Who We Are

We are a family of artists and makers. And we run a retail store.

Desert Bird Mercantile is a family-owned business from Corrales, New Mexico where we create items for your home including clean, modern wood furnishings, vibrant textiles and whimsical illustrations. We believe in surrounding yourself with joyful items that are useful and beautiful – focusing on quality over quantity. We have a retail store in Albuquerque’s historic Old Town Patio Market and a second store in Corrales, NM. Our retail stores feature our designs with a few other things from fellow New Mexico artisans. We wear a lot of hats. Our daughter helps – and also makes candles.

Neal Wenderlich
Woodworker / Co-Owner

Tammy Wenderlich
Textile Artist and Co-Owner

Jennifer Winkless-Hall
Marketing Director and Candlemaker

Who We Are

How We Create

Wood Furniture and Accessories by Neal Wenderlich

My wood-based home furnishings are 100% designed and built in Corrales, NM.  My designs are clean and modern featuring domestic hardwoods such as maple, cherry and walnut – with a few exotics for accent color.  Unless a customer asks, I rarely stain or paint the wood; I prefer to feature the natural color and figure of the wood in our designs. Click here for a gallery of my projects.

I love working on commissions and bespoke furnishings.  Send me an email and tell me your needs.  I will create drawings that we can use to work through the design details and help you select materials.  Once we agree on a design, price and schedule, I will invoice half the project up front and the remainder upon delivery.

Artist-Designed Textiles by Tammy Wenderlich

My art typically starts out as combination of nature-themed sketches and doodles and vibrant abstract art prints that I create using drawers full of art supplies.  The messy painting happens in my Corrales art studio.  Most of the product building (sewing) happens in my workspace in our Old Town store.   If it's my day to mind the store, that is probably where you will find me.   Click here to view some of my work in my textile and illustration gallery.

Retail Store and Studios

We now have 2 locations!  Our larger retail store and sewing studio is located in Albuquerque’s historic Old Town Patio Market.

Our 2nd location is located in our home town of Corrales, NM and features Neal's furniture gallery, gift items and the Fabric Nest (mini fabric store).

Retail Store Partnerships

We have established partnerships to offer home decor items by local artists and artisans in our Old Town Albuquerque retail store.  If you are interested in partnering with us, please email us with a description of what you make including some photos. General guidelines: 1) We prefer New Mexico artists 2) Your products should fit the style of our store: home decor, vibrant, New Mexican, etc.  (review photos on this website to get the general idea) 3) Your products should be of high quality including packaging 4) You must be willing to help with promotion including social media and emails.  Keep in mind that our store is small, we only take a few partners at a time and it really has to be an obvious fit.

Wholesale

We do occasionally wholesale our products to other stores.  As with the Retail Partnerships (above), there has to be a logical fit.  If you are interested, contact us to discuss.

We are currently working on creating regionally exclusive licenses for fabric retailer's interested in carrying Tammy's fabric.  Please contact us if you are interested.