collage || décor
Pleasure Trove
A new artist-designed wallpaper line is introduced at Holly Hunt, and the creators just happen to be Minnesotan. | by alyssa ford
I
f the international design community gave out stickers, Randall Buck and Jee Levin would have a whole coloring book full. Instead the (married) artists and wallpaper designers have a Green Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum, placement in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and a coveted award from the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF). The New York Times has written them up, as has Metropolis magazine, Interior Design magazine and Oprah’s O at Home. But Buck and Levin, who call their company Trove, are too busy to count their accolades. The Minnesota natives and University of Minnesota grads are caught up in such a swell of creative output. “There’s a certain creative window that’s open right now, and we’re working feverishly to seize that moment,” says Buck, who lives in Manhattan with Levin and their 5-year-old son. So intense is the moment that the couple uses a strategy of sporadic naps to gain more creative working hours. (Buck says they were inspired by Winston Churchill, a famous biphasic sleeper.) The work that’s literally keeping them up at night is a collection of haunting photographic-inspired wall coverings. They founded their design house just five years ago but already have a collection of 28 original patterns that focus on the passing and freezing of time: leaves that drift, birds that scatter, people who gesture and chat in time-preserved opera boxes. “We strive to create art that is interesting and inspired and never precious,” says Buck. Perhaps even more intriguing, the Trove designers are obsessed with new and innovative materials. They’ve figured out ways to print their ethereal patterns on window films, exotic wood veneers, rugs, lampshades, fabrics or even full-sized pieces of furniture.
wallflowers Trove, the brainchild of two Minnesota
natives, is now available at International Market Square.
70 Artful Living
| Autumn 2011
Artful-LivingMag.com