From functional, wearable accessories like handbags and scarves to mighty sculptural installations and wall hangings, textiles is one of the most diverse of art mediums. Artist and designer Lillian makes bright and fun handmade textiles in a wide range of work and in a bevy of aesthetics—like Midcentury design and more contemporary designs—but with one constant: vibrant color.
“I go through phases with colors,” she says. “I love a periwinkle, an olive green, a salmony pink, but generally with my pattern design, I lean towards things that are cheerful and upbeat.” Case in point, lately, she has been working on a series of embossed paper prints that involves collaging colored paper. “These prints have allowed me to dive deeper into exploring the elements of rhythm and balance and color that I lean on in my textile work,” she says.
Her ability to experiment comes from a lengthy education in art and design. She attended college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied design and printmaking. But it wasn’t until Covid that she took the leap into working in textiles full time.
“I was working as a studio assistant to a painter, and when the pandemic happened, we were on pause for a while,” she says. “I had been drawing patterns and sewing a little bit, but this break in work gave me time to focus on my own art again.”
She built a big textile screen printing table in her basement and started printing her own fabric. “At first I teamed up with my friend Frieda Curtis, who is an excellent seamstress, to sew masks, then we moved on to other projects like tote bags and clothing.” About a year later Frieda decided to move abroad to Germany, but before they left, they taught Lillian to sew everything the two had been making together. “I really lucked out to be able to learn from someone who is such an expert at their craft.”
For Lillian, textiles and art are inseparable, whatever the shape it takes in the end, whether that be a handbag or a mixed media, like embossed paper prints. “Art and design are things that live in the same world to me,” she says. “I don’t think I could be one without being the other.”
See more at her website: https://www.lillianstephen.com/
