OUR BEGINNINGS

We met outside of Detroit, at Cranbrook Academy of Art, a graduate school for the arts established at the height of the Arts &Crafts movement in America.

Lustered Walnut is our collaboration: an entity that explores the craft person's roll as artist, designer, innovator, and arts educator. Through Lustered Walnut we seek to strengthen our art community and raise questions/ awareness of the role of objects, function, and production.

We believe in products that are well crafted and honestly made. We use locally sourced and reclaimed materials whenever possible, and our shop will soon be completely solar powered. :)

THE DESIGNERS

Marie Perrin-McGraw has a Master of Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art, her Bachelor of Fine Art from University of the Arts, Philadelphia, both with concentration in ceramics. She has been an educator and fabricator in two of the country’s oldest Arts & Craft potteries (Moravian Pottery in Doylestown, PA and Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, MI). She has been teaching art classes and showing her work in the United States for the past eight years.

Robert Turek has a Master of Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art with a concentration in 3D design and a Bachelor of Environmental Design from Texas A&M with a concentration in architecture. For the past 4 years, his practice has included fine wood working and fabrication for artists and design collectors, as well as his own design, art and music. His work has been collected by the Cranbrook Art Museum and was awarded 1st place in the 2011 Core77 DIY/Hack/Mod genre.