T H E W ID E W O R L D OF C R A F T
studios at the Button Factory, and film fes-
tivals and live concerts at the Music Hall,
which was designated an “American Trea-
sure” by the u.S. Senate and featured in
the
New Virk Times
last fall after extensive
renovation. While Portsmouth offers its
share of hearty New England fare, visitors
can also find innovative restaurants men-
tioned in the pages of
Bon Appétit
and the
now-defunct
Gourmet,
including the Black
Trumpet Bistro and the Green Monkey.
It’s no wonder that the city’s population
jumps from 22,000 to over 60,000 during
the summer and fall months.
It was a boyhood trip to the Peabody
Essex Museum to see the intricate figure-
heads, ship carvings and Polynesian art that
inspired Mark F en wick to begin his lifelong
relationship with carving. “I got home,
grabbed my little hatchet and ran out in the
backyard to start carving tiki heads,” he
says, laughing. Fenwick’s sculptures, remi-
niscent of sentries, are scattered through-
out the backyard as he works on a hand-
carved coffin for a prominent—and still
living—local attorney. His works have been
commissioned nationwide and he recently
finished an artist-in-residence program in
Western Massachusetts.
Portsmouth’s location on New Hamp-
shire’s coastline does more than inspire
many local craftspeople: Wendolyn Ham-
mer also gets her materials from it. After
working as a jeweler for 19 years, Hammer
wanted to get away from the “fussiness”
of jewelry and began playing with bigger
pieces of material. She started making
cheese knives out of beach stones for fam-
ily Christmas gifts and has expanded into
candlesticks and even a caviar box incorpo-
rating glass and metal details. Deb Thomp-
son, owner of Nahcotta, a local gallery,
describes these pieces as “the best combina-
tion of form and function.”
Kristina Logan used to come to Ports-
mouth so often for events, the restaurants
and the ocean that she moved there. Logan,
whom David Whitehouse of the Corning
Museum of Glass calls “the leading maker
of glass beads working today,” loves the
proximity to the Atlantic. “I can jump on
my bike, have a picnic lunch at the beach
and quickly be back working in my studio
again,” she says. “The seacoast is different
from the rest of New Hampshire.” Logan
works with traditional Venetian flame-
working techniques to create her beads,
and you can feel her passion when she talks
about her craft. “I love how beads have
always been cherished and carried around;
they have all sorts of different importance
to different people. I connect with that.”
Jeweler Sara Dulong Apsey also appre-
ciates the mobility of her craft and likens
pieces of jewelry to little “memories.” Sit-
ting outside the popular local hangout Ceres
Bakery, under one of the many signs around
town made by Peter Happny, Apsey chats
with friends walking by. “Portsmouth is
a very encouraging place to be an artist,”
she says. “People are creating things. It’s
not about people working to make money
to pay their bills; it’s more ‘What are you
working on?’ or ‘What do you like to do?’
Making things, or cooking things, it’s a
good mix.” After a life-changing workshop
at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
with Susan Sloan, Apsey began to integrate
070 american craft dec/jan io
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Logan photo Dennis Murray /
Persian Doughnut Brooch
photo Dean Powell.
