As a design and architecture journalist for over two decades, I’ve covered quite a large number of product launches by American furniture manufacturers and I enjoy the fact that I have figured out how to put such a creative spin on them.

In This Side of Paradise, I used Michael Berman’s Califolio Collection for Theodore Alexander as the backdrop for a young F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. I imagined Zelda draped across the chic daybed and F. Scott seated at the desk working on one of his manuscripts.

In The Soul of Great Leaders, I wrote about a vignette in the Norwalk showroom at High Point, which had as its central visual a large-scale photograph of a wizened Native American chief in a feathered headdress, memories of the years I’d spent on the reservations of South Dakota and Alaska were sparked by it. In What is Art? I use the art criticism of Leo Tolstoy as a jumping off point to talking about design as art, the post presenting new products by Currey & Company and its founder, who was up for an arts award. This is but the tip of the iceberg so I hope you’ll stop by The Diary of an Improvateur to see other American furniture manufacturers I’ve featured.