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Herzfeld and Wife Launch EclecticWonders.com - Nov 19, 2004
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Call it funky folk art and that is fine with Bill and Michele Herzfeld. The couple has launched an on-line business called "Eclectic Wonders" from their Windsor Avenue home featuring items handcrafted by each of them, such as wind chimes and beaded jewelry.
One might assume that Herzfeld, who serves on the Windsor Board of Education, is a cerebral kind of guy. Turns out, he loves working with his hands and has his own workshop downstairs in their home. It is there that he creates some funky-looking "whimsical" stuff - replicas of bugs, crab spiders, Asian wasps, dragonflies, giraffe beetles and carpenter ants. Each one, Herzfeld insists, must be as authentic as possible salted with artistic interpretation. Herzfeld knows his handcrafted work is unusual but as far as he is concerned the uniqueness is the beauty of it.
"I wanted to call the business Alchemist Workshop but nobody would have known what it was." Herzfeld said during and October 29 interview in his home.
By the way, funky though they may be, many of Herzfelds creations are made from antique silverware dating back to the 1880s he said. He also collects industrial light bulbs and parts from old typewriters that metamorphose into the artsy insects. Proud though he may be of his work, Herzfeld said, he does not name the bugs. However, he keeps the prototypes. They are made also with small, old, recycled parts, some of pewter that are soldered and drilled.
"Everything is hand-made, with integrity," he said. After putting in 50-hour workweeks at his day job as a retail manager, Herzfeld often recluses to his workshop. Struck by an artistic inspiration, once he gets started on a piece, he sticks with it for three or four hours, sometimes late into the night - until it is done.
"I bring it upstairs, wake her up and ask what she thinks. We bounce ideas off each other," said Herzfeld.
Herzfeld also handcrafts key rings from antique silverware that he has "polished, buffed and cleaned." He makes bud vases and lovely wind chimes. On the day of this interview, some of the handcrafted chimes are hanging in the dining room, absorbing and filtering rays from the setting sun outside. They are a fanciful, pretty accent.
Herzfeld and his wife, Michele, love to browse antique shops and flea markets for finds each can use for their respective crafts. Michele Herzfeld handcrafts beaded jewelry.
"I pick a focal bead, then I think about it, thinking and thinking and I search for specific beads to create a piece," she said.
Unlike her husband, Michele Herzfeld, who works at the Caring Connection, confesses she does develop emotional attachments to the pieces she makes. It is hard to part with them and some she keeps.
"When I made, say, a new necklace, I like to wear it to work and not say anything and wait for people to notice."
Their on-line business is an outgrowth of their personal hobbies. Previously, the business was called "Victorian Design" but as their creations moved away from traditional designs, it evolved into "Eclectic Wonders," a name they ran by family and friends.
"It took a long time to come up with that name. We had to find something that we liked and that someone had not purchased," said Bill Herzfeld.
They launched the new name in March with a web site designed by a local woman, Paula Pierce. It was a few years ago that Herzfeld was spurred to start an on-line business, when a Windsor shop owner asked if she could sell some of his designs. His pieces can still be found at select shops in the area.
Michele Herzfeld grew up in Farmington. Meanwhile, Bill Herzfeld grew up next door from Windsor in Bloomfield.
"Bloomfield High School, class of 1970," he said. They met when she was a bank teller at a drive-up window in Newington and he was a regular customer.
"I got up the courage to ask her out, he recalled.
"I had my boss check him out," she said.
Apparently he passed muster. The couple moved from Newington to Windsor 15 years ago. They have one son.
"We were looking for more diversity in the population," said Michele Herzfeld.
"And, architectural diversity," added Bill Herzfeld, gesturing around their 100 year old house.
What is next?
Bill Herzfeld has just completed the prototype of an outdoor wind sculpture that stands on the back lawn. Eventually, the Herzfelds said they would like to move to Maine and open an in-house shop.
To find their goods, visit eclecticwonders.com.
Reprinted with permission of Windsor Journal. Article and pictures by Jacqueline Bennett
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