Here, we ask designers to take a selfie and give us an inside look at their life.
Age: 45
Occupation: Textile designer and founder of OTEA Textiles.
Instagram: @oteatextiles
Hometown: Pittsburgh.
Studio location: Newly relocated from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh!
Describe what you make: I design textiles and wallpaper with a refined yet cheeky nod to old-world maximalism. As a daydreamer, I bring imagined stories to life through watercolor sketches, which serve as the foundation for my patterns. I also love folk art, architectural antiquity, vintage kitsch, flora, fauna, and high-end design, so I bring these elements into my work as well.
The most important thing you’ve designed to date: Undoubtedly the OTEA Textiles lifeworld. It’s filled with nooks and crannies of discovery, from the brushstrokes on the textiles and wallpapers to the vintage kitsch and poetic storytelling. The entire experience feels like the art.
Describe the problem your work solves: In a world where we’re largely disconnected from our creative prowess and pleasure, I hope our work helps people experience moments of joy and connect more deeply with their unique lineage. One of our core values sums it up: At OTEA, we invite you to embrace maximalism with all your molecules. In its original essence, promiscuity means taking pleasure and letting it flourish. Creativity is boundless, and inspiration can blossom anywhere, under any conditions. Each form of expression multiplies the ways love lives through us. More colors colliding and saturating. More patterns piling high on your plate. Just when you think you’ve had enough, you savor another. And another.
Describe the project you are working on now: OTEA Textiles officially launched this week! Our first collection, The Rendezvous, tells the imagined stories of Otea Pollera, my cheeky great-aunt, whom I never met but always knew.
A new or forthcoming project we should know about: Besides the launch of OTEA’s first collection, I’m working on a hand-painted Oracle card deck with one of my beloved creative collaborators. I’m also preparing OTEA’s second collection, which will be my love letter to my maternal great-grandmother. She experienced love and loss many times, as evidenced by her many names: Luisa Georgini Pollera Ambrosino Antoniono.
What you absolutely must have in your studio: I love working on a big, clean table when I’m painting. My whole studio is like an altar, with old family photos taped to the wall, incense always burning, and family relics strewn all around (like my grandmother’s empty bottle of drugstore Anais Anais perfume from the ‘80s). Music is always on and while the selection is diverse, I never don’t want to listen to Fleetwood Mac!
What you do when you’re not working: My partner and I have been enjoying our recent move to Pittsburgh from Los Angeles along with our three chihuahuas and tortoiseshell cat. We’ve spent the last year renovating a midcentury house, watching the woodland creatures like deer and chipmunks in our yard, and planting a garden. We’re also getting to know the art and design community in Pittsburgh—it is so vibrant and overflowing with the most interesting folks!
Sources of creative envy: My earliest sources of creative envy are the kitchens of both my grandmothers. While it is true that Etel Adnan, Gunta Stolzl, Yayoi Kusama, Grace Jones, and Yoko Ono are some of my creative heroes, it’s the kitschy, mismatched kitchens of my working-class grandmothers that have left the biggest imprint on my creative journey thus far.
The distraction you want to eliminate: The move has helped me eliminate a lot of life’s distractions. I love opening my windows and hearing cicadas and getting anywhere I need to be in 20 minutes or less. I also loved hibernating last winter and look forward to doing it again this winter—lots of cozy socks, calm music, and dim lighting in the house!
Concrete or marble? Old marble, etched and worn!
High-rise or townhouse? Townhouse, with old crumbling plaster.
Remember or forget? Remember.
Aliens or ghosts? My muse, Otea, is a ghost, so ghosts.
Dark or light? Light, dappled and golden please.
Portrait photography by Johnny George.
