(Karen in her Vermont-based studio.)

How did you become a toy designer?

The idea to design toys came rather suddenly although now it seems like quite a logical development. I majored in studio art at Oberlin College and received a Masters Degree in Early Childhood at Bank Street College of Education, so my passion for art/design and my interest in child development and the importance of children’s play was a perfect fit. The aha moment occurred soon after graduate school when I was teaching pre-kindergarten in the NYC public schools. I stumbled across an exhibition catalog “Play Orbit” from the ICA gallery in London and I thought—that’s it—I can combine my passion for art and play by designing toys.

Where do you find inspiration for your designs?

My inspiration comes from many sources but observing children at play would have to be the primary one. I have spent untold hours watching children of all ages play with both with natural materials and with toys. I have a good sense of what sustains a child's interest and imagination. I also continue to spend time in art museums and galleries looking at both historical and contemporary art, architecture and design objects. In order to design toys, you need to understand the history. I have curated several exhibitions on the history of “education toys” and more specifically on the history of building toys. This involved spending time researching and examining toys from many different time periods that I am sure has influenced my designs. I am always on the look out for interesting materials that may inspire new designs. However, I am very conscious of the limits and challenges posed by issues of safety.

Do you have any favorites from your line?

I do not really have a favorite toy. I like what children create with my designs as much as the designs themselves. I enjoy working with limits. The Arcobaleno has a limited number of pieces with unusual beveled edge shape that stimulate creative thinking.

I love working with color. Coloratura plays with a variety of colors but is based on color theory, and that continues to interest me. My favorite toys are the ones that I see children drawn to and that provoke them to create amazing structures—that always surprise me.

What are your hobbies?

I love to cook and to dig in the dirt, and I have a large garden in Vermont which I enjoy all summer but also put enough away in the freezer to enjoy during the long Vermont winters. I have a passion for the Italian language and literature and I been studying it, on and off for a number of years. It is also helpful since I am the US distributor for the books from Reggio Children in Reggio Emilia, Italy and travel to Italy at least once a year. My favorite city haunts are art museums, galleries and book stores.

How do the toys a child plays with influence the way they think?

Everything children play with or encounters have some influence on the way they think. In the exhibit, “Educational Toys in America:1800 to the Present” we came to the conclusion that everything – every toy was “educational” in the sense that a child took something from the experience. What they took and what value it had is another question. If one thinks (as I do) that it is vital for children to be able to use their imagination and to think creatively, then toys that are open-ended – toys with loose parts and no scripts – are the kinds of toys that children should have.

(L: Karen surrounded by her first collection of Learning Materials. R: Leading a workshop at the Whitney.)

Tell us about your involvement with MoMA’s “Century of the Child” exhibit?

I was asked by the Department of Education at MoMA to participate in an interactive studio space to be held in conjunction with “The Century of the Child” exhibit. This will involve designing an interactive installation using my toys with the emphasis on creative play as well as leading two, participatory workshops. The MoMA Studio will open on September 24.

And if you're in the area stop by the bake sale this Saturday, July 7th

3—6:00pm in Amagansett Square in the Hamptons

If you can't make it out this weekend, here's information on donating.

(Gretchen and her son Liam)

Your second Cookies for Kids' Cancer cookbook is due out next spring; how did you develop the concept?

I didn't exactly follow the typical path. A dear friend, Sally Sampson, who donated the recipes for the first baking event kept saying that we should do a cookbook to spread the word even further about Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. We were very fortunate to meet with an amazing editor at John Wiley & Sons who also saw the vision and together we decided we had the makings for a compelling cookbook. But, we didn’t just want to have a typical cookbook.

(The first Cookies for Kids' Cancer Cookbook)

To us, the recipe for a successful book included both the tangible assets – the recipes – but also the intangible assets which were the stories of people who have held their own events and tips on how to host a successful event. The book, The Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook, has more than 65 foolproof recipes perfect for bake sales and dozens of profiles of bake sale hosts from across the country.  One thing to mention about the book, which at $19.99 is a great deal, all author profits go directly to pediatric cancer research.

