Sean Scherer’s Vignettes

Designer, collector, and proprietor of the contemporary curiosity shop Kabinett & Kammer, Sean Scherer shares his secrets for composing vignettes of favorite objects, showing creative ways to incorporate both cherished possessions and flea-market finds

How do you make your home come alive with personality, charm, and memory? In the introduction to Sean Scherer’s first book, Kabinett & Kammer: Creating Authentic Interiors, Anderson Cooper writes, ＂Scherer has a unique ability to place otherwise ordinary objects in a completely unexpected context or grouping and in so doing change the way you see them.＂

In this new book, Scherer focuses in on the art of combining common objects into aesthetically pleasing groupings, or vignettes. Contending that a vignette can set the whole mood and tone of a room, he shows you how to use any surface in your home, from a tabletop to a bookshelf to a wall, to create lively displays of your favorite items. Beautifully illustrated with Scherer’s own photographs, the book demonstrates how to balance color, texture, and shape, and provides lessons on how to create both symmetrical and asymmetrical vignettes. Whether you are an inveterate collector or just interested in giving expression to your unique taste, Vignettes shows you how to group the items you love in ways that can have a big impact on your interiors.

Sean Scherer, the author of Kabinett & Kammer: Creating Authentic Interiors, which has acquired a cult following, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 2002, he moved to the Catskills, where he opened Kabinett & Kammer, a contemporary curiosity shop of antiques, natural wonders, and art that serves as a visual medical, botanical, and zoological design resource. His shop and design work have been featured in the New York Times, the Detroit News, Country Living, the Sunday Times (UK), and elsewhere. For 15 years, Scherer taught art history and design at the State University of New York at Oneonta. He now teaches Domestika’s online course Composition and Styling for Interior Design. He lives in Franklin, New York.