Soicher Marin Says

So while Ed and Jen were away at HP I decided it is time to jump back into designing wallpapers. I know most of you didn’t know we did that, but it has been something we have been experimenting with for a while. I’m not talking about half drop repeats either, “go big or go home” is how we think of it. Create something that no body else is doing!

One of the great things about our little set up here is that it is just as easy to make a design for an entire wall (like creating a mural if you will) and then have the computer slice it up to hang like a wallpaper, as it is to design a repeating pattern.

Most of the time we are given the wall size and the general idea and then set free to create.
This first piece was for a 10′ h x 25′w wall, it needed to be subtle and transition from one color story to another. So here is what we came up with:

Here are some other ideas for another area – same client. These were for 10′x12-15′ walls – all of these designs were scaled up to fit the entire wall, so it didn’t have to have a repeating pattern.

Those were all created using the art we sell in our line, but that is not all we can do…

This was a project that required a unique rugged western idea, it was for a HUGE wall – to be printed on glass, and we liked it so much we hung it as a wall paper in our office in LA.

Then of course we have some very graphic ideas that were all hand drawn and then scanned in and manipulated. This is only a small sampling of the ideas we have and I will be posting more in the next couple of weeks, so please enjoy!

Anything you can imagine we can create, so why keep it all to ourselves?? Let’s collaborate and make some amazing work!

I love love love to make inspiration books or mood books, or whatever you want to call them, it is one of my favorite things to do! I love collecting images cutting them out and sitting on my floor with 100′s of images around me collaging them. Just give me a sketchbook, a glue stick, tape, scissors and some music and I am set for a wild Friday night! I know a lot of people who never really got into collecting inspiration or making mood boards, but I find it to be a great jump start when the mind starts stalling on coming up with new ideas.

Two weeks ago I was cleaning out my closet and got to the drawer with all kinds of art stuff in it. I was going through and found a sketchbook I made while I was living in Paris 4 years ago, I titled it “Some Things to Look At”. I remember working on it one afternoon while watching Little House on the Prairie in French (that show was always on). Anyway, I opened it up and ideas started immediately filling my mind, but they were different ideas from what I thought about 4 years ago, which surprised me. I have books made more for fashion inspiration, but I would love to find those and see how I would interpret that same inspiration into the art world today. I can tell this is going to drive me crazy, I need to get to my parents house in Dallas and find these sketchbooks!!! Here are some pics of the books; it tells a story of how I see things, how I put things together and ultimately how my mind works.  -TH

Creating a new collection is a stream of consciousness proposition. Much like having to cook for a party of several hundred of your closest friends, with all the ingredients at your disposal, but (at first) no specific menu in mind to whip up. Our process starts innocently enough: someone brings out all the stuff they’ve been collecting and assembling over the months and arrays it on their desk, it then boils over onto the  massive Caeser Stone studio tables and eventually spills over onto the giant canvas that is our concrete floor [it's the only surface big enough to contain the flood of ideas as they start rolling off the print presses]. Frames begin to pop up (mysteriously placed by well-meaning passers by), concepts start to form and take hold, color forms and stories unfold themselves and next thing you know, the collection is realized. It’s a fun, organic and very fluid process where there are not bad ideas, just merciless ridicule if you go too far off the reservation.

Part of our vision this spring is to bring in groupings of dedicated Tone Stories, all based on Textile themes drawn from Nature. This is our Earth Tone Story,  deep colors of the forest are featured: cabbage and sage greens, chanterelle gold, morel browns and moss.

Another Tone Story: we move from the dense forest to the open, brilliant blue sky and high country pond.

Color and lots of it is what we want. Enough dark and gloomy winter and endless bad news, it’s time for joyful, explosively unapologetic COLOR! Look for this series of approximately 20 seasonal floral photographs printed on everything from smooth silky paper to slick polished aluminum.

Photographer Alysia Cotter graces our new Spring Collection with some amazing photographs. Her style combines a keen eye for nuance and sharp detail, with mid century aesthetic reminiscent of Penn and Avedon. Her images are lush and sensual. About 30 total in this line.

Don’t you just want to be there? Right Now!

We installed a selection of Alysia’s ethereal beach photos at the new L’Auberge del Mar Hotel Spa in Del Mar, California.

From the influence of our Twitter friend Sue Rapp www.urbanlifestyledecor.com, we’re off on a tangent, Ed wanted to go with Gothic Grunge Collection, but the girls reigned him in and we all compromised on Bohemian Chic instead. It’s young and funky and straight off the runways of Paris and London. M&M Green and Distressed Aubergine lacquered frames are the order of the day. Found objects become art objects and edgy is in. It’s the art your mom warned you about as Sue might say.

From the Paris Marche au Puce, a book of Antique Ribbons circa 1898. Obviously from Fabric House’ sample set.

Below: Just for the heck of it…Maybe we’re willing warmer beach days to arrive.