I love living in a rust belt city. Immigrants from Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Poland and Italy came to Chicago for over a century-and-a-half to work in industrial factories sprouting up from the prairie and along the river banks.

Miller Vintage allows me to collect the things that were made and used by these immigrant families. I typically seek out the utilitarian and practical in garages, attics and workrooms and pick out things like wire racks, salvaged hardware and wooden pulleys from the 1860s to 1960s. Sometimes I connect with an object from a parlor room, sewing room or pantry so there are also a few yards of fabric or a small tray peppered throughout Miller Vintage. Whatever the pieces may be, I like to think of them all as "domestic relics" form the homes of Chicago's immigrant families.

Most of the industrial jobs in Chicago were gone by the 1970s and there are thousands of acres of vacant brick factories falling down but some are lucky enough to find themselves adapted for commercial reuse. I live in a loft that was originally built as the Chicago Boiler Company and was rumored to also have once been a license plate factory where Cook County prisoners were bused in daily. The Lagunitas Brewery opened a new distillery in a former steel distribution warehouse the size of a football field. One of the largest data storage centers in the world is housed in an old one million sq. ft. printing house- a 1912 historic landmark building. Immigrants still come to work in these new industries and the history of the city continues to frame itself around us.