October 2017
Walk into Nest at 77 N. Main (between Brother’s and Dobra Tea) and you instantly find yourself taking a deep breath. Everywhere you look, there is something beautiful … and gasp-worthy.
Nest offers exquisite, out-of-the-ordinary handmade items for the home: ceramic tableware and gifts, as well as wood objects, from cutting boards to full-size tables. The store, with its pumpkin-colored facade, is tucked away at the north end of town on Main Street. Within, you’ll find the artistry of Dawne Klinger’s Tagliaferro Ceramics and Mark Stella’s Meadowlark Woods studios.
Both artists have their studios in nearby Talent, Oregon. At Tagliaferro, Dawne creates exquisite dinnerware and decorative ceramic pieces using raw materials, colors and design drawn from nature. Mark crafts beautiful, handmade wood objects, from work-of-art cutting boards to full-sized dining tables. He creates his pieces largely from locally sourced wood, much of it repurposed.
The couple met a few years ago at a local pizza shop on a warm summer evening, and it was love at first sight. Their meeting led to merging their lives and their art.
“We have lived all over the country, but we’ve come to adopt the West Coast as home and enjoy raising our ‘Brady Bunch’ family here in the Rogue Valley,” says Mark. “Little did we know that within a few years we’d be merging our businesses less than a block away.”
The couple opened Nest in 2016. Each had built an enthusiastic following and had been shipping their creations around the country and the world for almost 20 years. Having an Ashland-based storefront made their works more easily accessible to Ashland locals and visitors.
“We’ve always been aware of how many people make Ashland a regular part of their travels. When the store space opened up in the middle of it all, we knew it was time to tap into that flow and create a unique retail experience for locals and tourists alike,” says Mark.
And stepping into Nest is truly a unique experience. “Customers can expect to be surprised and awed,” says Dawne. “Nest was designed as a platform for us to experiment with materials, shapes, finishes and more. There are always new items as we get into new batches of wood from our mill or ceramic forms to be inspired by.”
Stop by and get inspired at Nest Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10:30am to 5:30pm and Sundays, 12-6. For more info, call 541-973-6378.
You can also see them at nestahland.com and on Facebook.
