STYLE: DESIGN : Southern Comfort

Crafts from the South had been somewhat unknown in these parts--until recently, when movie publicist Beverly Walker opened Carolina Arts and Crafts, a retail store/gallery on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles specializing in crafts from the Southeastern United States. Objects hail from the mountainous regions of the Virginias, Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and that now-famous Southern state, Arkansas. The store features a rich array of traditional items, among them hand-whittled animals, fanciful brooms with carved handles, handmade quilts, rag rugs and authentically costumed folk dolls.

Among all these Southern wares, however, the real showstoppers are the sophisticated contemporary objects--delicate hand-blown vases, turned wooden vessels and hand-woven fiber vests.

And what’s so special about crafts? “You can feel the touch of the human hand,� Walker says.