Washington, D.C. Travel Guide

7 Drum City: 1506 North Capitol St NW, Washington, DC 20002

Washington, D.C. is well-known for the button-up politics side of the town, but music runs deep. Home to prestigious conservatories like the Washington Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as renowned grunge venues like the 9:30 Club, Echostage, and The Anthem, there’s strings and drums to be heard. But how does a musician get past the often insurmountable barriers to success?

When it comes to cultural spaces, the lack of proper rehearsal space is one of the biggest challenges facing musicians in the District. For the past two years, 7DrumCity, located in a conspicuously painted, converted row house at 1506 North Capitol, Street has served as one of the few affordable rehearsal spaces in the city, offering quality services and equipment for aspiring musicians in the area.

When Miles Ryan started 7 Drum City, this question settled in the back of his head. When he built a website in 2010 with just $10 to promote his own music lessons, he had no idea it would grow into a hub for DC musicians & hobbyists to learn, rehearse, and perform. Now, after slowly growing for the past decade, the business is multidimensional: from lessons, to rehearsal space for up-and-coming bands to get on their feet, and the intimate performance venue, The Pocket. Ryan went from just him teaching drums out of his garage, to fourteen teachers, specializing in anything from bass to drums to piano to composition and theory. Though the business began in a small venue down the road, it now lies inside a not-too-loud yellow storefront, full of personality both on the outside and the inside. Ryan knew that practicing spaces and venues are as much about talent as they are ambiance, and wanted the decor to be warm and inspiring. The exposed brick inside (inspired by Ryan’s trip to a downtown pizza place), the ornate mugs and the rustic wood piano create a unique environment that attends to rock music’s roots and rustic moods. The black trim around the walls is just the icing on the cake, to make the place more “rock and roll.”

The Pocket is different, though. The sleek round headlights on the ceiling, purple and blue glowing string lights around the wine and beer bar, and simple, intimate decor tell a story about the trajectory of music venues, and the funky environment patrons are looking for when they come out for a drink and a show. Overall, 7DrumCity finds a balance between the grittiness of rock and roll through metal and leather, and the warmth of a community of musicians through comfortable furniture and open spaces.

Glen Echo Park 7300 Macarthur Blvd, Glen Echo, MD 20812

Although Glen Echo Park is right outside of Washington, D.C., and now might not be considered essential to the D.C. experience, it used to be known as Glen Echo Amusement Park, and to D.C what Coney Island is to New York City. Glen Echo Park .was first developed in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly, which taught the sciences, arts, languages and literature. But, by the early 1900s, the site had become Glen Echo Amusement Park until 1968, when it closed.

Today, the only operational amusement park ride is the Dentzel Carousel — but that does not mean the park is not still ingrained in the community. Now, it is a lively space of arts, crafts and sports — anything from ballroom dancing and glass-blowing classes to painting and puppetry instruction. Though the park was quiet in January when FORM visited, it is bustling in the summer months when hundreds of kids go to spend their school break here.

The Spanish Ballroom, opened in 1933, is grand, with 7,500 square feet of dance area to accommodate 1,800 dancers. Its stage was graced by many of the era's great musical acts, such as the Dorsey Brothers and Woody Herman. Today, kids and adults alike take ballroom lessons in the space. The park is spacious and wide, the colors gaudy and ostentatious in the best way. There’s a sense of childhood wonder in the red roof atop a candy corner kiosk that doesn’t work— the kind of red that makes your eyes burn a bit if you look too long. There’s a playfulness in the cohesive cream, blue and red color theme throughout the park, reminding you it is all connected in the name of creativity.

Capitol Hill Books 657 C St SE, Washington, DC 20003:

In the heart of DC, not too far from the bustle of Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court — the sort of images that tower in people’s minds when they think of Washington — Capitol Hill Books is much quieter than you would think.The store's mood is contemplative, and stuffed to the gills with 90 percent used books and 10 percent new additions to the collection. Sure, it can be overwhelming with hundreds and hundreds of books towering over you — but that’s part of the ambiance.

