Lindsey Adelman Revisits Craft in a Holiday Pop-Up Shop
Since she was a girl, Lindsey Adelman has loved two things: making things and selling them. Then, she made her cash from painted barrettes and custom T-shirts. ("I didn't like babysitting," she explains.) Now, she does it with a line of sculptural lighting, made famous by her branching bubbles chandeliers. But as hobby evolved into full-blown business, a distance emerged between what she was doing every day and the crafty spirit that started it all.
"It was becoming increasingly hard to sit down and spend an afternoon making work," she says. "There was less and less time for things that were not connected to developing a new weighting system or an exhibition or something for a client." So she gave herself an excuse—she'd open a pop-up shop just in time for the holidays.
Inspired by P.S. I LOVE YOU, a 1980s Upper East Side institution she'd visit on trips to the city as an excitable, sticker-obsessed teen from the suburbs, her own downtown rendition—P.S. I Miss You, which opens tomorrow—is a treasure box of handcrafted, affordable objects.
"Most of our work is around $10,000," she says. "So it feels so great to make something for $40."
The stuff, made mostly by Adelman herself, ranges from hoodies to jewelry to ceramics, which she molded into a range of candlesticks (she affectionately calls them her "favorite form of lighting").
"It's been a really nice outlet," she says.
Speaking of outlets, there will be several for sale in the shop, made of ceramic by her son, Finn.
"He's been making these to-scale electrical fittings," she says proudly. "He's actually been doing ceramics longer than I have. He taught me how to use the wheel."
Finn wasn't the only family member she commissioned. Adelman tapped her husband, Ian, to take his Sharpie skills to a few pairs of sneakers, and her mom (who made Adelman and her sister leg warmers when they were younger) whipped up some knitwear for the shop—a revival, perhaps, of the crafty spirit that overtook them during the holidays of yore, when they gathered to make handmade cards and ornaments.
"I think there's just a joy in making," says Adelman. "It's been so special to rediscover that."
P.S. I Miss You is open through December 24 at 27 Orchart St.
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