John Barlett is an award-winning fashion designer and a passionate animal activist. His has his own nonprofit dedicated to distributing funds to animal rescue groups. He is co-hosting an event at J.Seitz & Company on June 28 for The Little Guild, a no-kill shelter for abandoned or abused animals in West Cornwall. I live in Chelsea with my husband, John. We also have a home in Sharon. We have friends in Marbledale and have gone to visit many times over the years. We came up last spring to look for a possible place to rent but ended up buying a home close to Cornwall Bridge. We come up every weekend and always try to stay at least two days. Our favorite day is Monday; we do yard work and just try to enjoy the land. A lot of my work is now digital, so I am able to do it though email and work from anywhere and I really enjoy doing my work from up here. My husband has always had Bernese Mountain Dogs and I always adopted rescues, and we agreed we would continue to do both. I heard about The Little Guild from (RI cofounder) Dan Shaw when I was considering adopting another dog. We took a tour and met with the Executive Director, Denise Cohn. What they do for the community is very inspiring and they're very committed to being no kill. I'm a menswear designer andI have a complete collection called John Bartlett Statements for a company based in Milwaukee called Bon-Ton. I also have a collection of t-shirts where a portion of the proceeds go towards animal welfare foundations. I'd met a lot of people who'd been working for rescue dogs and it inspired me. It got me motivated to use design in some way to raise money for this other part of my life that I was really stating to devote more time to. My proceeds only go to no-kill shelters and pay for veterinarian visits or transportation bills, for example. I have my own charitable nonprofit organization, Tiny Tim Rescue Fund, named in honor of my pit bull rescue. The event at J. Seitz came about in a really organic way. I was speaking to Amanda [Seitz] about all the great work happening at the Little Guild and she suggested we put together an event. They have a really beautiful site behind their store that will be used for the dog adoption area. Many people may want to support Little Guild but may not know enough about it, so I'm happy to raise awareness about the Guild in this area.