The foot traffic can get busy in the area, as it lies right across the street from the Eastern Market. In the summer, the hill’s numerous interns and visitors all take a look at the well-known bookstore. Still, there is a loyal patronage of Washingtonians who have been coming to the bookstore since it was founded by Bill Kerr back in 1991. Kerr lived upstairs and worked downstairs at the store, which contributed to the comfortable atmosphere that’s immediate when you walk inside, homey and nostalgic.

Jim Toole then ran Capitol Hill Books for 23 years, but during this time he had a devoted group of long-time employees and friends who made the store the center of their social lives. They’d play cards, host monthly wine and cheese parties, and bring their own groups of friends together. It was not just a place of work, it was a community center. Some of the young people who ventured into DC for government and non-profit jobs also came out. Then, in 2015, after years of working there, four of these employees — Aaron Beckwith, Matt Wixon, Kyle Burk and Shantanu Malkar— bought the store from Toole, a testament to their dedication to the business. Burk says a used book store is much more labor intensive. The four of them and other employees need to go out and find books to ship back to the store, whether at pawn shops or yard sales or a secret off-the-map bookstore in Mexico City that they can only get through their online network of bookowners. The community is quite small, so they tend to stick together, through the internet and word of mouth.

The process is not always easy, but it allows the four of them to have more control over inventory than just hoping that interesting new books will be published. The personality of Capitol Hill Books shines through easily in the store: from the decor to the ambient noise of scattered store-goers flipping through the pages of rare books.

Maketto 1351 H St NE, Washington, DC 20002

While traveling between Cambodia and Taiwan with his wife, chef Erik Bruner-Yang was inspired by the coalescence of both cultures. Though he was born in Taiwan, BrunerYang was raised in the United States and has been an influential chef in the D.C. food scene, from his work at LINE DC Hotel's Brother & Sisters, serving American classics from Taiwanese and Japanese points of view, Spoken English, a standing-room-only space modeled after Japanese tachinomiyas and Toki Underground, which is credited with introducing D.C. to ramen.

Maketto has three floors, including a cafe, a market and a restaurant, which could easily be overstimulating to patrons. Yet, the cohesion, sleekness and charming atmosphere doesn’t ever let it. When Bruner-Yang opened Maketto back in 2015, the spot was immediately busy, likely from both his esteem and the allure of the new Asian spot. At the heart of H street— known for it’s nightlife, pop ups and festivals— Maketto stands its ground. Bruner-Yang wanted to create a sense of public space where you can hang out with your friends and just do nothing, without pressure to spend money. Maketto is sleekly designed, with bright light shining inside to create a warm feeling. At the restaurant, the smell of the signature dishes, from crispy dumplings to Taiwanese fried chicken to wok-fried noodles, fill the air. The area is bright and spacious with white and light woods, balancing modernity with brightly colored murals outside on the patio, and tradition with red paper lanterns and customary fans adorning the restaurant's white brick walls. With just 60 seats, the restaurant still feels intimate despite the open space.

Bruner-Yang wanted to add an Asian sensibility to Maketto without drawing on motifs or stereotypes, making it feel Asian and still paying homage to the history of H Street which has a vibrant retail history in D.C. The boutique and coffee shop areas of the space show this balance — the second floor is called Cool Kids Vinyl, and there couldn’t be a better name for it. During the pandemic, Bruner-Yang sublet the second floor of Maketto to one of his employees, and he is constantly receiving ideas from those who have worked with the renowned chef and trust him with their business ideas and art collections.

The art on display in Maketto is colorful and unique, and for that reason Bruner-Yang doesn’t usually put a label on the type of art that is featured — anything from abstract expressionism to realistic paintings of crushed sriracha bottles. It’s a little grungy, but still classy, free flowing, and inviting.

PHOTOGRAPHY Clara Lyra and Mindy Wu WRITING Rebecca Schneid

LIKE THE ORGANISM

Jared Blake is a co-founder of Lichen NYC, a Brooklyn furniture store. Blake started Lichen with co-founder Ed Be in 2017, when the pair began selling furniture and homeware online while working full-time jobs. Blake and Be have since gone full-time with Lichen and taken their store through two brick-and-mortar spaces, the more recent of which opened in East Williamsburg during the pandemic. Founded upon accessibility and creative exchange, the store — which also offers homemade coffee — continues to sell vintage furniture, as well as objects from emerging designers and Lichen’s private label. The pandemic led to rapid growth, as people rushed to decorate their homes, and Lichen was consequently featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Dwell Magazine and more, but Blake and Be have continued their commitment to serving their community and making design accessible. FORM spoke to Blake about the current design movement, uncomfortable chairs, and the future of the Lichen private label.

