As a textile designer, Liz Galbraith puts a certain singular stamp on her work. She is the only artisan in the United States using hand-blocking, a method of producing patterns on cloth that goes back to biblical time, to create a commercial line of fabrics.
While this is a primitive method, she likens the process to the potato printing schoolchildren do, the result is so appealing that chic world-class designers such as Nina Campbell fancy her fabrics. As a result, her work — which includes lamps as well as yard goods — is turning up in home-furnishing stores, mail-order catalogs and venues from the Bahamas to Beijing as the latest in fashion-forward decorating.
It is easy to see why as her work tickles the memory cells, evoking successful predecessors. Her Ivy Paisley pattern teasingly calls up the repetitive organic patterns of the archetypal Arts-and-Crafts textile and wallpaper designer William Morris. Her Orange Blossom pattern pleasantly conjures the sunshiny colors and punchy forms of Marimekko, the Finnish textile firm established by Armi and Viljo Ratia in 1951 and made popular by Crate&Barrel.
But whatever her sleight of hand-blocking, Galbraith’s magic is in making the fabric designs all her own.
“Our fabric is elegant but fun. It is both warm and modern,” says the 42-year-old Galbraith, who heads the Philadelphia-based Galbraith & Paul with her husband, Ephraim Paul.
Both Galbraith and her husband, who handles the business side of the firm, happen to hail from the Chicago area — Galbraith from Winnetka, Paul from Glencoe. They met as students at New Trier High School in Wilmette and made their way to Philadelphia after college.
“When I’m drawn to things, it is because it bridges two or three kinds of styles. That is what I’m always thinking when I am designing things, so it becomes like a triangle of three different kinds of styles: primitive country, modern and traditional.”
In that way, if you live in a traditional house but have a few pieces of Modern furniture and you want a more contemporary feeling, her fabrics, as well as lighting, can pull it all together, she adds.
That kind of convergence makes Galbraith & Paul — located in Manayunk, the former mill town on the western edge of Philadelphia — fill a gap in today’s textile production.
“Silk screening, which we don’t do,” says Paul, “is a far more complicated process, developed primarily in the 20th Century as a way to mass-produce printed images on fabric. . . . Fabrics done wtih hand-block printing show more clearly the `hand’ of the printer.”
While there is a trend to computer-generated design today, Paul believes that that 21st Century process results in patterns on fabric that are “too perfect.” He adds, “We think one of the reasons people are drawn to our line is because of the `mistakes.'”
The paper trail
Galbraith came to her textile art by a serendipitous route, starting out some 15 years ago with handmade paper lampshades and switching to fabric as she became disenchanted with the volatile partnership of color with paper.
Today, a staff of nine works for her in the high-ceilinged 4,000-square-foot open space in a former knitting mill. She is becoming a well-known stop on designers’ searches for hand-printed fabrics.
Eve Robinson of the interior design firm Eve Robinson Assoc., in New York, for example, used Galbraith fabrics to make Roman shades and pillows for the library of this year’s Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club Decorator Showhouse in New York. Kips is considered the top showhouse in the country.
“The patterns are very sophisticated and they have a lot of fun and a beautiful textural quality to them,” says Robinson, who has turned to the firm repeatedly for private clients.
Recently Galbraith’s designs also were used to furbish one of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts in Costa Rica. “We just shipped to Beirut via Paris. A lot of orders are coming in from Japan as well,” she adds.
And an article in the March issue of Veranda magazine highlighted the London apartment of internationally renowned designer Nina Campbell.
Campbell, who represents Galbraith & Paul in the United Kingdom, upholstered the Hepplewhite chairs she inherited from her grandmother with Galbraith’s “Donuts” pattern. And, Campbell says, “if Mr. Hepplewhite were still alive today, he would approve.” (Cabinetmaker George Hepplewhite lived from 1765 to 1800 and his Neoclassic chairs are much prized by collectors.)
What is it that turns the decorating divas on?
“There’s no question but they’re beautiful. They’re contemporary. They have a `30s, `40s, `50s feel to them,” says Campbell, “but they can go in much more classic interiors, like my apartment which is in an 1860s building.”
It’s that chameleon factor that does it.
The beauty of `hand’
Whi machine-printing of fabrics is more reliable, creating precisely outlined patterns through a more uniform layering of inks, Galbraith prefers hand-blocked printing just because it is imperfect.
“Around the edges of the print, [the pattern] is thicker, depending on how hard you press,” says Galbraith. “The printing it makes is uneven and not uniform, and there’s a feeling of the hand of the artist and that is really what we’re about.
“When you have that in your house, it is kind of like a homemade meal. It is very warm and comforting,” says Galbraith. That’s a feeling that fits perfectly with today’s cocooning/hiving lifestyle trends.
“With all the mass-merchandising, everything begins to look the same,” says Galbraith. “People call to order the hanging fixtures for their kitchen, and they say, `I want something different and something warm. Something that is not a cliche.'”
From foam to fabric
She begins her process by sketching the design from which the printing blocks are made. To make the printing blocks, she cuts the elements of each pattern from a sheet of foam and glues them onto a Plexiglas board.
“I cut them and carve them out of thick and dense foam, so it can hold the pigment. Depending on how long used, the block can last up to two years,” she says.
