I’ve been a fan of decoupage artist and entrepreneur John Derian forever or what seems like it: since I bought my first piece at a little Marblehead shop named C’est la Vie, which is still very much up and running. And then I bought more glass trays: most from this same shop but I also took pilgrimages to his stores in New York City and Provincetown. Thanks to his collaborations with Target, I was able to obtain even more of Derian’s rediscovered prints, covering utilitarian objects like storage crates, coffee cups, and jewelry boxes. Beautiful stationery that I can’t even bring myself to use. So now there’s probably something Derian in every room in the house (except for those inhabited exclusively by my husband and stepson) but despite his omnipresence in my life I somehow never knew that it all began in Salem for John Derian! I knew he was from Massachusetts, Watertown in particular, but not until I read the forward to an engagement diary which my parents gave me for my birthday last week did I realize that a few colorful prints found at the Canal Street Flea Market in Salem in 1983 inspired his whole brilliant career!

Colorful nineteenth-century floral prints found in a box of broken-up antique books and loose papers at a flea market in Salem, Massachusetts. I’m pretty sure this was the Canal Street Flea Market, which was before my time: I checked with Salem’s chronicler of record, Jim McAllister, to see if he had an image but no luck. This was a rather famous flea market though—I can remember hearing about it when I started poking around in markets a bit later than this—so I can understand how it might have drawn Derian up from Watertown. His description of how he was struck by the “power” of these particular images resonates with me completely—I’ve felt that power time and time again on my hunts. How impressive to be able to turn that reaction and appreciation into a decorative arts empire—and how neat that I can add this empire to the increasingly-long list of things that started in Salem.

John Derian around the house–not an exhaustive portfolio!