(A sneak peek at the photoshoot for the second cookbook, due out Spring 2013.)

Holding a bake sale conjures a lot of nostalgia for childhood and helps to create a sense of community. Can you expand on how you came up with the bake sale concept?

After the first mega bake-a-thon and long after we stopped selling cookies, people kept getting in touch with us asking us how they could involved in their community. They heard what we were doing. They were inspired. They wanted to see the magic continue. Hosting a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale seemed to us to be the perfect way for people to get involved  in their community whether they baked a few cookies and had a bake sale at work or baked a few thousand cookies and hold a large-scale event. To us, it didn’t matter what people did…we just wanted them to be "Good Cookies".

Any sweet moments from past bake sales?

One of the things we find so surprising is how people always thank US for the opportunity to get involved. It completely blows me away…even after thousands of events. Here are people who have decided to get involved and make a difference in the lives of children and they are thanking us?! How can that be? But there’s something magical that happens when people are Good Cookies.

How can people set up a bake sale in their area?

Visit the Cookies for Kids' Cancer website. From there, you can read about tips for success, see pictures of other events, order a bake sale kit filled with all the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer branded items you need to help raise awareness and funds, and of course, register your event.

Tell us how Cookies for Kids’ Cancer started?

In early 2007, my incredibly sweet son Liam was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. What came as a total surprise to me, almost as much as his cancer diagnosis, was finding out that cancer is the number one disease killer of children in the U.S. Number one. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. One of the things Liam’s oncologist said to me is that the reason people don’t know this fact is because kids with cancer don’t make headlines the way adults do. He dejectedly told me that no one cares about a kid who is diagnosed with cancer.

I’ll never forget that day. And I made a promise to myself that after Liam* was out of the danger zone, I would see what I could do to help shed some light on the needs surrounding pediatric cancer.

Eight grueling months later, Liam was cancer free and my husband and I felt incredibly blessed to see our son thriving and back in school. It was October. The holidays were coming up. I knew that people would soon be searching for the perfect holiday gift – one that not only felt good to give but that the recipient felt good about receiving. But what? What could I do? A car wash in cold winter months didn’t seem like a good idea, so I thought about things that people like to do around the holidays and came up with baking. I loved to bake. It was one of the things I cherished doing for friends and family during the holidays. But more importantly, I knew a lot of people who also loved to bake. So as I sat on the steps of Liam’s preschool, I decided I would bake holiday cookies, put them in pretty packaging and sell them during the holidays as a pediatric cancer research fundraiser.

We had just rescued Liam from the grips of cancer, so how hard could it be to bake some cookies? The short version of the answer is that it was a LOT harder than I thought with so many challenges and moving pieces and parts. But with the help of more than 250 determined volunteers, many of whom I didn’t know, but who heard about the project, we did it. In nine days we sold out of all 96,000 cookies and after 18 consecutive days of baking, packaging and shipping, raised more than $420,000 which helped to fund a pediatric cancer therapy that became available in 2011.

After the ovens cooled from the incredibly odyssey of the massive bake-a-thon, my husband and I realized we had hit a chord with people. We found a way to get people involved in pediatric cancer in a way that wasn’t scary. After months of planning, we launched Cookies for Kids’ Cancer as a year-round organization in September 2008, Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. Since then more than 4,000 events across the country from bake sales to bowl-a-thons have been registered and millions of dollars have been raised and granted to the leading pediatric cancer research facilities around the country. Today we also sell cookies year round and just like the first massive bake-a-thon in 2007, 100% of the profit of our cookies goes to supporting pediatric cancer research.

*Note: On January 24th 2011, Liam Witt lost his battle with cancer. He was six years, eight months and nine days old. His memorial service was attended by more than 800 people including 120 New York City firefighters who honored Liam as a member of the New York City fire department. The little boy who lived life to the fullest by loving with no reservations, continues to inspire his family and friends who live life following the last three words his mother spoke during his eulogy: Love Like Liam.