Dani Yan: Lichen has always been about interacting with, drawing from and serving your neighborhood and its people. Even the name of the store alludes to a symbiotic relationship between organisms within an ecosystem. To you, what is Lichen’s place in the community? What is the role you want your store to play?

Jared Blake: I think it changes. But just like the organism, it's everywhere and it's also nowhere. I think a lot of what we're doing is going to shift into supplying the community. A lot more people are interested in furniture design than there were when we started.

Instead of constantly being in competition with one another, how can we create a system and a platform that speak to the same narrative without directly being sales-focused or in a less obvious way than just selling furniture? One of the losses happens for us when we sell furniture with nothing to speak to it. For me, as a businessman and a marketer, it helps to have a product that tells a story or serves a function. These next stages for us, we’re going to focus on more of our private label assortment and how that can be better, how that can ship and how that process can be a little bit more sophisticated.

DY: I’m really interested in the future of your private label. You’ve said that we live in a revolutionary time, which should in turn cultivate some major design movements. How do you see Lichen’s own designs or design ideologies fitting into the current design movement?.

JB: I would say the use of materiality is definitely an interesting study, because we primarily use Baltic birch. That’s not because we necessarily love the way it looks or we’re huge Baltic birch fans, it’s more of an economical response to our core audience and how to approach them in ways that are affordable. We would never be able to make a walnut table for $299.

Birch has a rich history that’s kind of unspoken to, which we’ll try to touch on more in the future. But as a material, it’s powerful. It gets the job done. And I think we’re watching American design shift from the quintessential darker, more exotic woods of mid-century modern to a more DIY, crafty movement, which evokes a lighter species of wood. It probably looks more like Donald Judd, like Enzo Mari. We want our designs to be really thoughtful — like high design intellect with economically viable solutions.

DY: On the curatorial, sourcing side of things, how do you and Ed go about finding pieces and designers to feature in the store nowadays? Considering you’re both self taught and came into the game without much knowledge outside of Eames and Herman Miller, I’m sure y’all have learned a lot in the few years you’ve been running Lichen. Has your curatorial philosophy and approach changed as a result?

JB: Absolutely, yeah. Oh, man — you turn into a snob over time. The more you know and learn, it shapes your taste. We just live in a really covetous time period. Furniture is like the new Jordans now. It’s like, "I’ve only seen it online, I’ve never seen one in real life, I’ve never sat on one."

Over time, you really get to appreciate who's underrated and who’s overrated. Seeing something in person and sitting on it, sometimes you realize it’s really uncomfortable. They don’t tell you that. It’s good to look at, but you don’t really want to sit on a Donald Judd chair. It’s awful. It’s great, but then it’s awful. Comfort and practicality aren’t number one for people, especially in a more digital, more visual society. Comfort is an afterthought. Most people just care about what it looks like. Fashion did the same thing — these shoes and pants aren’t comfortable, but they look dope, so that sells. The same practices lend themselves to furniture design. Not everything is comfortable, but you would hope that would be the goal of a chair, right? You’d hope that you could achieve form and

function and artistic creativity simultaneously. Those are things that we look for. We’re also in love with promoting and sharing the stories of designers of color. We rarely get the opportunity — it’s changing now, as bigger brands are starting to catch up and understand that they’ve been neglecting a whole demographic for eons — but it’s kind of a responsibility for me and Ed to help people who look like us.

