Artist."; "She dumped him in her usual subtle fashion."; and - the most popular - "With absolute grace and strength." The sayings act as psycho-social haiku. Seemingly simple sayings and phrases, they nonetheless quickly hook the right people and send them off on: A. A search for the meaning of life; or B. A short, but worthwhile, giggle fit. The T-shirts are unexpected darts, psychological bomblets, that catch the reader off balance - a quick jab to the ribs, the pebble dropped in a placid pond, sending small waves great distances. Some are slyly sexual - "She slowly moved her fingers down the stem of the glass." - or maybe not. Maybe it's just the reader seeing something that isn't there. One never quite knows. And that's part of the fun. "I don't like to tell people what they mean," said Kramer. "I've been to hear writers talk about their work and they explain too much and ruin it. If I tell people what the words mean to me, it's no longer their experience." Kramer will say a breakup spawned the statements. First, she wrote them down in her sketch journals she keeps for paintings. Then some made it on to the walls and window moldings in her apartment. Then, "Nathan loves Mary," made it onto one of her T-shirts just over a year ago. The response was almost instantaneous. The saying drew friends and strangers alike. Little did Kramer know she had birthed a small, but burgeoning enterprise. The side business has steady Web sales, and Kramer's work is also featured at several retail outlets in the area and one as far away as Oregon. "I love that this is happening in my own town," said Kramer. "It's great I can get a call from the Hourglass and just go down and fill it." As for Nathan and Mary? Note: Kramer's first name is Julie. Where
to buy:
Previous Headlines
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"LIFESTYLES" FROM THE
MELROSE FREE PRESS
Art brings downtown Alive
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Hourglass
owner, Lorrie DiCesare, plans her first 'Arts Alive' evening of
the season on April 30. Art fans will be able to meet stained-glass
artist Claudia Clark and painter Breanne Mahoney. DiCesare hopes
the series will bring more evening shoppers to downtown Melrose. (Staff photos by David Sokol) |
By
Dan Mac Alpine / Melrose@Cnc.Com
Thursday, April 22, 2004
For five years, Lorrie DiCesare has made a business of art.
Now, she hopes her Main Street Melrose gallery will help guide downtown Melrose in the art of business.
From her Hourglass craft and art gallery, DiCesare will run a series of "Arts Alive" evenings in which local art fans can meet, greet and discuss art with the people who make it. Most of the artists DiCesare carries in her gallery are from the region. Many, like Ellen Rolli and Debra Corbett, are from Melrose itself.
"Artists love to discuss the process of how they do their art," said DiCesare. "This gives people a chance to meet the artists in person and understand how they create."
As DiCesare sees it, the series also gives people a chance to meet downtown Melrose in a different light - as a destination location where people can come, have a nice dinner and mix in a little culture as an appetizer or dessert.
"When I started the series last year, people didn't know who we are," said DiCesare. "Once they are here, the love it. This is just a celebration of the arts. It's festive."
The idea, of course, is to pull patrons into the Hourglass, a world of handmade jewelry, home accessories, stained-glass sun catchers, blown glass, sculpture, pottery and original paintings featuring every style from impressionistic landscapes to - gasp! - nudes.
DiCesare makes sure her gallery represents an eclectic mix of prices, media and styles with an intensely local flair because she believes her business should reach different tastes and budgets - the gallery has everything from the Melrose-created "ItGirls" card line to gift art in the $20 to $50 range, on up to paintings and stained-glass pieces that sell for about $1,000.
The idea is to keep the gallery work original and maintain a local connection.
Many gift galleries stock their shelves from artists exhibiting at national, wholesale shows. Thus, what art fans see at Annie's in Newburyport, while beautiful, may not differ much from what they might see at a gallery in the Old Port section of Portland. By staying local, DiCesare keeps her shop original and something more.
The Hourglass is a place where customers can feel Melrose's pulse and feel its soul. A place where patrons talk about their lives and their politics, all while finding that painting that puts an individual stamp in the entry foyer, or the one birthday card, that one wedding gift, that fulfills more than social obligation; it makes a heart-to-heart, soul-to-soul connection.
DiCesare hopes the Arts Alive series will spill that sense of community beyond the Hourglass and help create a new ambiance for downtown Melrose, an ambiance that may last beyond 5 p.m.
"We aren't Boston or Cambridge," said DiCesare. "But we could become a little more like that. We could have people come here for dinner and walk around and shop in the evening. I'm having people come here from Charlestown and they're surprised to see the Starbucks closed. We can be a destination, but we need to be more open."
Literally and figuratively.
The new Mexican restaurant set to open across the street, replacing Pauli's, was a huge relief for DiCesare. She's not thrilled about losing Pauli's. But, when she thinks of what could have gone in the space, she's excited.
"This will be our first 'ethnic' restaurant. Melrose is very lucky Wendy and Paul thought about what Melrose needed in that space and didn't just sell to anyone. They thought of the whole community. We need to do more of that downtown. We have too many landlords who just rent to whatever business signs the lease. They don't give any thought to what Melrose needs as a community."
It's that sense of synergy, a symbiotic relationship between and among downtown business DiCesare hopes to foster.
"We need Melrose's approval here," said DiCesare. "We want to be a Melrose community shop. Once we get people in here, they love it. It's getting them in here."