The Sweet, Artistic Life of Paula Sweet

 

Irwin Weiner ASID - Creativity in daily life? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be talented enough to hand-paint your house in a fine art style, decorate your furniture with bright colors, make your family's dinnerware, and fill your own ceramic vases with flowers from the garden? If you're Paula Sweet, you're all that and more.

We were recently guests of Paula and her husband Richard and daughter Kayla in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Their house rambles on a wooded hillside and is a mid-century modern delight, with beamed ceilings, painted concrete floors, a koi pond, swimming pool, and Paula's art studio. She's fascinated with small, curling tendrils on vines and collects them on her walks through the woods, marrying them with ceramic plaques and small studies that take up whole sections of her walls, along with bold portraits of people in her life.

Originally known for her break-out wearable art fashion - the luxurious, washable Muslin Mink coat - she branched out into "reversible dishes" that put her into high-end retailers like Neiman Marcus, Spiegel Catalog, Bergdorf Goodman, and Henri Bendel. Her life has expanded into yoga, raising her lovely daughter (who also has her mother's artistic genes), and other art forms like portraiture, sculpted heads, and elaborate and ingenious ceramic vases and pitchers. Visit the Paul Sweet website for more information.

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