"INSTEAD OF CONSTANTLY BEING IN COMPETITION WITH ONE ANOTHER, HOW CAN WE CREATE A SYSTEM AND A PLATFORM THAT SPEAK TO THE SAME NARRATIVE WITHOUT DIRECTLY BEING SALES-FOCUSED OR IN A LESS OBVIOUS WAY THAN JUST SELLING FURNITURE? ONE OF THE LOSSES HAPPENS FOR US WHEN WE SELL FURNITURE WITH NOTHING TO SPEAK TO IT. FOR ME, AS A BUSINESSMAN AND A MARKETER, IT HELPS TO HAVE A PRODUCT THAT TELLS A STORY OR SERVES A FUNCTION."

DY: I can definitely see your commitment to supporting designers of color just by looking at the Lichen staff. All of your private label designers are people of color. Are you looking to continue growing the Lichen team?

JB: Yeah. We’re constantly shifting our strategy. We’ve never been in a box and we don’t want to be put in boxes, because the road just shifts. A lot of the successes that we’ve had are because of the pandemic. A lot of the growth we’ve had is from people working from home. There are other things we want to do that will require outside help.

We’re just a bunch of rascals honestly. We’re a bunch of misfits with an eclectic collection of skill sets, both selftaught and formally educated. We’re looking for the best person for the job from around us. Most people we bring on board have been introduced by someone else. That’s just how it happens. We have an in-house woodworker who was referred to us by a designer’s roommate. Everyone's just like, “my friend does this.” And, often, it just so happens

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we need that. Our needs and wants are constantly in flux. Whoever needs that shot, that’s what we’re here for.

"WE’RE JUST A BUNCH OF RASCALS HONESTLY. WE’RE A BUNCH OF MISFITS WITH AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION OF SKILL SETS, BOTH SELF-TAUGHT AND FORMALLY EDUCATED. WE’RE LOOKING FOR THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB FROM AROUND US. MOST PEOPLE WE BRING ON BOARD HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED BY SOMEONE ELSE. THAT’S JUST HOW IT HAPPENS."

DY: I love the idea of your store, your strategy, and the customer experience constantly changing. In that sense, to build more on the Lichen metaphor, your store really functions like a living organism. The caption on a recent Instagram post said that even Saturdays and Sundays are cooked a little bit different from each other. What are some of these differences between days and weeks at Lichen? Are they intuitive and organic or more deliberate and planned out?

JB: They're definitely a response to the environment. Sometimes people will buy something and take it the same day, so we’ll have empty places to fill. We might have some things in the back, we might have some things in the basement, we might have some things at our warehouse. We might take the legs off of something and put it on something else—like, “oh, we’ll just make a table out of this.” That happens quite often, actually. So if you came to our store on a Saturday then came back on Sunday, it would look completely different. It’s just like Tetris — we’re constantly just filling in the spaces as things sell, so it’s always in motion.

We have a projector. We might be playing Nintendo Switch, there might be a game on. You just never know. And music is also a super integral part of what we do. And that changes as well. Constantly.

PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy of Lichen NYC WRITING Dani Yan

S Y M B I O S I S

S Y M B I O S I S

Nifemi Marcus-Bello is a designer based in Lagos. His eponymous design studio, nmbello Studio, creates products based on an understanding of the local environment and community. A member of this year’s Dazed 100, MarcusBello has designed lamps, stools, tables, and even a handwashing station, which won the Wallpaper* Design Awards Life-Enhancer of the Year in 2021. He has been profiled by publications such as Vogue, and his work has been exhibited at the Marta art gallery in Los Angeles, the 2017 London Design Fair, the 2018 Venice Design Biennale, and more. FORM spoke to Marcus-Bello about his design process, the global growth of his work, and Africa’s “design utopia.”

Dani Yan: Your design ethos is very free and intuitive. Has it always been like that or did you have to learn to shed restrictions to your process?

Nifemi Marcus-Bello: It hasn't always been like this. I went to design school in England, where you are taught to think a certain type of way. You’re taught to practice design in a country where things work, where there’s production, where there’s manufacturing around you, etc. When I came back to Lagos, I realized that if I did not stop that mindset, it would be tougher to express and also design products that we actually need here.

So, I really had to go back to the drawing board and understand what the constraints were, what the ecosystem was like around me, and then carry out research for about a year and a half—long term research while I was working on understanding the manufacturing and urban planning and how they come together, because another main issue in Lagos is transportation. I think really considering all the constraints was what shifted my thoughts as a designer: understanding that design can happen even in the middle of organized chaos.

