In this week’s episode, interior designer Tara McCauley gives listeners an inside look at her practice, which she likens, curiously, to a travel agency. She says: “I like to think of myself like I’ve gone into the market and I’ve done the research and I’ve talked to the experts and the locals and I’m bringing you the best kind of experience you’re looking for.” She's also brought along a small splatter-painted box by artist Thomas Engelhart, a veteran of the houses of Mugler and Hermès. For his series of handmade objets d’art in the shapes of pyramids, platters, obelisks, and disks, Engelhart has taken inspiration from porphyry, a material prized by the ancient Romans and employed in the construction of monuments and tombs—just one more instance of the fertile cross-pollination between the arts of the past and the present.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices