Shop Local

Fine Print

Sue Henry’s path to entrepreneurship has resembled that of many working moms—trial and error until something fortuitously marries passion and industry. Five years ago, the Del Ray resident who studied sculpture and ceramics in art school found herself “sort of in between.” She wasn’t doing her life-size figurative sculptures anymore, and she had no idea what was next.

The answer, it turns out, was Tulusa, a line of handmade, blockprinted housewares, along with wearable art like shirts and face masks, all ranging from $18-$150. The name—it’s made up—is one Henry originally envisioned as a baby name for a girl until her husband vetoed it (they had two boys, anyway). So she recast it as a business moniker.

The whole venture started when Henry remembered some prints she had created about a decade earlier and stashed under a daybed in her family room. “I just started embroidering on top of the prints,” she says. I didn’t know anything about sewing or fabric.”

Animal-print napkins and table runner by Tulusa

Soon, she had transformed about 20 embroidered prints into clutches and pillows, and decided to sell them at a holiday pop-up in her home studio. They sold out, so she built a website. The rest is history.

Henry’s creativity is currently trained on carving shapes into linoleum blocks that she uses to stamp patterns on linen, and sometimes directly onto painted walls. Three designs are most popular—a large feather, a pineapple flower and a chrysanthemum—but she continues to add new ones to the collection. “Less than a year ago, I introduced a pattern called Chimera, using all those blocks and usually some sort of animal, overlaying pattern over pattern,” she says.

Sue Henry

During the pandemic, she pivoted to face masks—making and/or outsourcing the production of her own designs to generate more than 13,000 masks by the end of 2020. She donated a sizable stash to homeless shelters and filled a contract order for 5,000 for the City of Alexandria. “It was nuts,” she says. “I’ve never worked so hard in my life.”

For someone who claims to struggle with organization and planning, she has big goals for 2021. “I’d like to start making wallpaper,” she says. “I’m also going to be doing more upholstery fabric and yardage for curtains or chairs.” tulusa.com

—Rina Rapuano

Rivera works in a variety of media, including watercolor, gouache, ink and acrylic.

Get the Picture?

It’s not often that the path to becoming an artist is kick-started by a dog-sitting gig. But the parttime job Alanna Rivera picked up in 2012 while studying literature and Spanish at the University of Virginia was just what she needed to remind her of how much she loved painting.

“I started doing pet portraits because I love dogs, and I was surrounded by them,” says the Arlington native. “I felt like I was waking up, almost. Everyone already identified me as an artist, but I didn’t identify as one myself.”

After college, Rivera dabbled in art on the side and spent time doling out career advice to high schoolers through the AmeriCorps program. Finally she mustered the courage to enroll in a master’s degree program at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, focusing on social justice-based arts. “Even though it was really scary, and there wasn’t a lot of job security, I decided to take the plunge,” she says.

Rivera moved back to Arlington in 2017 and taught art in her own childhood preschool—an experience she now draws upon to teach art to neighborhood kids while juggling commissioned portraits of families and pets, as well as home exteriors and even antique cars. She also paints playful subjects ranging from mythical creatures to movie characters. Before Covid, she did occasional mural projects inside clients’ homes.

“I like having as much variety as possible because it makes me a stronger painter and also keeps me from getting bored,” Rivera says.

Her acrylics on canvas range in price from $200–$500, but she also offers a smaller (6-by-6- inch) portrait option painted with gouache (an opaque watercolor) for $50. She says she wants to keep her artwork accessible to all.

Though most of her portraits are based on a photograph, her style isn’t so much about copying the picture as it is capturing the essence of the subject.

“I want there to be a feeling conveyed, more than a look,” she says. “I think that’s more powerful for me than creating anything that’s photo-realistic.” alannarivera.com

—Rina Rapuano

Customized denim by Scout & Indiana

It’s Personal

Emily Ullo Steigler launched Scout & Indiana in 2014, right around the time her identical twin daughters (those are their names) were born. She started with a line of T-shirts and onesies bearing the phrases “Rad Like Dad” and “Bomb Like Mom,” but soon expanded her repertoire to include customized apparel.

“I really like making things,” says the entrepreneur, who holds a master’s degree in medical illustration and spent a decade in that field before shifting her focus to clothing.

These days, she’s applying her talents to personalized denim jackets for kids and adults, hand-painted with whimsical motifs like dandelions, paper airplanes and song lyrics.

“My mom was a quilter and a sewer. She made jean jackets that were incredibly ’80s, complete with puff paint and glitter,” she says with a certain pride. “I basically took that idea and modernized it.”

At first, Steigler was buying and customizing new jackets, but she’s since begun modifying upcycled denim pieces from vintage wholesalers and fashion resale websites like thredUp. (Pieces are priced at $65 and up, though she offers a lower rate if you provide the jacket.)

“I don’t want to be wearing what everyone else is wearing,” says the artist, who lives in Arlington Ridge with her husband and daughters. Her clients feel the same way.

Prior to the pandemic, Steigler sold her wares at pop-up events—notably, through the artist collective Femme Fatale DC—but more recently she’s been selling apparel online, via her own website as well as through local retail collaboratives like Steadfast Supply, Shop Made in DC, Gift & Gather, and the soon-to-launch Shop Made in Virginia.

She’s now collaborating with Vienna-based screen printer Chitra Sharma of Noctiluna on a line of kids wear that includes tank tops, skirts, face masks and reversible bomber jackets. “It’s super small-run, one-ofa-kind stuff,” she says. “The pandemic has been tough. We’ve pulled each other out of the stress and had a really good time being creative.” scoutandindiana.com

—Jenny Sullivan