Featured Artists

I am a big believer that we all have different strengths, and while it is important to push yourself to learn new skills, it is just as important to know when it’s best to work with others that know more than you do. The following are some of the artists I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with.

Danielle Robertson

Danielle Robertson has been the photographer for my homes/projects since 2020. Meeting her was what helped launch Manifest Home in March of 2020. While my path with the Manifest Home business initially was focused on clients/helping others, it turned out that I was meant for a few more real estate deals for our own family.

Each time I get to work with Danielle I’m inspired and have so much fun.  I stage and design on my own, then enjoy the back and forth with her, then step away and let her re-work to do her magic. 

The photos of my current home were taken in November 2024, more than a year after we moved in.

One of Danielle’s talent is being able to capture the life of a home. During the shoot, Max (our youngest rescue), wanted in with the fun and jumped on the bed, then proceeded to jump on each bed and pose. Eventually I tossed on a bowtie I had bought him and a flower on Daisy (our almost 14-year-old rescue) to continue with the shoot. Danielle makes this work effortlessly fun.

Michael Coyne

Working with Michael is one of those, “if my mom could see me now” moments. For her to see that I not only own art, but got to work with the artist, is amazing to me.  We got to discuss in terms what I was looking for – sunshine, light, ocean – and the back and forth discussing which of the aspects from his paintings I liked and then ultimately, to have the final product to look at and be awe of everyday.

I worked with Michael to choose the right frame, the size of the art, where in our home to hang it, even details down to the direction of the waves.

This experience taught me that being surrounded by beautiful, calming things, avoiding clutter, and following Fung shui really matters.

Birch Barn Designs

Matt met my husband, Chris, when they both were doing the Cohasset triathlon for the first time. After being introduced to his beautiful woodwork, I worked with Matt to first create a custom coffee table in an oval maple to pair with our dining table and kitchen in our Modern Farmhouse.

Then, in the Ocean View home, I worked with Matt to create the custom walnut shelves you see throughout our great room. The most important of these shelves was sized to hold the sailboat that my grandfather made. It has a 7’ mast and 4’ long and was sailed on the Charles River in Cambridge. When choosing new furniture for the great room, I found 3 small, round ottomans at BoConcept, where I also got a couch, and decided that small, walnut “coffee table” with waterfall edges could go over each to make the space very functional and flexible while beautiful.

Good Roots Boutique, Jen Murphy

I’ve never had a green thumb but inherited a Christmas Cactus that belonged to my Great-Grandparents. It was dying and not in the right pot. Jen came and transplanted it to the right container, and it is thriving!

I worked with Jen to choose the right plants for staging shelves in the Modern Farmhouse before we sold. Then, Jen helped to design and plant the landscape in the front of our new home. This home design was under considerable challenges due to the size constraints and location in a flood zone, so the house is tall. To bring the onlooker’s eye down when looking at the front of the house, I chose a beautiful dog wood tree then Jen suggested native, hardy, beautiful plants and trees that would be best for the environment.

Ian Garland Carpentry

I designed a kitchen hood and had a hard time finding someone to build it – eventually I found Ian through Matt with Birch Barn. Ian made the most beautiful, stunning hood out of walnut for our Ocean View kitchen. 

With our new home, the oval dining table I had designed before, did not fit the space as well as a round one would.  So, I went back to Ian. We both searched for the right base and after trial and disappointment, eventually found the right one. The table is made out of the same type of walnut veneer as the hood and its grain and beauty are perfection for the space.

At our second home in Scituate, we had 3 tall, straight black walnut trees die, I couldn’t stand to see those put in a chipper so I searched until I found someone in Hingham, MA who could mill them. After 3 years and about 3 moves of the 22, 8’ long boards we were able to collaborate on 2 gorgeous pieces. The first is a console table. Originally, the idea was to use the natural split in the wood as 2 legs on one waterfall edge to fit the right dimensions for a space in our entry/pool table room. Then, I got a call from Ian that while he was working on it, the wood exploded, and I needed to come see.  I was so nervous, but it was not nearly as bad as I had made out to be in my head.  We worked through it and decided to add black epoxy and bolts to get piece it back together. It really does fit the Japanese practice of Kintsugi – the idea that broken things can be repaired to be made more beautiful than they were before.

The other project I worked on with Ian is a stunning headboard that I designed to be built out 3” to hold the digeridoo that we bought in Australia 20 years ago. This headboard was going in my son’s room who was studying abroad in Australia at the time. Home design often brings you to full-circle moments, this was one of them. That digeridoo was purchased on a trip we bought using miles from the sale of our first home, and it was on this trip that I found out I was pregnant with my son.

Jess Curtis

I needed pieces to fill the open shelves in our home and I knew Jess’ ceramics were the organic and modern creations that would bring the room together, channeling natural and earth tones, Jess’ works fit well into the ethos of our home and company. We met and together discussed sizes, shapes and colors. But Jess took the ideas so much further; the finished pieces of art were even made with local sand from Minot Beach. 

The Pink Frame, Becky O’Toole

Art (along with staging) helps to sell a home. Working with Becky was a lesson in that and also in karma. In return for my volunteered time and for creating Scituate Education Foundation, Becky gave me a piece of art to keep while staging the Humarock home. When I asked her if she could create the right sized piece I needed for our stairs that opened to the great room, and a piece that aligned with the color scheme of the house, she created the most amazing work, which now hangs in our bedroom.  Then, when we bought a home in Waterville Valley, NH I knew that if it had an amazing large piece on one wall the rest of its 80’s construction would fade away. I painted the kitchen and another wall in a color coordinated with the piece, and Becky’s art really set the tone for the whole space.  When we listed the home, it sold in one weekend and the buyers wanted to include the art in the sale.  Through the negotiations we ended up agreeing to a price that allowed us to donate $5,000 to the Breast Cancer Foundation which wouldn’t have been possible without Becky’s art.

Kjeld Mahoney

Over the years, I’ve watched countless hours of HGTV shows, all the way back to Trading Spaces. One of my first celebrity designer love affairs was David Bromstad. Bromstad’s methods with color inspired me to try to paint big canvases to fill the space above our 10’ long mantel which had 4’ above to the 10’ high ceilings. I got 3, 3’by 2’ canvases and started to paint an abstract version of sky blue and sunset orangey yellow.

When I could finally afford real art, I was able to work with Kjeld to choose from his amazing catalog of photographs, ultimately settling on a photo of sunrise at Minot Beach in a blurred fashion that we then had printed on a triptych of metal was the perfect pieces to go over our mantel.

When we first moved to Scituate we went to a local fundraiser and bought raffle tickets, put them all in our baby’s name. He ended up winning an amazing piece of art by Sergio Roffo that we have been lucky enough to have in our home.