She uses a custom-mixed, light-fast liquid fabric paint that is applied to a printing block with a roller. To transfer the pigment, the block is pressed down by hand onto fabric — Thai silk, Belgian linen, cotton or velvet — that is laid out on a long table.
She prefers silk now for her lampshades. “I really like silk because it has such a natural shine to it and I like that quality,” she says. “It is a formal fabric, but the patterns are more casual. So it has that contrast, which is nice.”
Galbraith studied painting at Washington University in St. Louis, but after she graduated, she discovered a greater interest in craft.
“What I enjoy are things that are very process-oriented, rather than painting, which is more about the meaning of the painting,” she says.
After graduating from college, Galbraith and Paul moved into an old industrial-area loft in Philadelphia and found themselves living near furniture-maker Jack Larimore. From him, Galbraith realized that you could make things that are functional and make a living at it. “This was really appealing to me because I was out of college and waitressing,” Galbraith says ruefully.
She rented a studio in the Old City section of Philadelphia, from Ted Newbold, the head of Fairmont Park Art Commission, which brought public artworks to Philadelphia.
Newbold had commissioned sculptor and furniture-maker Isamu Noguchi to create a sculpture at the base of the Ben Franklin Bridge and, while he worked, Noguchi occupied the studio Galbraith rented right after he left.
“The landlord showed me his work and his lamps, and I started studying him more on my own. Seeing the lamps he made, made me want to design lighting,” says Galbraith. “He used paper a lot in his lighting.”
She decided to learn the traditional art of Japanese papermaking and went to Japan to visit several papermaking villages outside Kyoto.
Upon her return, she started her business, and spent the next decade designing lamps with shades of handmade paper.
After a while, however, she began to get frustrated with the papermaking process, finding it difficult to control the color, which changes as the paper dries. That led to her printing on silk, which is what her lampshades are made of today.
You can check out a recent Galbraith lamp in Adam Sandler’s recent movie “50 First Dates,” says Tara Harmon, showroom manager of A.M. Collections in New York City. Harmon says she is one of Galbraith’s biggest fans.
“Nothing I’ve seen is of the quality Galbraith produces,” says Harmon. “The type of pigment and paints and the colors she uses is very unique. The fact she does multiple color and vibrant prints is unique,” she adds.
In the spring, Galbraith & Paul will be launching a new line of rugs made of hand-tufted New Zealand wool, using her patternsThey will be introduced in San Francisco at the showroom Desousa and Hughes, which represents them., for a year as a test.
Apart from that, Galbraith says she doesn’t have a lot of plans for expansion. “We really try not to work too much,” she says. “That is why we stay a nice size. Otherwise we lose what we love about what we do.”
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Where to buy
Here are sources where you can buy pendant lighting fixtures, lamps and pillows by Galbraith & Paul.:
Room & Board stores, 55 E. Ohio St., 312-222-0970; 10071 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-673-2655; and 2525 W. 22nd St., Oak Brook, 630-571-7801.
Galbraith & Paul, Lighting + Textiles, 116 Shurs Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19127; www.galbraithandpaul.com; or call 215-508-0800 or send e-mail to info@galbraithandpaul.com. (Fabrics are sold to the trade only; designers can order fabric by contacting G & P; some special lighting also can be ordered directly from G & P, though not online).
— Mary Daniels
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The New Wave
Next
– Maria Yee takes her cues from the way we live by interpreting and modernizing traditional Asian styles for the contemporary home. If you’ve made a purchase for your bedroom, living room, dining room or home office at Crate & Barrel, Room & Board or Retrospect, you’ve unknowingly gotten to know her. Her keen eye for good design shows just how well she knows us.
Other upcoming stories:
“Technology drives design” today, says Shea Soucie, who with Martin Horner makes up the top Chicago-based design firm Soucie Horner Ltd. It’s that kind of understanding of clients’ needs and desires that has made their work such a success — that and their new perspectives and impressive amounts of education, skill and energy.
Previous
– Fast becoming known for the lyrical, sensuous things he is doing with electricity, 25-year-old Paul Cocksedge surprises and delights with the way he harnesses conductive properties and unleashes creativity on lighting designs. (See the April 18 issue of Home&Garden.)
– Being the eldest of six children, architect-designer Josiane Raphael was responsible for the most fragile things in the family’s West African home. When it was time to set the table, Raphael’s mother entrusted her to put out the linens and the china. Today, with her Ebotan by Josiane Raphael tableware and flatware, Raphael is setting tables with “blessings” and fine china that rival those of more well-known chinamakers such as Bernardaud, Lenox, Noritake, Royal Doulton and Wedgwood. (See the March 7 issue of Home&Garden.)
– In a matter of about five years, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec of France — designers of furniture, furnishings and “micro architecture” — have managed to turn some of the most important heads in the design business; be lauded by the design press; publish two books; mount exhibitions galore; and assemble a body of work that successful designers twice their age would be proud to call their own. A French journalist likened their design philosophy to a Japanese haiku — strong, poetic and crystal clear. (See the Jan. 18 issue of Home&Garden.)
– In the world of artisans, The New Wave is a virtual tsunami of talent. Painter Anne Leuck Feldhaus, furniture designer and woodworker Jamey Rouch, ceramist Heather Hug, glass-blowers Douglas and Renee Sigwarth — all featured at the One of a Kind Show and Sale at The Merchandise Mart — are part of this brave new wave. (See the Nov. 30, 2003 issue of Home&Garden.)
