Shepherd's Hill
"Tender twisted threads plied of flax and silk
Stitch hearts that never grieve blooms that never wilt."
These gentle words found on a softly faded sampler beckon
you to the quiet world of Shepherd's Bush, a needlework haven
located in Ogden, Utah and nestled between the shores of the
Great Salt Lake and the beautiful snow-capped Wasatch Range of
the Rocky Mountains. Tina Richards Herman and her sister Teri
Lyn Richards opened their unique retail shop in 1984. This establishment,
a needle and folk art store, was named for a district of London
and is housed in a renovated 19th century blacksmith and carriage
shop in the heart of Ogden's historic district.
Joyful Christmas
From the wildflowers and cranberries hanging from the heavy
timber rafters, to the samplers and quilts adorning the worn
brick walls, from shelves stacked with fine linens and homespun
cottons, to the antique hutches brimming with hand-woven and
dyed splint baskets, this store evokes a memory and nostalgia
of a gentle life long past." By providing a complete and
varied selection of merchandise from many parts of the world
and by enhancing it with a warm, classical ambiance, we welcome
each customer into our shop and offer her respite from the world
outside," says Teri.
Better Not Pout
In 1987, with a thriving retail business and Tina's new baby
in tow, Teri and her sister launched their design business under
the name of Shepherd's Bush Printworks. As a student of German
history and literature at the University of Heidelberg, Tina
became inspired by the beautiful old tapestries and samplers
she found in the castles and museums of Europe.
French Heart
She began to explore that particular art form, enchanted with
the creative expression of color, fiber and design, eventually
melding it with her literary love for the written word. Tina
has refined her distinctive style even further in such recent
pieces as Emmanuel's Song, Queen Bee and French
Heart, which reflect her characteristic palette of muted
and unusual combinations of colors, her pensive poetry and her
charming "Earth People." "These little
persons who wander along the spaces of my samplers are the gentle
reapers of the earth. Once they may have been gypsies, but now
they have found homes where they must become part of the settled
world and its beautiful, yet mundane qualities," explains
Tina.
Earth Gatherer
The Earth Gatherer and Wool Gatherer are two
more patterns, which explore the soft and tender work of Tina's
Earth People. They also demonstrate Shepherd's Bush's subtle
and sophisticated incorporation of beads, ribbons, tiny pearl
buttons and silver charms with the needlework.
My Earth
The Printwork's publications to date include a line of cross
stitch leaflets and a series of stitching cards which evoke the
natural splendor of the English countryside where Teri and Tina
spent time as children with their grandmother. They also produce
a series of samplers worked on linens, which Teri dyes, by hand
in the yard at the rear of the shop.
Winter
Their offerings also include a delightful assortment of needleroll
kits, reminiscent of those found in gentle sewing baskets of
centuries past, as well as an exquisite group of larger samplers
geared for the stitcher who is ready to venture beyond cross
stitch. "We have tried to combine our quiet contemplative
designs with antique stitches and needlework forms. We hope that
we have created something unique and beautiful, awakening some
old and forgotten stitching techniques, yet providing a finished
sampler which is at once very modern and unpredictable,"
explains Teri.
Summer
All portions of this expanding business are located within
the same building; the front half devoted to the retail store
and the back half used primarily for the design business. "Little
did we know eighteen years ago we could have ever filled up this
big building," muses Tina.
Wandering Shepherd
A high-ceilinged sun-lit office space once made room for a
crib, a wooden tricycle, and now, an Indian wool carpet is always
sprinkled with Legos and Nintendo games/ A once spacious storeroom
is now bursting with bolts of linen, cones of silks and cottons,
boxes of books and shelves weighed down with kits. And a quiet
elegant classroom now bustles on any given day with the hum of
computers, kit assembly or new pattern designing All aspects
of the busy retail and wholesale business are managed by the
two sisters who are assisted by a "wonderful, loyal and
untiring staff of women, without whom we would be lost,"
both Teri and Tina concur.
Santaberry Pudding
Teri believes she lives at Shepherd's Bush and Tina lives
with her patient and supportive architect husband, Robert Herman,
their fourteen year-old son, Peter, and nine year-old son, Christian.
Both women enjoy spending their free moments traveling, puttering
in the garden and kitchen, but mostly sitting on the Adirondack
chairs on the front lawn, watching after a new puppy, talking
and drawing or stitching new designs.
Wool Gatherer
For Teri and Tina, that gentle quiet world, which is just
a remote nostalgic memory of times long past for many, is mostly
how these two sisters choose to live their lives; concentrating
on the ordinary but ultimately most rewarding pleasures of family
and friendship, home and hearth and using their talents and imagination
to create beautiful things that they still fashion by hand. It
all just runs in their blood.
Winter Moon
Teri Richards and Tina Herman
Shepherd's Bush
220 24th Street
Ogden, Utah 84401
Phone: (801) 399- 4546
Fax: (801) 399- 5097
Website: http://www.shepherdsbush.com
