A Whole Mood

Boutique company adds high drama to home design

When it comes to the design arts, two heads and hearts can be better than one, a happy discovery by Tony Bayles and Chris Tinkler that has led to one of Asheville’s most unique design studios, The Bear and Otter Company. Launched just last spring with a colorful website, designed by Tinkler, and a physical presence at Marquee in the River Arts District, the company specializes in repurposed home-décor items, from salvaged chairs wrapped Christo-like in fabric to the company’s line of whimsical lighting. 

“Chris and I are thoughtful to the creation of ‘home,’” says Bayles. “Our goal is to assist in your reimagined space with objects already owned and loved, while selectively incorporating new pieces to create a cohesive environment.”

Both men bring a long history in the arts to the business. Tinkler is a well-known director and lighting designer for the Tryon Little Theater and other community theater groups. “Theater helped me develop storytelling through design,” Tinkler says. “I’ve always put an emphasis on lighting in my shows, and I love setting a mood and invoking emotions through lighting.” 

Retail experience stretches back even further, to Tinkler’s native Raleigh, where his mother owned and ran an antiques mall for which Tinkler created display-booth designs and helped manage the business.

Bayles, although a Louisiana native, experienced the local mountains before he was even born. “My first trip to the Blue Ridge was in my mother’s womb,” Bayles notes, “with a view on top of Mount Mitchell. After growing up in northern Louisiana and living and working all over the country, I feel like I’ve come home.” During those years working and traveling, Bayles racked up nearly 30 years of design experience, from conceptual designs for resorts to the nuts-and-bolts details of landscaping, specialty finishes, and interior remodeling for a multitude of private and corporate clients.

It was one of his interior-design projects that may have planted the seed for the Bear and Otter Company — a renovation of a family home in Indiana during which, Bayles recounts, “I took an existing space and unpacked family items, and created a new look with existing items added to new components, to create a fresh new look.” Bayles’ and Tinkler’s company carried on that concept with a full line of repurposed furniture and accessories, their whimsical lamps being a highly visual example of this place-centric upcycling.

Sourced from antique malls, estate sales, private collections and found objects, the lamps are either refashioned for the same purpose, or disassembled into individual components for other pieces. “We think the lamps are attractive to someone who appreciates handcrafted objects,” Tinkler says. “The lamps are equally at home in antique-filled rooms or as an object in a contemporary setting.” 

Many of the lamps incorporate fabric or other embellishments, like the “Party in the Jungle” lamp  where a colorful fabric roof shades a collection of antique green stone animals adorned with necklaces of Czech glass beads. The Maxwell lamp sheds soft light on an antique glazed ceramic dachshund under a fringed fabric tree, from which dangle hand-painted wooden beads.

The variety of materials the pair uses for their creations would fill an entire other store. Anything from carved shells, bits of antique teacups, even fish bones can turn up in the inventory. The “A Day at the Seaside” lamp sprouts a crown of seashells from the top of an antique glass shade; “Lavender Dreams” features carved soapstone, carved shells, and glowing amethyst crystals artfully arranged on a vintage fabric-covered base. 

But the future of the company may lie with more than its signature line of handcrafted items. “The Bear and Otter is a foundation for further ventures in our collective future,” Bayles says. 

“Our future is to evolve into an artists’ co-op, where artists from different disciplines can come together to share ideas and collaborate on larger projects,” he says.

The Bear and Otter Company, Asheville. Check out the latest creations at thebearandotter.com or at the company’s display booth at Marquee, 36 Foundy St., River Arts District,  marqueeasheville.com, @thebearandotterco on Instagram.