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Jane Simonds, top right, has opened holistic wellness center Fusion Health in Canaan.

Fusion Health Brings Personalized Care

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
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CANAAN, Conn. — A new health and wellness center just over the border in Connecticut is offering physical therapy and holistic practices.

Owner and physical therapist Jane Simonds wanted to provide more help to her clients and make her services more accessible.

"I worked in outpatient therapy for about 15 years, and it was a grind, and I didn't feel like I was giving people the whole picture of what they needed," she said. "I just didn't feel like people were certainly getting better, but it just felt like something was missing. And so through that experience, plus my own, I started to find my way to this more holistic approach that I'm trying to educate people about and provide."

Her wellness center focuses on a patient's body as a whole rather than the one problem ailing them. 

"It is a health and wellness center that really targets helping people see their body from multiple angles and from all the possibilities that may be leading them to feel a certain way," Simonds said.

"So rather than someone having shoulder pain and only focusing on the shoulder, thinking about what other aspects of their life might be influencing, how that's feeling and their well-being, what nutrition, what role that's playing it, what their emotional health is doing, and how the pain affects those things in return."

Simonds has more than 20 years of clinical experience. Fusion Health offers physical therapy services, holistic life coaching, nutrition coaching, reiki, infrared and light sauna therapy, cryotherapy, cryosculpting and more. It also plans to offer salt cave halotherapy in the near future.

Some of the services offered may be covered by health insurance.

The center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; some services have personalized schedules.

Learn more about Fusion Health here.


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Pryor & Peacock's Whimsical Furniture Environmentally Friendly

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
 

The company uses digital printing to create the upholstery fabric, saving water and saving vintage furniture from ending up in landfills.

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — A unique furniture store has popped up on Elm Street this month.

Mom-and-daughter store Pryor & Peacock is hosting the pop-up storefront from Aug. 13 to Aug. 25 at 6 Elm. The New Marlborough business is co-founded by Rosalina Wright and Luca Shapiro, who is also the creative director. 

Their online shop was created in 2024 but they wanted people to see the pieces in person, so they're renting the space for a limited time before a long-term tenant moves in.

The store sources prints to create unique fabrics and reimagines vintage and antique furniture acquired at auctions, local shops, and online.

"We source prints from all over the world that date from the late 1600s up through mid-20th century, and Luca turns those prints into fabric by manipulating them, scanning them, oftentimes has to add or subtract things, and then we manufacture the fabric using only digital printing, which is very environmentally friendly, unlike traditional textile printing," Wright said.

Upholstering the furniture can take weeks of work. Shapiro looks for the perfect design for each piece and, if need be, uses Adobe Photoshop to extend the art work to fit or enhance the print.

"One of the most difficult parts comes in marrying the fabric to a piece of furniture because we only use antique and vintage frames also to be earth friendly, and they're also more beautiful and durable than new furniture," Wright said. "So the image has to go with the furniture, so that takes a lot of work."

One of Pryor & Peacock's missions is to be environmentally friendly. Digital printing doesn't use the same amount of water as traditional textile productions do nor does it contaminate water with ink according to their website.

Not only are they saving water, but they are saving furniture from going into the landfill while also using more durable furniture that doesn't break as easily as current pieces. They started their business to create something unique and to help the environment together.

"It's creating something nobody else is doing. People can't continue to buy throwaway furniture. Six percent of American landfills is furniture, and digital printing not only opens up the possibility of being able to put unique images on a piece of furniture, but it also is, as I said, environmentally friendly. So, for us, the excitement is to take an old East Lake settee that somebody's going to store in their barn and forget about, and make it something completely new and surprising," Wright said.

They hope their furniture helps bring a pop of fun to someone's home.

"We think our furniture is very whimsical and surprising, and most furniture today is oatmeal colored couches and gray neutral chairs, and it's boring," she said.

The two named their business after their mothers' maiden names to honor them and believe the name reflects their pieces.

Shapiro works in interior design outside of the business and the two liked working together and thought it would be great to start a business together. Shapiro says they can work well together and that her and her mother, Wright, has flipped houses before and have the same eye for design.

"So it's very easy for us to work together. When we see something, generally we agree on whether it works or doesn't work on a piece. We agree on the color schemes and that sort of thing. So it's very fun and fulfilling to work together," Shapiro said. 

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