“When we moved up here permanently in 2019, we had to figure out how to make the space work for us creatively as well as for both of our businesses,” says Lindsey Brown of the 200 year-old barn-turned-studios near Rhinebeck that she shares with her husband, FireDean Schilling.
As part of her process, Brown often invites clients to come to the property where they can view one of her intimate shows or catch a glimpse of the backyard gardens her husband has been curating. “The whole property is really turning into integrating the art that’s on the wall with the art that’s in the landscape,” she says."The open-air barn has doors on either end and light filtering in through high windows. It's really quite special." She also imagines the potential to build a greater sense of community, offering the space to host artists in performance and other disciplines.
When Schilling isn’t working outside the barn or on clients’ landscape projects, he’s teaching others how to create the sought-after natural look the Brooklyn Garden Club is known for. For the past several years, he’s used his studio space in the barn to produce video content for all levels of gardening and landscape enthusiasts.
He teaches landscape design at the New York School of Interior Design (NYSID) and long before the pandemic made Zoom cool, he began teaching homeowners how to do projects themselves through private virtual consultations. He also hosts free gardening courses on Instagram and Facebook with topics like “How to Create a ‘Been-There-Forever’ Garden” and “Making Native Plant Selections."
“People want to be more involved because they want to learn and do themselves, but they’re stuck between not knowing anything and wanting to make a transformation,” he says. “The goal is to empower and inform aspiring gardeners and landscape designers while providing a 'safety net' needed to work with more confidence.”
As many married couples know too well, working together, especially in the same space, can be a constant process of negotiation. “We both have different sensibilities,” says Brown. “I like to have things evolve in an organic way and he’s a little more structured, but we learn how to take from each other what part of each other’s sensibilities we need.”
To learn more about Art Sales & Research, visit the website on Artsy.net, Facebook, Instagram, or call (347) 768-3954. To learn more about the Brooklyn Garden Club, visit the website, Facebook, or Instagram.
