Tracy Kendall is a wallpaper designer, who deals mainly within the trade sector, as opposed to dealing with the public. She likes clean, simple, pure designs.
She gets her inspiration from photographs that are kept, with thousands of other images, in a plastic bag, that she uses when she has time. She looks at fashion, interiors and furniture and often watches entire films purely for the interior design.
Her knife, fork and spoon wallpapers were created when she wanted to decorate her kitchen and though it is around 13 years old, it still remains one of her most popular wallpapers. Tracy does not work to a strict colour range, and deals with the Panton reference colours instead. She showed the knife, fork and spoon to the editor of Elle Decoration and two weeks later was given a photo shoot to appear in the magazine. This got her a four-page spread in Marie Claire and a number of jobs. She has also recently sold the rights to use one of her patterns on a lampshade to Habitat.
She creates wallpapers using organic materials such as feathers and blades of grass. She picks around 100 of the item she wants to use and picks the best one, taht would be most suitable. She then photocopies these so that they are purely black and white. This enables her to see if the image is right and if it would work to a larger scale.
Tracy deals mainly in trade and exhibits in trade shows. When she exhibited at the Contemporary Applied Arts Gallery she created work in white, but found it unusual that nobody touched her work, as at trade shows, her work is always being touched to get a feel of the material and the texture. To exhibit at a trade show in New York, a small unit will cost around £2500. At a London trade show, she pasted her wallpapers on to mount boards so that they couldbe taken away as often, because wallpaper is pasted on, they are left, which ends up as a large expense.
She has an interest in type and often uses text in her work. One of her typographic wallpapers is her sister's handwriting that is then stitched on to wallpaper, and she often uses the work of Shakespeare to display text as she does not have to worry about copyright. She also experiments with sequins of different sizes, to add a 3D element to the work. Aswell as sequins, she experiments with 3D pieces by adding buttons, jigsaw pieces and pieces of paper to her work. it can take 2000 buttons or jigsaw pieces to fill one square metre.
Her digital work consists of stacks of plates, books and magazines. She uses professional photographers to photograph her work, so that it can be used in editorial and cover designs for magazines, to gain exposure. She pays £400 a day for the use of a photographer but that can be up to £1000 normally. Though expensive, she believes it is worth every penny. Next time she does a photoshoot, she would also like to hire a stylist, who would charge a similar fee, to make the most out of her product.
After finding a piece of lace at a Paris flea market, she created a wallpaper pattern from this. The shop Whistles used this in-store which earnt her £40,000/£50,000! She has also created the changing room for another shop, Frost French.
At first, I did not think I would like her work but by the end of the lecture, I found it really interesting. I liked the hand-made element to her work, and found it similar to that of couture clothing: couture interiors. I also found the ways she created 3D pattersn intriguing though I don't think it is practical, it would most probably be used as a statement piece for a central wall. She also told us how a hotel in New York is using her wallpapers, and though the paper she uses is fire-retardent, by adding a 3D element, it can no longer be classed as safe, so they will be fire-proofing the wallpaper. This would also add difficulty if selling to the public. I liked the use of type within her work, and though if you look carefully at the text it could be read, I like the idea that it is used as a shape and, if seen from a distance, may not even be recognisable. Though I cannot ever see myself creating patterns or wallpaper, I do find the business of interiors very interesting, as it reaches a very large audience due to people's interest in making a house into a home using decoration as the tool to achieve this.
Visit her website:
TRACY KENDALL