Head to the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer website for more information.

Where are you from originally?

I grew up in Sacramento, and I moved to New York from San Francisco.

What brought you to New York?

The California lifestyle is amazing, but when you’re from there it can get a little boring. I wanted something that would pick up the pace, and New York offered that.

Where do you live now?

Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

What’s your role at 77 Wooster?

I’m the General Manager here at 77 Wooster—think of me as your Girl Friday! I’m the person you meet when you first walk through the door. I’m the person telling you how amazing the product and aesthetic is. I'm the person telling you how to get a stain out of fabric. I’m also the person who will schedule your delivery for the same day!

Favorite part of the store.

The workstation. It’s expansive. It’s a conversation piece. It’s never too crowded, even when the store feels crowded. It’s the perfect pause in the store.

Favorite part of your home?

My living room. I’m a giant fan of PBS. I love to escape into my sofa-time, and catch up on some Masterpiece Theatre. I love old Quincy, Miss Marple and old Sherlock Holmes.

What are your go-to spots in Soho.

I tend to gravitate toward the steadfast, old-school Manhattan staples. It’s Café Habana over on Elizabeth and Prince—that Mexican corn is the best deal in town.

It’s Balthazar—a glass of champagne there and French Onion Soup and you’re in a whole other dimension. I love to take the New Yorker magazine there and read at the bar. And Lucky Strike still has the best happy hour!

Favorite DwellStudio find?

Our Gazelle table in the gold finish—I love the gilded hue.

What's your everyday style?

I’m very vintage-eclectic with a touch of modern. My outfits have been so inspired by all the vintage pieces in the store; they add so much personality to the overall aesthetic. (Follow our 77 Wooster board on Pinterest for more behind the scenes snaps).

(A one-of-a-kind turtle magnifing glass at 77 Wooster.)

Reading anything good right now?

I hate to say it, but Instagram has taken over my reading time! Every moment I would usually read a book; I find that I’m picking up Instagram and reading through the posts, and adding to them! We even installed Instagram screen savers on the in-store computers that pull from DwellStudio's feed.

Any other iphone app obsessions?

Google Translate and Emoji Texting—they just bring smiles to people’s faces!

Make sure you say hi to Mishel when you stop the DwellStudio Flagship. And tag us #77Wooster in your Instagrams, so we can see your favorite finds!

Related Posts:

DwellStudio's Guide to SoHo

DwellDialouge with... Meyer's Davis Studio

DwellStudio Store Opening Party

Behind the Scenes of our Street Art for 77 Wooster

Just before the store launch, we managed to snag a few moments with our awesome architects to chat about the design process behind the DwellStudio Flagship store…

Meet Gray Davis (R) and Will Meyer (L) of Meyer Davis Studio.

Tell us about your relationship with DwellStudio and Christiane.

GRAY DAVIS: We originally met Christiane and Josh when we helped them with their loft in soho. They just have a great energy about them. We had a lot of fun working with them on that project, and when they needed to expand we ended up helping them on the design of their new DwellStudio offices here on 6th Avenue as well. It's a really natural team effort with them. Their aesthetic and our aesthetic mesh well together.

WILL MEYER: We've developed a long term relationship with them. We're always recommending DwellStudio textiles and products to our clients, and they have used us to design their apartment and their beach house, so this has been the natural next step. We do a lot of specialty retail design.

(View of the DwellStudio flagship from Wooster Street.)

What was the overall concept for the space?

WM: We do Oscar de la Renta's stores and the John Varvatos stores—which have very different atmospheres, but they are very specialty environments. For Oscar's stores, his sales environment represents his personality and for John Varvatos who is this rock-n-roll personality—we wanted that to come across in the retail environment. With DwellStudio it was really important to have their personality and sensibilities speak through the design.

(Overview of retail space.)

