Tara and Jeff spend each day whipping up batches of organic walnut sage and fennel orange concoctions – not in their gourmet kitchen, but in their apothecary studio in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. This creative duo (who met in art school) aren’t chefs, they’re the producers of meow meow tweet – a line of sweet and sassy organic candles, soaps and other botanical beauty items packed in adorably hand drawn and eco-responsible packaging.
We took a peek inside their small, but charming studio where all the jasmine and rosehip, geranium and basil magic happens and to find out what keeps these artisans healthfully happy and inspired.
Favorite object on my desk:
Our solar paw-waving good luck cat.
Daily necessity:
Vegan multivitamin and B12.
To get the creative juices flowing:
I tend to our growing plants at home and in our Bushwick studio, and arrange our rock collection. Nature is a really important to us and we spend a lot of time outdoors, so we just put the finishing touches on a camper’s kit designed to make our time in the woods even better.
Favorite morning of the week:
We are morning people, so we love every morning.
At 10:00 a.m., I am usually in the studio, elbows deep in creating a batch of products to send to customers.
My favorite current project is...
Perfumery and home record cutting.
My favorite workbooks/paper goods:
Jeff – Silver faux snake-skin textured sketchbook. Tara – Loose, miscellaneous found papers that get masking taped into my black, plain-paged moleskin, plus a pocket-sized moleskin for recipe development.
Soundtrack in the studio:
MTV’s “120 Minutes” from the ’90s.
Most common visitor:
Carlos, our friendly UPS guy.
The snack we always keep on hand:
Nuts, nuts, nuts – and chocolate.
Easiest way to brighten up the space:
Cats. We have two cats, who make up the two “meows” in our name.
Favorite way to spend the lunch hour:
Picnicking
Favorite design neighbors:
Tugboat Print Shop (handmade woodblock prints).
My necessary extravagance:
Fancy bike parts, guitars, houseplants, and fruit smoothies.
My top distraction:
Snacking.
Books always in studio:
Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Trees, Time Life Northern Woods Series, Robert Smithson’s collected essays, Jorges Luis Borges’ Poems of the Night, Light Boxes by Shane Jones, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and anything Murakami.
Organizational item I can’t live without:
Dry erase board for brainstorming, and Google shared calendars to make sure we’re both on time.
