DES IG N PRO FIL E
THE BLANK WALL IS TIRED
Sean Scherer’s Authentic Interiors By Susan Barnett Photos by William Abranowicz
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online at upstatehouse.com
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inimalism may not survive COVID-19. The shutdown has forced us to experience home with striking intensity. An environment of comfort, familiarity, and warmth, is what many of us are now are craving when we look around where we live. Sean Scherer’s Kabinett & Kammer, tucked away in the Catskills village of Franklin, offers just that. (The shop’s name comes from the German words for cabinet and chamber.) Scherer, a painter who’s shown extensively in the US and Europe, views interior design as an artistic conversation between interesting objects and their space. Kabinett & Kammer is home to Scherer’s unconstrained visual vocabulary, an ever-changing display of thoughtfully juxtaposed vintage and modern furniture and accessories. Bold floral wallpaper meets a deep yellow, wood-paneled wall. A taxidermy goat head emerges from a wallmounted floral tray. Arrangements of prints, books, dried flowers, mirrors, old clock faces, baskets, commonplace items displayed in unexpected ways—it’s all part of what becomes, in essence, a still life, a vignette, a series of experiences. “It’s all
about making an interior feel naturally layered and acquired over time, with all those imperfections included,” Scherer explains. His designs are a revolt against minimalism as a habit. “What strikes me about the shelter magazine business today,” Scherer says, “is how fake and staged almost all the homes look. They are cold. There’s no realness, no authenticity to these interiors—that blank-wall aesthetic is tired.” Scherer’s design aesthetic is illustrated in glorious color in Sean Scherer’s Kabinett & Kammer: Creating Authentic Interiors (Vendome Publishing, 2020). And that aesthetic is anything but austere. The use of color is bold. The display of items is dense, and often unexpected. Each page is a feast for the eyes, just as he describes his conception for the shop he opened in 2007 in his new book: “The whole store would be a revolving work of art and would act as a laboratory for my evolving collections and displays. I also wanted to emphasize the modernity of the utilitarian pieces I favored: objects and furniture that people made in their barns for specific purposes and uses. They weren’t intended to be artistic, but simplicity combined with practicality—plus years of use—had transformed them from the ordinary into the extraordinary.” A living room renovation by Scherer: Custom wallpaper—created from enlargements of photographs of the early blue transferware dishes in the cabinet— covers an entire wall. The blue is picked up in the denim sofa and toile-patterned throw pillows.