DY: You often say you use what is around you to create. Can you tell me about some of the ways that your surroundings have been translated to specific design elements?

NM: It's been translated in various ways. Let’s start with materiality. For me, materials are extremely important when it comes to design. I value everything around sustainability and really paying homage and respect to the environment as much as possible—I think it’s important to consider manufacturing around these ideas so that you can keep an eye on them, and it’s easier to have conversations with the manufacturers. For example, my manufacturer is about 30 kilometers from the studio, so I can always have conversations with them and go back and forth.

From a design standpoint, as an African, I think it’s super important to consider the end-user while I THINK REALLY CONSIDERING ALL THE CONSTRAINTS WAS WHAT SHIFTED MY THOUGHTS AS A DESIGNER: UNDERSTANDING THAT DESIGN CAN HAPPEN EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF ORGANIZED CHAOS.

"AND ALSO, FIGURING OUT HOW DESIGN CAN REALLY CONSIDER EVERYONE IN THE ECOSYSTEM THAT’S GOING TO CREATE A PRODUCT, DOWN TO THE MANUFACTURER, THE USER, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND EVEN THE DESIGNER."

designing, especially in contemporary times. Even down to ethnographic or anthropometric data, we are not defined because we haven’t been documented properly, and it’s not as accessible. For me, I try to understand people. So that means not jumping to conclusions about how people will react and instead sitting back to take notice of how we are living in contemporary times, how globalization has affected our lives, our way of thinking. Even the materials we relate to and the types of forms that we relate to, I try to take into consideration.

DY: I see your designs as having a symbiotic relationship with your environment, as you draw inspiration for your designs from your community but also solve problems in your community with your designs. I think a perfect example is the handwashing station you created in response to the pandemic. In the case of the COVID, the most pressing problem was obvious, but I’m curious as to how you decide which problems in your community that you want to help solve.

NM: It's a tough one. I have this saying—it’s a terrible saying but it’s also very important—I keep at the back of my mind: Africa is my community, and it’s a designer’s utopia right now because there are so many issues. There's so many issues we can solve, so most of the time, I don’t know where to start from.

It’s funny, because with the hand washing station, I thought it wasn’t going to happen. I didn't really want to do the project. But what sparked it wasn't just the pandemic, it wasn't the lack of hygiene in hospitals, it was the fact that a lot of artisans were out of work because of the pandemic. I saw the opportunity for them to keep working and make money. They didn’t understand that the skillset that they had was enough to create a product like a handwashing station, or consider design, or collaborate with a designer like myself to create this product. So, for me, it was more of an educational exercise. And also, figuring out how design can really consider everyone in the ecosystem that’s going to create a product, down to the manufacturer, the user, the environment, and even the designer.

DY: That’s a really nice insight into your approach to the handwashing station. When you’re working in this designer’s utopia, how do you navigate all of the issues and prioritize which ones to work on?

NM: I'm still in it, so I can't really answer that. Right now, my studio is still growing. It used to just be me, but now I’m trying to find researchers, trying to find junior product designers to come together to really analyze the problems we’re looking to solve before actually jumping into solving the problem. Because it’s not just designing the products. It’s also the aftermath of manufacturing, distribution, and making sure that the product hits a certain standard and people are actually willing to use it. We want to integrate

our products into society the right way. We don’t want to just design some product as a solution for an issue and then just plunk it in the middle of the community. Spending a lot more time with the community is something I tend to do. I tend to have as many conversations as possible. Right now, I’m doing a lot of research on trying to figure out what contemporary design solutions are, because they already exist. I’m trying to figure out what contemporary solutions are available in Lagos and have already been designed, maybe not by designers, but designed by the community itself. I think from an understanding of these products, you can figure out where and how new designs can be integrated into the community.

DY: That makes a lot of sense. There’s an emphasis on viability, whether that’s economic viability or viability of usage, that exists throughout your work. You’re not designing products just to look good but to actually be used. Your products are now offered beyond Africa, from New York City to London. Considering the importance of locality to your practice— using local production techniques, creating works within 30km of your studio—do you think your designs will change as the geographic reach of your studio increases?

