SALISBURY — A new series called Community Conversations and sponsored by the Scoville Memorial Library, the Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association (SVNA)and Salisbury Congregational Church, begins Sunday, Jan. 27, with a three-part series of workshops: “End-of-Life: Dialogues and Decisions.”The three sessions include a viewing of a documentary, “Consider the Conversation,” and use materials from The Conversation project, a program dedicated to helping people talk about their wishes for end-of-life care and to supporting families with making the often-difficult conversations easier.Sarah Zarbock, a hospice volunteer, said the three workshops will begin with a central question: “How do we get people to talk about it?”Scoville Library Director Claudia Cayne said the workshops will be conducted in a “more intimate setting,” which she hopes will make it easier for people to talk about sensitive issues.“It’s really about what you need to know so it’s how you want it to be — so it doesn’t just happen,” said Cayne.Donna DiMartino, hospice director for the SVNA, said the workshops will help people and families explore their options and make decisions before things reach the crisis stage.“Most people would like more autonomy” at the end of their lives, DiMartino said. “By sharing this information we have a better chance of making that happen.”“It’s valuable even if you have already lost a person,” said Zarbock. The information in the workshops is “something I can hand on.”“It’s not just a checklist,” said Cayne. Rather the workshops are designed to get people “to think about their responsiblities for this part of life — so it can be as good as it can be.”The Rev. Diane Monti-Catania of the Congregational Church sent her thoughts by email: “This is an initial effort by the three organizations to create a place for civil dialogue on difficult subjects. We are starting with end-of-life planning because it is a subject that affects everyone, and our collective experience has shown that early decision-making often alleviates inter-family crisis at a later time.”“The plans we leave our loved ones, in the end, are a gift to them,” said DiMartino.The series begins Sunday, Jan. 27, 3 to 5 p.m.; and continues Sunday, Feb. 10, and Sunday, Feb. 24, 3 to 5 p.m. The organizers stressed that it is not necessary to attend all the sessions to benefit from them.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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