Noel Wiggins of Areaware on Areaware’s 22 Years and its Closing
In February this year, the beloved museum-store staple Areaware announced that after 22 years of selling design-focused objects, they would be closing in May. A recent Fast Company article delves into the reasons for shutting down, the challenges of Areaware’s business model, tariffs, and more. As a longtime fan, I wanted to talk with Areaware’s Noel about the objects, artists, and their role in museums and museum stores.
Adam Rozan: Hi, Noel. I’m excited to be talking with you, but of course, sad to do so under these circumstances.
Noel Wiggins: Hi Adam, lovely to chat. The museum stores have always been our main focus! Our first business, Harmony Ball, was started in 1991 and we got our first big break by getting into the esteemed and juried Museum Show section of the NY Gift Show.
AR: What was the impetus for you and Lisa Yashon to create Areaware in 2005, and where does the name come from?
NW: The original name concept came from our first Creative Director, Ross Menuez. He had just come back from a stint at IDEE in Japan and loved the vibe of Japanese Anglo neologisms. The original name was “Are Aware” — as in awareness. So many people kept saying AREAWARE that the name stuck!
AR: When you met someone new, how did you describe Areaware and the types of objects you all created?
NW: We originally described ourselves as a New York design collective. A few years later we put it this way:
“AREAWARE is a Williamsburg, Brooklyn based producer of everyday objects that are functional and unusual. Our goal is to create thoughtful products that inspire an emotional response. We like to think we have a good sense of humor and that our objects are poetic. We wish to create a forum for young and local talent and together become a strong voice for American design.”
AR: What was Areaware’s first product, and what was your first collection?
NW: Our first products were Fauna pillows, designed by Ross Menuez, made in a factory on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Ross had been doing a print show in Tokyo in early 2004, and by early 2005 they were in production with us. Our first collection debuted at ICFF in May 2005 and NYNow in August 2005 with products by Ross Menuez, Harry Allen, Jonas Damon, Jason Miller, and Patrick Townsend.
AR: I have some personal favorites — Harry Allen’s banana bowl, Allen’s My Brother’s Picture Frame, Patrick Townsend’s Orbit Chandelier, and Josh Owen’s menorah, to name a few. What are some of yours?
NW: Twenty-two years of objects and you want me to pick? I’ll say this — the ones I still think about are the ones that made people laugh before they understood what they were looking at. That combination of surprise and recognition — that’s the sweet spot we were always chasing.
AR: Many of Areaware’s designs are included in museum collections, including Owen’s Menorah, which is part of the collections at the National Museum of American Jewish History and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. What are some of the other items that are now part of museum collections?
NW: I’m not sure of the full picture, but these have been confirmed:
| Product | Designer | Museum |
|---|---|---|
| Reality series (Pig Bank, etc.) | Harry Allen | Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) |
| Reality series | Harry Allen | Brooklyn Museum of Art |
| Reality series | Harry Allen | Denver Art Museum |
| Reality series | Harry Allen | Philadelphia Museum of Art |
| Menorah | Josh Owen | Philadelphia Museum of Art |
| Menorah | Josh Owen | Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester |
| Menorah | Josh Owen | National Museum of American Jewish History |
AR: That’s extraordinary. To the best of my knowledge, no catalog or book exists, and there hasn’t been an exhibition on Areaware. Is that correct? And is there a full list or complete collection anywhere?
NW: That’s right — we’ve never had a catalog or a dedicated exhibition, which is one of the things I’m most proud of finally addressing. We’ve just put together an archive site — a really cool way to see all the work in one place for the first time: areaware-archive.com
AR: How many museum stores carry your products? And what role has Areaware played in museum stores?
NW: We’ve sold to over 300 museums around the world. The key role that museum stores offer is salient curation — a distillation of the ideas and trends that each museum is highlighting. They are ever-building bridges between art and commerce.
AR: Can museum stores perform the role that you all have? If yes, how so? If not, why not?
NW: The key role that museums offer is salient curation. What makes museum stores so magical is that they offer a distillation of the ideas and trends that each museum is highlighting. They are ever-building bridges between art and commerce.
AR: What advice do you have for museum stores, especially as shopping has shifted online?
NW: I love this quote from Simone Weil:
“The authentic and pure values — truth, beauty and goodness — in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object.”
As curious and vigilant beings we are always in an attention economy — but our attention has been atomized and gamed by the multiplicity of ever-smaller packets of information. Museums and libraries are contemplative and sacred spaces. The stores can function as an outbreath, a way to remember the experience.
Some ways to further in-real-life engagement: artist signing events, signed books and catalogues, limited editions only available on site, an espresso bar and seating, one-of-a-kind offerings. Things that make you feel like an insider.
AR: What makes for a good museum store?
NW: The curatorial vision of the buyer, and how well it resonates with the museum’s mission. The two have to be in conversation.
The best buyers have a strong “no.” Anyone can say yes — the edit is where the vision lives. And they hold things in productive tension: functional and surrealist, utilitarian and poetic. That friction is what makes a collection feel alive rather than decorative.
What’s particular about the museum context is that visitors arrive already primed — they’ve just had an experience. A great buyer meets them at that level. They’re not stocking a gift shop; they’re extending the conversation of the institution into objects people can take home.
Which is exactly what Areaware was doing all along — and this gets at something I think is central to what we actually were.
The alchemy was in the overlap. Most of the design world occupies one side or the other — galleries curate but don’t manufacture; factories manufacture but don’t curate. We sat in the space between, and that position changed what was possible.
Because we made things ourselves, the curatorial act had real consequence. Saying yes to a product meant committing to tooling, production runs, inventory — there was skin in the game in a way that sharpens the eye considerably. Our “no” cost us nothing, but our “yes” cost us everything. That financial reality made the edit honest.
But the deeper thing was what we could do with an idea that wasn’t finished yet. A curator in a gallery selects completed work. We could find a sketch, a prototype, a half-formed instinct — and bring it into being. We were collaborators in the making, steering the brief, the material, the scale — not just gatekeepers approving finished proposals. That’s closer to what a record label does for a musician than what a store does for a product.
The pig bank is the best example. Harry Allen had the concept — casting real objects in resin, letting their natural forms generate something unexpected. We had the manufacturing infrastructure to execute it precisely, and the distribution to put it in front of the right audience. Neither the idea nor the object would exist as it does without both halves working together. The museum collection is the result of that whole chain — concept, craft, and curation as one act.
AR: Thank you. That’s really helpful to understand. After May 1, what happens to Areaware? What’s next for you?
NW: We are in talks with a wonderful company who we believe will propel Areaware to new heights and continue the tradition of publishing totemic objects for the next generation. As for me — I’ve spent most of my working life believing that the right object, in the right hands, could bring magic. My next chapter is to go back to making things with my own hands.