Two Hudson Valley Makers and Collectors Bring Original Dust To Newburgh (2024)

Walking into Newburgh’s newest antique shop, you'll see a table set with a Tiffany demitasse set and 1930s collectible hens on a nest. Textiles, teacups, and local art fill the 250-square-foot room. Original Dust, which opened the last weekend in September, specializes in “art, gifts, and curiosities.” Owners, Anna Bergin and Rachel Scher choose vintage items with lasting quality—well-loved pieces that can still be used for years to come.

The pieces that come in are all based on the notion of play and the childlike wonder. They represent things like whimsy, sweetness, harmony, and charm. “A person is made up of a lot of different parts. It would be cool to have that all [in the shop] but in a small amount,” says Bergin.

The name, Original Dust, was inspired by an old toy vacuum that Scher gifted to Bergin. Scher recalls saying “‘Look, this thing is full of original dust,’ meaning, from whoever used it last, like a little girl pretending to play housewife or whatever,” Scher says.

Bergin and Scher met through the teenage romance between Scher’s daughter and Bergin’s son who both attended Oakwood Friends in Poughkeepsie. After their kids broke up, the two moms remained friends. After a trip to the Newburgh Emporium, Bergin began to speak her idea of an antique shop into existence.

click to enlarge

photo courtesy of Rachel Scher

The vibrant colors of the shop are inspired by Mexican and French art.

It's not only antiques that shoppers will be able to find at the store. Local candles and bath items like soap will soon be available. Bergin and Scher find items everywhere from estate sales to arts dealers to their own collections. Scher plans to bring her library collection of books, and its dust, from her storage unit to the shop. Although local sourcing for the new-made products is important to both owners, Scher also looks beyond the Hudson Valley for vintage items. She says her Paris source, Jean Brolly, an antiques dealer, has given her guidance in her new business venture as well as antiques.

According to Scher two of their rarest items in the shops are from Brolly, one of which is a series of pre-Civil War daguerreotypes cased in an early form of plastic. He also gave them small sketches from 19th-century French artist Gabriel Biessy. “It's really interesting, because they connect with the shop in so many ways. They have a lot of children and dogs and cats playing,” she said.

This is a vision both owners share for the shop. “We're on a neighborhood street in Newburgh, so, you see these kids running around and the vision of them running in and grabbing a jump rope or a ball or something that they can use on the street would be pretty amazing to me,” Bergin says.

Bergin is also one of her own sources when it comes to the kid-friendly arts and crafts of the shop. She makes pipe-cleaner llama figurines to keep the younger crowd of the store engaged. “It's a place to explore our creativity, what we value. We're both parents, so I think there's a lot of things that stem from having had young children and now teenagers,” Scher says.

click to enlarge

photo courtesy of Rachel Scher

Scher and Bergin have been unofficially collecting for years.

The paintings on the wall are also Bergin’s. She's been painting for over two decades and went to art school at the University of Massachusetts. The two owners plan to switch the art out every six weeks to display as many local artists as possible.

Original Dust is also collaborating with local initiatives. Lonely Worm Farm is a farm and arts operation that has inclusive employment opportunities for disabled people. They have a wheelchair-accessible orchard, teach farming workshops, and grow lots of fruits and vegetables. The shop sells Lonely Farm “grief kits” put together by volunteers. The kits, filled with herbs, dried flowers, and a beeswax candle, help people heal in a grief journey. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the kits at Original Dust go back to Lonely Worm’s nonprofits arts and agricultural programming.

Both women recognize the potential issues of a brand new business in a residential area like Lander Street. “A gallery or a gift shop that is coming into an area that doesn't have a lot—that could be seen as gentrification, but it's something we're aware of we want to be mindful of,” Scher says.

With their collaborative goals, they hope to make connections with Highpoint Church Project, a former church repurposed as an entrepreneurial hub supporting Black women-owned businesses. “We want to really make that part of our project, to resist those forces of gentrification, or, let's say, to participate in anti-gentrification work.” Scher says.

Original Dust is open every weekend by appointment.

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Retail,
Original Dust,
Antiques,
Vintage,
Lonely Worm Farms,
Newburgh

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Two Hudson Valley Makers and Collectors Bring Original Dust To Newburgh (2024)

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