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Wallflower

I cannot resist a good flea market. I found this piece of vintage Indian wallpaper tucked into a box at a rummage sale. I adapted the design into a watercolor and then developed it further into our signature wallflower pattern motif. Wallflowers are the best kind of blossoms, no?

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Regular studio happenings, new pattern designs and gardening at 8K.

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Apr 16

It's a gray day in Woody Creek but our studio always feels bright. Before I worked for myself, I landed in a great many office environments. At best most of them were utilitarian and stripped of personality. At worst, the work environments were soul-crushing with no attention to decor, something akin to totalitarian regime chic. I drank too much coffee, lingered at lunch and felt sapped by the end of the day. When I asked my pal Brad @boardbydesign to help me design my dream studio I used this phrase from my favorite Tom Petty song Wildflowers: “you belong someplace you feel free” to guide our aesthetic. Brad made sure the space was pitch-perfect and welcoming to both my team and visitors. I love coming here (maybe a bit too much, since I work all the time) and I think we crafted both a utilitarian design and art studio that invites collaboration, creativity and play. Please share your inspirational workspaces — we love seeing other studios and offices that have left file cabinet gray behind. Tag a space you love or DM us and we will repost on our stories.

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Apr 9

@amandascgorman genius and meteoric rise have restored poetry and poets to the spotlight, which bodes well for our nation. In honor of National Poetry Month, we are posting our favorite poems daily on Instagram stories.

I grew up in a household of poetry lovers, so I caught the fever. Here's the backstory via the blog: My sister Heather was a poet, and my mother Jessica, a private one. My aunt, Diana Hobby, was a Yeats scholar. My mother's poetry books were vigorously annotated and underlined. My sister, mother, aunt, and I would share poems, and I filled my journals with their favorites and my own discoveries; but none of us could recite them verbatim the way my father could. He believed memorizing a poem a week was a sign of moral character and helped fight against dementia. He was convinced that our country was diminished when poetry and prose fell out of curricular fashion. The other day I explained to our son why I am such a poetry junkie. I told him a good poem could blanch a bit of darkness or make me feel more connected to the planet. And that a great line will cast something familiar into a different relief and make me look again. But, most of all, poetry gives me the next clue. "Like in a treasure hunt, you mean," he said. Exactly.

To read on go to link in bio.

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Apr 5

When I’m stuck, I read poetry. A few years ago, I did a series of paintings inspired by Pablo Neruda’s work. This one is called Anaconda and is inspired by the following poem:

“Some Beasts” by Pablo Neruda

It was the twilight of the iguana.

From the rainbow-arched battlements
his tongue like a dart
plunged into the greenness
the monastic ant-swarm walked
through the jungle with melodious feet,
the guanaco, thin as oxygen
in the wide gray heights,
moved wearing boots of gold,
while the llama opened his guileless
eyes in the transparency
of a world filled with dew.
The monkeys braided a thread
endlessly erotic
along the shores of the dawn,
demolishing walls of pollen
and scaring off the violet flight
of the butterflies of Muzo.
It was the night of the alligators,
the night pure and pullulating
with snouts emerging from the slime,
and out of the sleepy marshes
an opaque noise of armor
returned to the earth it came from.

The jaguar touched the leaves
with his phosphorescent absence,
the puma runs on the branches
like a devouring fire
while inside him burn
the jungle’s alcoholic eyes.

The badgers scratch the feet
of the river, sniff out the nest
whose throbbing delight
they’ll attack with red teeth.

And in the depths of the all-powerful water,
like the circle of the earth,
lies the giant anaconda,
covered with ritual mud,
devouring and religious.

Happy Poetry Month!

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Mar 31

One of the benefits of living in a digital world is seeing the studio on our customers throughout the country, and in some cases, abroad. Thank you for your support and please tag us or send us your pictures to be featured in our Isa Catto Studio in the Wild Facebook page!

About the model: we are honored to have Madhu in our California Condor scarf. Madhu is a scientist, writer and amazing chef. Swipe for more!

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Mar 26

Yesterday I joined a panel of other artists from my high school alma mater @madeiraschool to talk about our career trajectories. There was a great deal of overlap between our stories, including highs and lows. I have not had a linear career path, not in the slightest, and all of these twists have only made me a better artist. It does help to be stubborn, though I prefer to call it tenacious. This Friday’s #throwback blog post is about breaking the news to my father about bailing on applying to law school to pursue a right-brain life:

“My father always liked a crisp display of left-brain achievement, preferably with a title attached, so he was disappointed when I told him I wanted to return to school and be a full-time artist. It’s not a profession that skips off the tongue like an engineer, lawyer, magazine editor, doctor or banker. Telling people that your daughter is an artist sounds fuzzy, like she is dodging a commitment to a world that runs by a 9-5 clock to malinger and sleep in. Nor was he thrilled by no guarantee of income and accolades. Far from it.”

TO READ ON GO TO LINK IN BIO.

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Mar 24

As more and more of us get vaccinated, we can return to entertaining beyond our families. Did you set a table during the pandemic? We sat around our fire a lot, but we still set the “coffee table” around the fireplace. @ted_maertens and I set up this shot right before the weather rolled in, so we just worked with the snow. The croissant did get soggy and the coffee cold, but thankfully the flowers were fine! Swipe to see color inspirations from the garden and click on the video to explore our housewares.

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