Text: Alec Coiro
Photo: Kat Slootsky
All of these are washed and naturally dyed, and if you feel it, it just feels soft and rich. I definitely think there’s a lot of healing powers to things that are made naturally.
Kiva Motnyk’s Thompson Street Studio already feels like what home should be. I walk in, and I’m fully convinced enough that the gorgeous, vivacious, healing textiles would breathe life into my home. But if you can’t make it to the studio itself, this experience can be gleaned from a visit to Thompson Street Studio at the second incarnation of the home market off-site project begun last August by designers Fort Standard and the store Primary Essentials. While Fort Standard and Primary essentials are the original founders of this project, Motnyk points out that since the event’s inauguration, it has become a collective project for the designers involved. Those designers include Caroline Z Hurley, Chen Chen and Kai Williams, Light and Ladder, Pat Kim, Preview, Slash Objects, Steven Bukowski, and, of course, Thompson Street Studio.
Much like design week, Home Market descends upon the Javits Center twice a year. However, unlike design week, there has not been much in the way of off-site alternatives to the imposing glare of the Javits hegemon. According to Motnyk, the collective of designers assembled by Fort Standard all fare better outside of the convention center atmosphere. “The idea is it’s a similar group of independent designers coming together to show. It’s a more intimate environment where we can really explain the process.”
It’s a process worth hearing about. Motnyk tells me the broad strokes of her natural dying process and it’s illuminating, especially when I can touch the final results as she explains it to me. “I have been working for the past few months on collecting the plants from upstate — fall’s the best time collect them. I also grow plants specifically for natural dying, so it’s quite a range.” She hands me one of the quilts she’s dyed. “There’s some beet in this, some avocado. All the yellow is goldenrod, which grows pretty rapidly upstate. Avocado actually creates a pink. All of these are washed and naturally dyed, and if you feel it, it just feels soft and rich. I definitely think there’s a lot of healing powers to things that are made naturally.” Her assertion about healing powers might seem like conjecture, but once you hold the quilt in your hands and feel how supple it is, you take it as gospel that it is doing curative work on your soul and your body.
Not everything Thompson Street Studio makes is naturally dyed, but most of it is. And what isn’t is made with remnants, making those pieces precious and unique in their own way. There are also collaborations with other artists. For example, Motnyk tells me she’s been working with an artist who does hapa-zome technique, which is the process of creating amazing textures out of leaves. I was also delighted to find out that she’ll be showing a piece made in collaborations with Waka Waka that I actually saw when I visited Shin Okuda in L.A. right before he shipped it to Thompson Street.
Speaking of collaborations, Thompson Street Studio’s on-going collaboration with Susan Cianciolo’s Run Home project is what’s next for Motnyk. And we’ll surely take the opportunity for another visit to the studio to find out more. Stay tuned!
The February Collective begins this Sunday (2/4) and runs until February 6th.
All of these are washed and naturally dyed, and if you feel it, it just feels soft and rich. I definitely think there’s a lot of healing powers to things that are made naturally.
