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Photos by Natalie Puls
The places we come from shape us: our work, our perspectives, our values, even our aesthetics all reflect our points of origin. This month on Making It, inspired by Winona’s journey to her birthplace and namesake, Winona, MN, we’ll be exploring what home means to some of our customers, and how the places they’ve come from have shaped the projects they’ve brought to life on Squarespace.
con-lo COMMON offers botanical items and experiences, from fire-starting bundles to corporate craft experiences to custom wedding favors. Founders Julie Connell and Allison Schultz are inspired by the natural treasures they find hiking in the high desert of the Pacific Northwest.
“We share a deep connection to our home-town through the wild land that surrounds where we live and the expanse of Great basin sagebrush that covers it. The Cascade Mountains provide our daily backdrop, offering up prolific sagebrush, ancient juniper, towering pines, fragrant cedar, ubiquitous yarrow. This is our canvas and inspiration. With a pair of clippers in hand, our little company began with this love of the botanicals that grow in these high deserts of Central Oregon, remaining the foundation of every single product we offer. The creations we design at con-lo COMMON, are driven by the inspiration of this natural landscape.
As sisters, we work closely together in building our brand, products and goals as a business. We forage outside to connect with nature, often dragging our packs with us: sometimes children, dogs and husbands in tow, more often than not, foraging alone. We get outside to go inward and process. To connect and feel closer with each other and our community. And then we come inside to our workshop studios and outwardly create and make beautiful expressions of our experiences and surroundings.
No scent grounds us to home more than that of sage, be it in our daily smudging rituals, added to our evening fires or the way the air smells after a fresh rain, we are immediately grounded to our familiar sense of belonging in this wide world as soon as it hits us.
Not only does sage play a role in our product offerings, but it also defines our connection to our community. We take this shared appreciation for this botanical and infuse it with purpose, beauty, intention, meaning and a conduit for connection. Being able to hear the stories and feedback on how people have used what we have foraged is truly a beautiful thing. Marking life moments - celebrations, births, deaths, restarting after a divorce, sending love and intention to a friend battling cancer…. Seeing how people respond and interact with what we’re creating has been the greatest gift.” – Julie Connell and Allison Schultz, founders of con-lo COMMON