GD: I think one of the things that's important to create in a store's retail environment is to have it feel like a real residential environment. When you go into a lot of stores and see product lined up you don't really get a sense of how the things will feel in your home. That is one of the things we worked hard on—to design the space with nice lighting and good finishes so that the space has an authentic residential quality. That's one of the things that will really set the DwellStudio store apart—that the store feels more like a home with the beautiful Farrow and Ball finishes on the door and the lacquer and brass detailing and the mixing of all the different metals and these vitrines that we've had custom made that are based on vitrines that Christiane had found in Paris and then we had them custom made.

(One of the custom-made vitrines.)

WM: Everything in the store is custom made—it's all functional. There's a real beauty to the design. The details of the space were really thought out. If you look at the DwellStudio collection, it's referential to many different periods. One of our goals was to really let that come across in the store.

GD: It's very tailored, very timeless.

Any interesting anecdotes from the design process?

WM: It was really pretty smooth—we really like working together—it's just fun. We have a lot of the same design values, and there's a real harmony there.

(Inspiration board for the store layout.)

GD: Typically when you're working with someone on the design of their house or store or restaurant, a lot of the effort is getting them on board with your concept, but with Josh and Christiane and Jen you're already on board and you can really focus on fine tuning all the details.

WM: When you're in tune with each other, you leap frog that whole initial concept, and you immediately go into the meaningful and tactile details that will make store timeless.

(Custom-made counter and hand-sewn upholstered wall.)

GD: Working with them and with them being so design-savvy, you can really push the envelope and take more risks than you would normally. You really want to create this store that's unlike another store, and I think thats what was really fun with this project—the amount of risks that we were enabled to take. We did all these really dark finishes to get it to look very luxe. They would throw out an idea, and we would pick up and run with it, or we would throw out something, and they would tweak it to their aesthetic. It was a really fun process. It's just a really nice relationship.

We're very excited about out new Soho address (77 Wooster!). How does the location of a space inspire and influence the design?

GD: It's in this beautiful, old iron facade loft-like building. It's kind of that classic Soho building and some of the elements had been really stripped down. We added a brick wall to bring back that sort of loft-like feel with the original tin ceilings—we repaired them and added new lighting but we wanted to be respectful of the type of lighting that you might have seen in that space originally—with industrial looking lights. We brought in more modern layers by having the lights lacquered with this high-gloss finish, so there's this juxtaposition of the industrial feel with these really nice finishes.

(Products displayed in the window.)

WM: The design of the store is very respectful to DwellStudio's aesthetic and marries well with the design of all their furnishings.

(Dark shelving with gold accents.)

Tell us about how you find inspiration.

WM: On our travels—we have projects all over the world, and we so we travel all the time. We get to see and have exposure to a lot of different environments.

GD: In Hong Kong you might see something, or if you're in some great little shop in Belgium you might see some beautiful finish or a quirky piece, and your mind just starts spinning. You can really jump off from there.

Thank you Meyer Davis Studio for taking the time to chat with us... We love our Soho shop on 77 Wooster!

On creating a relaxed vibe while entertaining

I always try to involve friends and guests in the meal preparation. It’s tempting to plan the food to come out of the oven the minute they arrive, with a pre-set table and ice in the glasses, but this feels more formal and stiff to me. Most people enjoy having something to do while talking and catching up – it breaks the ice. We do this with our Kinfolk dinner series as well; everyone is given a task as they arrive (setting the table, opening wine, lighting candles) and it seems to immediately put them at ease as they help.

Springtime Dishes

The menu should definitely evolve with the seasons and reflect what is available at the time and the dishes that will feel appropriate. These are a few of my recent favorites that seem suitable for spring.

Shaved Fennel Salad

Blood Orange, Prosecco & Thyme Sorbet

Classic Pesto

Go-To Table Setting

Low glass tumblers, plain white or ivory cloth napkins, well-used candles, and sprigs of rosemary.

Current Literary Inspirations

I’ve been reading Bringing It to the Table by Wendell Berry as inspiration for our next volume of Kinfolk, as well as keeping up with a few of my favorite magazines: Smith Journal, Anthology, and Monocle.

And make sure to check out Kinfolk’s current issue—a beautiful tome on everyday entertaining!