Have you ever found yourself out walking in an ancient wood, the smell of decaying leaves and spring shoots signaling a time between worlds, a place where you connect to something earthy but supernatural, the fading light of the gloaming adding a frisson of mystery to the air, and thought: I could really use some cool housewares? That association is to be expected after you take in “The Thinning Veil: Materiality, Magnetism, and the Unseen Geography of the Green Mountains” at Nurture By Nature, Kate Swanson’s Burlington gallery and design studio. Through a collection of lamps, vases, furniture and other functional art objects, all made by artisans from outside Vermont, she evokes the spookier side of the Green Mountains. LED sconces by KADNS frame a haunting, subtly changing horizon; a lamp made from a rock and shaded with a glowing veil by Thomas Yang could illuminate a séance. Sheer curtains printed with images of a dappled forest divide the gallery, while a vase made of alabaster segments tied together with waxed thread spills across a table like bones.
‘The Thinning Veil: Materiality, Magnetism, and the Unseen Geography of the Green Mountains’ On view through May 9 at Nurture by Nature in Burlington. Reception: Saturday, March 21, 5-8 p.m.
This article appears in The Food Issue • 2026.
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