By Michael Burke
RACINE – A visit to Downtown’s newest furniture store, Red Pony, is like a glimpse of India under Colonial rule.
The store at 202 Fifth St. is filled with antiques from India, primarily made between about 1880 and 1920.
The pieces represent the culture, spiritual beliefs and subjugation of that vast nation by Colonial Europe.
“Really, the purpose of the shop is to show people that there’s beauty in India,” said Red Pony co-owner Kate Cole Buffington. “It’s not all poverty.”
She and her silent partner in Red Pony – her fiancé, David Mitchell – are both well-acquainted with India. He lived there for three years in the 1970s. And, since the couple met last May 13, they have bought a home on India’s East Coast in the city of Pondicherry. They spend two months a year there.
Buffington, 60, was a registered nurse who is retired from Lake Forest Hospital in Illinois. Mitchell, 66, is a partner in a distribution company in Silver Lake. Both are now Kansasville residents.
“David, for many years, had wanted to open a shop,” Buffington said. “When we met, because I’m kind of creative, I said, `Oh yeah, let’s open a shop.’ ” So, having personal and business contacts in India, they bought their first shipping container of Indian
furniture.
There is a great deal of history built into the antiques of Red Pony. When imperialism was raging, the powers of Europe – notably the British, French, Portuguese and Dutch – had carved up the Indian subcontinent.
Later India shifted to British control, the period called the British Raj. “The arrogant Brits thought they could convert this `heathen’ country,” Buffington said.
During Colonial times, Europeans brought their furniture, in its various styles, to India. Some Indians also lived in Europe and brought back its furniture.
“So then the Indian craftsmen copied it,” Buffington said. As the Indians reproduced the pieces, they blended styles and added their own flourishes, often in the form of elaborate carvings. “The Indians mixed it all up,” Buffington said.
The Indians used teak, rosewood and the now extinct satinwood, she said.
“A lot of this has been sitting in warehouses for years,” Buffington said. Just recently, the descendants of the original owners have begun to sell the stored furniture.
“These are show-stopping pieces, most of them,” she said.
Because of their origins, the Red Pony pieces are priced as antiques. However, some items sell for less than $40, including carved rosewood elephants and carved jewelry boxes.
Some examples of the merchandise include: * An amazing, ornately carved door and door frame. Attached to the wood are numerous brass points, which were mounted to keep elephants from fiddling with the door, Buffington said.
* A teak secretary with many locking drawers. “The Indians were big on keys,” Buffington said.
* A temple dancer’s box, hand-painted with vegetable dyes.
* A neem, or massage, table.
* An elaborate prayer-door frame converted to a mirror frame.
* A camphor box.
* A rosewood dowry box.
* The Red Pony itself, for which the store was named. The carved wooden piece was a processional item that was placed on a cart and adorned with flowers during processions for weddings, funerals and the like.
Mitchell and Buffington plan to target decorators and designers who can find ways to settle the exotic furniture pieces into home decorating schemes. However, Buffington maintains that one doesn’t have to have an Indian decor to use one of these “show-stoppers.”
“I’m kind of an eclectic decorator,” she said. “I think you can put anything together.”
Red Pony is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
For more information, call (262) 498-4290.
