As he tells it, moving to the country was the beginning of exploration for Phil Warish. He was living and working in New York City when his partner began lobbying for a part-time country home.
“It was Vincent’s idea,” Warish said. “I was the one whining about the long drive and saying ‘I don’t want to do this every weekend.’”
After three years of hunting they found a farmhouse outside of Franklin. They did the weekend country thing for awhile.
Then Warish’s job as a graphic designer vanished. The company’s owner decided to close up shop. And Warish was faced with a choice.
“New York City is not the creative capital it once was,” he said, “and it wasn’t worth looking for another job when the work was so demanding and the pay was so low.”
He moved full=time to their country house outside Franklin in Delaware County full-time. Vincent, the one who wanted to live in the country, continues to work in the city, and commute home on weekends.
Warish describes living in a small town as a never-ending learning experience. “There are so many business and community roles for people in small towns to play,” he said. “These places may be small. They may look sleepy. But they’re not stagnant.”
Warish became a local business owner. In 2007 he hauled his 19th-century floorstanding Chandler Price platen press out of storage, where it had been for fifteen years. He arranged an eclectic collection of vintage items, put up a sign, and opened Blue Farm Antiques and Letterpress Printing. He’s been in his current location for six years.
“There was no room for me to explore these interests in the city,” he said. “It was the move to the country that gave me not only the mental space, but the physical space, to do it. It’s a grind in the city and there are extreme limitations.” He laughed. “I mean, how do you open a letterpress printing shop in New York City? It requires space. And space comes at a cost.”
Last year, Warish said he sold out of the 1400 holiday cards he designed and printed. He did a run of 2400 cards with a more somber palette during the Covid shutdown, which sold well. He’s preparing to print more holiday cards, and he’s now creating a line of notebooks which he machine-stitches.
The antique shop is doing well, too. Warish said he’s seeing a lot of newcomers since businesses reopened. He said it was just a few sluggish weeks until business was “surprisingly normal.” And then, he said, the summer brought a surge of new people.
“I don’t know how they find us,” he said. “But they’re so surprised, when they get here, that there’s anything.”
Warish began a no-negotiations policy with his pricing, instead, offering customers a choice of where ten percent of the purchase price would be donated. So far, he’s collected $928 for the Boys and Girls Club of Oneonta, $843 for the Franklin Stage, and $732 for the Garrett Smith Abolition Museum. He calls it economic activism. And he said it’s been a hit with his customers.
“They seem okay with not being able to negotiate. They’re still getting something off the purchase price – it’s just going to a good cause, and they get to choose which one.”
Warish is also active in the community. He does graphics and marketing strategy for the Franklin Stage. He heads the committee that organizes the Stagecoach Run Arts Festival in town every year. This year, the self-guided tour of local art studios had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.
“That’s a moral obligation to make sure that event continues,” he said.
Living in the country has also given him more room for his collection of West African tribal art. “Rooms in our house have been given over to that collection,” Warish said. “I think living here, with all this affordable place, has allowed me to indulge in a lot of interests. But people from the city still don’t get it. There’s this perception we’re in the woods fighting off bears.”
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