Just a few minutes down the road from Oxford is the Taylor Arts gallery owned by Marc Deloach and Christine Schultz. The gallery features furniture, paintings, jewelry and more, and the husband-and-wife team uses every resource available to bring their art to life.
“People come here and are inspired,” Schultz said.
The walls are lined with photographs and paintings done by Schultz, who cites rustic themes as her inspiration. Some of Schultz’s jewelry is sterling silver, but the bracelets and necklaces hanging on moose antlers fall into Schultz’s “rustic” category. One necklace has an iron skeleton key, while leather bracelets have little gears. Yet another necklace employs pieces of an old yardstick.
Everything on the jewelry table, including the moose antler, is recycled.
“I learned to hand-forge and hand-wrap it myself,” Schultz said of the silver bracelets.
Deloach’s area of expertise is creating furniture from salvaged wood. He made the shelf containing the wood blocks on which Schultz painted various countryside scenes. Pictures of the beds he has made and the magazines they have been featured in are displayed in the same room.
The gallery has been featured in numerous publications, including Southern Living, Mississippi Magazine, Delta Magazine and the Miami Herald.
Taylor Arts isn’t just a place for people to be inspired artistically, though; homes are furnished with the pieces, too.
“A lot of college students come here to look at these pieces,” Schultz said. “They’re always charmed, but a lot of them don’t buy right away. They come back, after they’ve graduated and started a family, and that’s when they buy in bulk.”
There is also a room of diverse items that Schultz calls “knick knacks,” for those who cannot yet afford a painting or furniture.
Perhaps the most popular of Schultz and Deloach’s treasures are their fish. Lining a wall in one of the rooms of the shop is a collection of brightly colored fish, each carved by Deloach and painted by Schultz. You can spot a “Nemo” and what could be the Rainbow Fish from the children’s book of the same name.
Schultz explained that every fish is unique because every carving and color combination is different. The fish are incredibly popular; they have clients who own collections of 30 and growing.
Taylor Arts may be a local studio, but its appeal is international. Schultz mentioned a friend of hers who spotted one of Schultz’s paintings in a English home.
“We send little pieces of ourselves all over the world,” Schultz said.
— Audrey Hall
audreyhall95@gmail.com
