• Some of our best pieces are found in western Chinese farmhouse storage rooms—kind of like grandma’s attic. Light from vents in the roof make for dramatic photos as well.
• Our main offices are in Qinghai province, in the western part of China on the edge of Tibet. Incredible faces such as this gentleman abound throughout the region.
• These primitive red cupboards make beautiful side tables. In July 2008, we collected this pair in a village in Huangzhong County, Qinghai province, on a lovely cool rainy day.
• The family and the family kitchen cabinet . . . this piece is probably only 80 years old, but I love the hutch top and the great colors.
• A truck full of beautiful pieces headed to our workshops for refurbishing. . .
• A very unusual storage box found in 2003 in a small village, Huangzhong County, Qinghai Province.
• On a perfect summer day, this Tibetan monk provided a great image while sitting on a grassy mountain pass between Pingan and Hualong Counties, Qinghai.
• Minhe County, Qinghai Province. We collect a lot of incredible trunks and hutches from this region that is mostly inhabited by Hui Muslims.
• My daughters love to go on collecting trips with me. Here my third (of four daughters!) Abigail is picking some canola oil flowers, which blanket Qinghai fields like a patchwork quilt in the summer.
• This Salar Muslim village includes a 500+ year old mosque. It will soon be under water when a large reservoir fills the Yellow River valley where it sits.
• Hay bails in Linxia Prefecture, Gansu Province. We get a lot of great low consoles and grain storage cabinets from this region.
• Tibetan architecture has fabulous textures and colors. The image of this beautiful, simple doorway was taken at Taersi Monastery, just 30 minutes from our head offices.
• This two storey house (Huangzhong County, Qinghai) is a great example of how many of the carved architectural fragments and screen windows that we have are used.
• Most farmhouses in Qinghai have high adobe mud walls surrounding them. The color of the walls usually indicates the age of the buildings and furniture inside.
• Farmer in Huangzhong County, Qinghai Province.
• A Tibetan monk and pilgrim walking around Labrang Monastery, Gansu Province, summer 2007.
• A solitary Tibetan monk standing in a doorway. Taersi Monastery, Qinghai Province, Summer 2000.
• A Mongolian monk playing Chinese chess outside a small monastery in Huangyuan county, Qinghai Province, July 2008.
• A group of Tibetan pilgrims in the grasslands above Labrang Monastery, Gansu Province, July 1991.
• Frosted air hangs above a small village in Huzhu, a county just an hour away from our main offices that is home to the Tu minority, descendants of Mongolian invading forces.
• Three yaks graze high above the clouds in Huzhu county, winter 2007.
• Hay surrounds the doorway to a farmhouse, Huangzhong county, Qinghai province.