Destination: Surtex!

Now it’s finally time for all the hard work of the past six months to be realized! Tomorrow I jump on a plane for NYC, Friday is set up time, and Sunday starts the show. I was excited and honored to be profiled by a favorite blog of mine, Print & Pattern, in their run-up to the show! See the story here.

Stay tuned for more updates and photos of the show! And yes, I booked a few extra days in the city to indulge my wanderlust so you can expect a traveler’s recap to boot

Inspiration Exploration: Florals in your face!

Kirra Jameson

It finally seems like spring is here to stay! Judging by the looks of my portfolio, I may have a slight obsession with spring and summer. There’s outdoor travel themed images, nature themed images, watermelons, veggie gardens…and the floral! I have lots of bright, enthusiastic florals. I’ve been seeing large scale fun florals on a lot of art and products recently, and I thought it was a perfect theme for me. I especially love the intersection of pop art and nature. Naturally I have a lot of photos of great actual flowers from my travels (I never get tired of taking photos of flowers and nature) so that made it even better!

 

 

 

Tales from the Road: It all started with a map…

World Map of Wanderlust – Detail ©Leah Hoelscher 2013 all rights reserved.

I blame the map. When I was growing up, we had a one small wall in our house reserved especially for maps. We had a map of the United States and a map of the world there, and onto those we would pin postcards our friends and family sent us from all over the US and occasionally from abroad. I would ask anyone we knew who went on vacation to send us a postcard, and eventually got to the point where nearly every state was represented and a healthy number of countries. I would obsess over the map and the postcards, curious about all the new places and interesting things in the pictures. Even then travel was a major source of inspiration for me.

Wanderlust for me has never been a flaky desire to escape but an expression of my curiosity about the world, a desire to learn, and a method for drawing inspiration for everything that I do.  It’s been my way of making my own path through life, a path I suspect will lead me to many more interesting places!

{Tales from the Road is my occasional blog series in which I share some of the better stories and reflections from my travels in Asia, Europe, and South America. This is in part to make up for terribly lazy travel blogging over the past year and half, but hey, better late than never!}

 

Surtex is 1 month away!

…and my preparations are in high gear! the packages have begun arriving: fabric from Spoonflower for my tablecloth, postcards, business cards, and brochures from Vista Print, paper from Epson for my displays. It’s starting to feel real. From the looks of my binder, there’s a lot of designs to finalize, organize, and format for the show! Not to mention the postcard mailing, press kits, packing and shipping decisions, final travel arrangements in New York. Very exciting and very busy days here.

Tales from the Road: Cherry Blossom Bliss

One thing about spring is that it really makes me miss Korea. Nice weather, lots of people hanging out on the Han river, Buddha’s Birthday and Children’s Day, and the cherry blossoms. Oh, the cherry blossoms! The blooming of the cherry trees is a much-anticipated event. There are websites that predict which days the trees will bloom in different regions, and people flock to famous cherry tree sites around Seoul and the country. One of the most famous places is Gyeongju, the old capital of Korea. In 2011, I went there with some friends to run the Cherry Blossom Marathon (um, I did the half). It was amazing. The whole course was lined with blossom-laden trees, musicians, and old people waving Korean flags. Afterwards, I went to see the royal tombs, one of the most scenic places in Gyeongju. This was also a great site to view another much-honored Korean tradition: boyfriends with fancy DSLR cameras taking elaborate photo shoots of their girlfriends. Cherry Blossoms bring the romance out in everyone!

For me, that day was a heady mix of runner’s high and travel induced euphoria. The inspiration stayed with me and now I’ve created a whole collection of cherry-blossom inspired patterns, which I will debut at Surtex in May! The full collection may be viewed on my website.

{Tales from the Road is my occasional blog series in which I share some of the better stories and reflections from my travels in Asia, Europe, and South America. This is in part to make up for terribly lazy travel blogging over the past year and half, but hey, better late than never!}

Inspiration Exploration: Tropical Rainforest

One of the most visually inspiring experiences I’ve had is visiting the Amazon rainforest. There’s so many new shapes, colors and textures to be inspired by and I definitely brought home a lot of ideas for illustrations and patterns in my sketchbook. Serendipitously, I started noticing a lot of beautiful new jungle-inspired products out for spring and summer this year. The bright color, elegant movement and lush atmosphere that these images have really makes products stand out.

courtesy of joss and main, mystic membrane, and plankton art co., respectively

Naturally, I couldn’t resist creating my own collection of jungle-inspired patterns! Here’s a taste of the Jungle Retreat collection which can be viewed at my newly overhauled website. You can also see more of my jungle inspiration at my pinterest page. Happy weekend everyone!

 

Gearing up for Surtex 2013!

I’m off to a BIG start for 2013! I’m going to be making my first foray into the art licensing world at Surtex, the premier art licensing trade show in New York City May 19–21, 2013. I attended the show last year and was overwhelmed by the amount of both talent and opportunity available in the surface design and art licensing world. After I came back from my South America trip in December, I knew that I wanted to pursue art as a career and decided that Surtex was the ideal place for me to bring my work to a larger audience.

And a larger audience it definitely is! Surtex estimates that 7,000 art buyers from apparel, home furnishings, gift, tabletop, textile and wall covering markets will attend the 3-day trade show. Last year, I experimented with postcard mailings and other small-scale promotion measures, but I felt that to really kick off my art licensing career exhibiting at Surtex was the way to go. To prepare, I’m putting the final touches on a dozen new pattern & illustration collections. The themes I’m focusing on for this show are floral, nature, food, geometric, tribal, and travel. I’ve done quite a lot of research on current trends, printing and production methods, merchandizing, and other aspects of the industry to help me polish my portfolio for manufacturers, but really the backbone of everything I make is the sketchbooks from my travels. The inspiration I got on the road is invaluable, and gives my designs a strong voice that I’m proud to share at Surtex. I’ve encountered so many great traditions of textile design all over the world. Now this is my chance to add my voice!