Calico may possibly evoke images of homespun goodness and demure florals, but Rachel Mosler and Nick Cope, the founders of the bespoke wallpaper company Calico Wallpaper have something considerably a lot more glamorous in mind. Their Brooklyn-based design studio (named, with no trace of irony, for the couple’s enviably photogenic calico cat) has rapidly created a name for itself as a purveyor of ravishing wall coverings which have their inception in the sorts of venerable art types and processes that resonate with creative types schooled in the joys of generating items with their hands—something about which an artist (Rachel) and the owner of a design/build firm (Nick) might know a issue or two.Informed by two ancient paper marbling traditions—the Japanese art of Suminagashi and the Turkish art of Ebru—Calico Wallpaper has arrived at a laboriously exacting process for creating richly detailed, shimmering marbleized compositions that can pretty be described as art. Handmade cotton paper and carefully calibrated applications of metallic pigments that make each composition wholly unique—and no small dose of patience—comprise Calico Wallpaper’s recipe for “the largest marbled papers that exist nowadays.” Two signature motifs—the lustrous gold-flecked Wabi, inspired by “the landscapes of the ancient east,” and the satiny, silvery Lunaris series, channeling “moonscapes and uninhabited space”—are the heart of the Calico brand. And, my, what a dazzling heart.
Images: Calico Wallpaper