LM: Oh, I think it will for sure. I can feel it already. I’m a maker-designer, so I make my own stuff, and I distribute it, so it’s been a bit of a headache. I had this conversation with a European designer who was telling me, “Oh man, maybe your design loses authenticity if you start producing abroad.” It’s funny, because Apple produces everywhere, they produce in China, they produce all over the world, and their product is still labeled American. So, why is it that because I’m an African designer, I have to stay—I have to not think globally but think extremely locally and not be able to push forward? So that’s something I’m excited about—I think as long as I stay true and figure out how my community can also still benefit and a certain percentage of production still happens here, I’ll be fine pushing forward.

DY: I couldn’t agree more. A lot of Black artists run into the problem of having their work labelled as Black art, or African-American art, or African art, instead of just art, which can be very restrictive. In 2018, you were rejected from a Lagos lifestyle store because the store-runner thought your LM Stool was not “African design.” In your words, what is African design?

LM: That rejection really taught me a lot because I had to ask myself what African design is. I pride myself in researching and trying to find historic African design to see and understand the past. And one thing I found was that it’s not linear. You can’t really say what it is because Nigerian design is different from Ghanian design, Ghanian design is different from Congolese design. The commonality between all of this is that it’s contextual. A lot of it is contextual, so it’s tough to say what African design is.

DY: Right, it’s so hard to capture the richness of an entire continent’s design under one label. I’ve got one more question to close out our conversation: what’s next for you?

DY: There's a lot of works that I wish I could talk about. I’ve been extremely busy and very excited. We have a potential project in Berlin next year, an installation. We’re designing a lot of furniture for the North American markets, in collaboration with someone there. And it’s interesting because a lot of our approach still matters—we’re still trying to figure out how we can work locally, etc. And even if it’s done in another country, making sure that it’s sustainable and eco-friendly and considerate of the makers themselves.

PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy of nmbello Studio WRITING Dani Yan

Rugs, With Love

Nomadic Trading Company is a Durham-based wholesale design company dealing in imported vintage and repurposed furniture that’s been open since 1995. FORM spoke with owner Demir Williford about the values, products and goals.

Rebecca Schneid: Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you started with Nomadic Trading Co.?

Demir Willford: I've been doing this since 1995. I basically import and reuse furniture. I think the world is awash with mass products that are taking up a lot of resources to appease certain groups of people with cheap products. And I have these nightmares about this huge conglomerate of trash being built up in our Earth — I feel it sinking. I take old products, like lighting from factories or chairs or tables, and we’ll repurpose them, rewire them or bring them back to life. We’ll clean them all up and then reuse them again. So we were doing this before it was kind of popular. But now, we have a client base of mostly designers, boutique hotels, restaurants and bars — commercial use.

Darielle Engilman: What were the first pieces of furniture you worked with when you started Nomadic Trading?

DW: So when I started in 1990 with my brother, we found a little store on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. We started importing these rugs, and I started selling them. They were old rugs that women produce for their own use — kind of like quilting in this country. Every single one represents a village and a tribal group that goes back, literally some of them hundreds and hundreds of years in design. Some of it even further back in Central Asia when they were all shamanistic. They have the Earth God, Mother God, a Fire God and Water God, and these little patterns and designs that represent those ideologies. I found them like 20 years ago and I call them my orphans. I love every one I bought and want to find them the right home. DE: What’s the most fulfilling part of the job that you do?

DW: One time I was hanging out late in Istanbul with a rug dealer, and he looks at me and goes “you know what, every single one of these rugs are like love letters.” And the way I look at it: the women who wove this rug made it as a love letter and we're the postman, what we got to do is deliver it to the people that actually are looking for this letter to arrive. So when I hear that, to me, that becomes part of the joy. It's not just buying and selling. It could be done in many, many different ways. I could trade in the stock market, and not have to deal with that. But for me, it is much, much more than that. It's the interaction. That and the friendships and the camaraderie that are formed through the years because of what I do. I don’t think I’ve ever worked a day in my life, honestly.

