Inside Honor & Folly: Megan O’Connell
Detroit, Michigan
One of the things that makes Honor & Folly so special–at least to me–is the collection of stories behind almost every piece of furniture, art and object. Displayed in my favorite corner, the Hair, Pastry, Tobacco tableture tells a great full-circle yarn that starts with a chance discovery 821 miles away and weaves its way back to Detroit. This summer, while we were on vacation in Maine, I took an afternoon trip to Portland while my kiddos were napping to check out a few places, namely Rogues Gallery, where I heard I could score a pair of Quoddy-made leather loafers for my husband under the Rogues Gallery label (for non-Quoddy prices). And even though it’s a men’s store, I wanted to see the space, which has a very non-gimmicky nautical, rough-hewn New England appeal with a focus on well-crafted, if not hand-crafted, goods. When owner Alex Carleton discovered I’m from Detroit, he told me all about Megan O’Connell, whose beautiful work was hanging in his dark and moody gem of a shop. In fact, the evening before, they had a going-away party for her. Turns out, she was moving to Detroit to be the founding Director of Signal Return–the new, extraordinary letterpress print shop that recently opened in Eastern Market.
When Megan and I met to discuss cards for Honor & Folly, she offered to let me hang her work in the space. I picked this triptych, which was inspired by Virginia Wolf’s Orlando, a fitting starting point for Megan’s tableture and texts crafted from hand-cast, -dyed and -carved paper suspended in Italian beeswax. She’s the founder of two other independent presses, including The Dead Skin Press, which generates cross-disciplinary work across installations, events, printed matter and discrete objects. I’m really excited to see what she does with Signal Return, and beyond honored to showcase her talent in my humble little space.
