Blacksmith Constien (Constantine) Zabriskie immigrated from Poland to the United States in 1892, at the age of 16. He worked on a farm in West Deerfield, Massachusetts.

From 1890 to 1940, Deerfield, Massachusetts was home to a distinctive manifestation of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Artisans here created exquisite Colonial-inspired needlework as well as rugs, basketry, pottery, metalwork, furniture and weavings. With its well-preserved and highly-accessible colonial heritage, Deerfield and Memorial Hall Museum, were the ideal settings to display hand-made objects, evoking the past and intended for the home. Useful as well as beautiful, the art objects are set against the historical and cultural backdrop of a unique time and place.

An 1898 article from a local newspaper, the Greenfield Gazette & Courier, described Zabriskie’s work as being “of graceful curves, with all sorts of windings and interlacings and were of large and elegant proportions, and yet there was a fascinating daintiness and airiness about them. There was something of the land across the sea in the work: it had a foreign and a sort of old-time flavor.”
He was an exhibitor in Deerfield’s 1899 Arts and Crafts show.