"HOW DO WE ENGAGE WITH THE EXAMPLES OF BLACK HISTORY AND HAVE CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCES WHICH WILL BE HISTORY TO BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE? HOW DO WE THINK ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCES NOW AND THE EXPERIENCES OF OUR ANCESTORS AND USE THAT AS A SERIES OF CASE STUDIES, OF ACCUMULATED HISTORY, AS A TECHNOLOGY TO GET TO THAT POINT IN THE FUTURE?"

RS: Where are items sourced from?

DW: All over the world: Berlin, Hungary, Turkey. I have pickers all throughout Europe now to send me photos of cool pieces to put it aside for me until I have enough to ship stuff here. Three times a year I’ll travel there, and I go to these little markets with my friends and we drive my truck around and we're looking for unusual, very cool products: baskets and tables. You know, what I see is what most people don't see. I envision a finished product, so where someone else is looking at a product and thinking “what the hell am I going to do with this?” I see what’s possible. I see butcher's blocks from farms in Hungary or old containers, and I know I can make a cool coffee table with some work.

One of the newer things I’m doing right now is taking 300 year-old white oak from the Black Sea region, and we take these old columns and cut them up to create these cool tables— so repurposed once again. We have an old motorcycle

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Metin. Craftsman at Nomadic Trading Co.

Chairs from Nomadic Trading Co.

from East Germany from before the wall was torn down. RS: What is your mindset when you are looking for a unique piece to repurpose? And did that come naturally for you?

DW: The excitement is in the hunt for me. So it's kind of primal in a sense for me. So when I discover something I'm zoning in on, I’ll always have a customer model. I never buy for myself. What I’m thinking about is “what can I get that I can place in my customer’s businesses?” Whenever I find that, my heart starts beating really fast, but you stay cool so you don’t get ripped off. There’s a theatrics to buying and selling furniture: it’s always a negotiation. I got a degree in marketing and I got into it because it was easy, but it’s been very helpful.

DE: Are there any types of pieces that don’t speak to you, or that you won’t buy?

DW: Markets change and products change: things I once bought I can't really sell anymore. It’s all a gamble, but that’s what it’s all about. I’m always looking for trends though: I’m always listening and looking on Instagram and looking at new designers, reading magazines, looking up wall colors and the colors of tomorrow. I just did a rug coloring for Anthropologie, so I had rugs dyed for them. I’m always in contact with designers I want to work with.

DE: As a smaller company, how have you been able to attract a client base with such big companies?

DW: It's being in the right place at the right time. The trade shows I participate in attract those big customers because they’re not looking for furniture that’s being mass produced. We know that those types of people don’t have 500 stores and want the same exact furniture in each store; they’re much more selective. So, we want to be on top of the trends and know that those types of people are coming.

DE: What do you foresee for the future of Nomadic Trading?

DW: Downsizing. I don’t want to grow. I want to have a much bigger presence online. I want to open up to different platforms. My next step is to get into those online markets and create my own niche there. I want to collaborate with cool designers and teach younger people who want to do what I do. I also want to bring this idea into academics, bringing my real world experience into all of that and start giving back more.

PHOTOGRAPHY of Jack Muraika WRITING Darielle Engilman and Rebecca Schneid

Juxtapositions

swinging magnolia, if only you could sing you’d sing soft noises of past spring

Don’t close the doors! wind swept pollen fills my nose

the last architect forgot his one silver coin under this gauze

the sun follows the trails leaving gifts for ambitious saplings

the old man sings, just like azaan except silently in sleep

lights kept on a company of moths feasting on thoughts

my steps reverb, as I catch their tails and pin them to my tee

I don’t like sheets when I sleep. the night might think that I am weak

Licking noises off the wall chasing cicadas ‘till I fall. toes seek refuge in the cold, dark earth

everytime I see the sun I am scared of the man who pushes it back

I used to eat autumn leaves, singing to bewildered trees “make me as tall as thee”

If all the roads lead back home let’s get lost and be alone.

I saw a tree lose a limb. I felt my knee and drank more milk.

WRITING Nima Babajani-Feremi PHOTOGRAPHY Erika Wang and Mindy Wu

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