India Hicks

what is your idea of perfect design happiness? IS THERE SUCH A THING? A PERFECTLY POOFED PINK SOFA FREE OF DOG HAIR AND OREO COOKIE STAINS WOULD DO ME JUST FINE.

what is your greatest fear in design? THAT I WAKE UP ONE MORNING AND FIND THE ANISH KAPOOROLYMPIC TOWER IN MY GARDEN. ANISH IS A CLOSE FRIEND AND BRILLIANT ARTIST BUT GOOD GOD THAT THING IS HIDEOUS.

which historical design figure do you most identify with? WELL HAVING DAVID HICKS AS YOUR FATHER CERTAINLY MEANS HE IS IN MY DNA. QUITE LITERALLY.

which living designer do you most admire? KELLY WEARSTLER. NOT BECAUSE I WOULD NECESSARILY WANT TO LIVE IN ONE OF HER INTERIORS BUT BECAUSE SHE HAS GUTS, DRIVE, DETERMINATION AND ABOVE ALL HER OWN POINT OF VIEW. SHE IS A BEAUTIFUL HARD WORKING WOMAN WHO HAS MADE IT ON HER OWN AND IS A MOTHER ON TOP OF ALL THAT.

what profession other than design would you like to attempt? I WOULD LIKE TO EDIT A MAGAZINE. I LIKE LONG HOURS, I LIKE A CHALLENGE, I LIKE DEADLINES BUT MOST OF ALL I LIKE BEAUTIFULLY LAID OUT PAGES OF GOOD DESIGN COUPLED WITH INTERESTING FACT.

what is your greatest design extravagance? I DON’T HUGELY OVER SPEND WHEN IT COMES TO DESIGN OR INTERIORS, PROBABLY LESS SO THAN MOST, BUT WE DO HAVE HUNDREDS OF COFFEE TABLE BOOKS. A GREAT INDULGENCE BECAUSE YOU REALLY NEVER READ THE COPY YOU ONLY FLEETINGLY GLIMPSE AT A WORD OR TWO.

when and where were you happiest with your design? RIGHT NOW. RIGHT THIS MINUTE IN MY PALE PINK OFFICE ON A BAHAMAIN SPRING DAY KNOWING THAT MY COLLECTION FOR HSN EXCEEDED ALL OUR EXPECTATIONS AND SALES GOALS. AM I ALLOWED TO BOAST ABOUT THAT?

what do you consider your greatest achievement in design? MY WEBSITE! IT’S A HUGE PROJECT AND ENORMOUS COMMITMENT. BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS GO INTO IT. FEW PEOPLE UNDERSTAND WHAT IT TAKES FROM A PERSONAL AND FINANCIAL COMMITMENT TO KEEP AN ECOMMERCE SITE MOVING FORWARD.

if you died and came back as another designer or design object, who or what do you think it would be? A SMYTHSON LEATHER BOUND PHOTO ALBUM IN THE HICKS FLINT WOOD HOUSEHOLD. MY CHILDREN LOVE THEIR SCRAP BOOKS FILLED WITH PHOTOS, NOTES, LETTERS, AND MEMORABILIA. LOVING CHERISHED AND LOOKED AFTER.

what specific design related talent are you lacking that you would you most like to have? THE ACCOUNTING SIDE OF A DESIGN PROJECT!

what is your most treasured design related possession? MY IPHONE CAMERA. I RECORD EVERYTHING – TEXTURES, COLOURS, MOODS.

what do you regard as the lowest depths of misery in design? A HORRIBLE CLIENT.

what curse word do you most frequently use? I HAVE SEVERAL. THEY ARE ALL VERY EFFECTIVE.

what is your favorite design related word? PERFECT.

what is your least favorite design related word? ICON.

what turns you on in design? FORM AND FUNCTION.

what turns you off in design? ANYTHING OVER-PRICED. A CHAIR, A CARPENTER, A CAN OF PAINT.

 what is your motto in design? “GOOD TASTE AND DESIGN ARE BY NO MEANS DEPENDENT UPON MONEY.” MY FATHER WROTE THIS INTO MY LITTLE AUTOGRAPH BOOK WHEN I WAS SEVEN. I DID NOT HAVE A CLUE WHAT IT MEANT.

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IMAGE CREDITS | Images courtesy of India Hicks, her Facebook page & Instagram. Kelly Wearstler image via Instagram.

ABOUT PROUST ON DESIGN | Answered by our design icons, these must-ask questions come from a 19th century parlor game made popular by Marcel Proust, the French novelist, essayist & critic. Proust believed the direct questions and honest responses that they elicited revealed the true nature of the individual. For this column, we have put a design related spin on the traditional questions. While this method has been used by many journalists throughout the years, we were primarily inspired by The Proust Questionnaire, which appears monthly on the back page of one of our all time favorite magazines, Vanity Fair (also Krista’s alma mater). Read all of the previous Proust on Design questionnaires here.

Role Models: Noor Fares + Holly Hunt

FASHION Noor Fares' Geometry 101 Octahedron Earrings | FABRIC Holly Hunt's Venetian Dreams 

Sally King Benedict

Artist Sally King Benedict creates works that are a beautiful confluence of drawing and painting and that speak graphically in a visual language of color washes, abstract forms and intersecting lines. When creating, she does so unselfconsciously, with obvious freedom and spontaneity, and with a palpable openness, even when being observed. There is a purity to her work that is deeply rich and playful.There is no serious staring at the canvas or paper, no long contemplative moments before maker and medium meet. She glides effortlessly between several different works in progress, instinctive in her movements, dripping paint on this one, crushing charcoal on another, enjoying the fresh air on the back patio of her Atlanta studio where the light is dappled and the surrounding garden is lush and dreamy. She works with multiple brushes in hand at once, her cache of Japanese calligraphy brushes equally at home beside her hardware store bristle brushes that have been trashed by repeated scrubbings across her canvases. Like waves lapping the shore, she is easy come and go with her process, in a comfortable creative rhythm. If there is tension there, it is hidden behind her inherent effervescence of spirit, a quick and contagious Cheshire cat-like smile and fairy laugh.

MOSS, 40 x 40, 2013 | Hidell Brooks Gallery

Benedict’s creative roots run deep, back to her childhood in Atlanta, GA, where she cut her milk teeth in a home that firmly encouraged all manner of creative ilke. “I have been painting and drawing and making sculpture ever since I can remember,” she said. “It always came naturally to me.” It didn't hurt that she was literally submerged in world of modern art by her parents, whose collection included works by Todd Murphy and Dennis Paul Williams. “My mom worked for her good friend Doug Macon who owned a contemporary art gallery in Atlanta in the 90s,” she said, “and Doug was always encouraging me to be creative.” It was this type of upbringing, one that relished whimsy and creative wit, that encouraged Benedict’s color outside the lines approach to self-expression and helped map the course to her current vocation.

She went on to study studio art and painting at the College of Charleston in South Carolina under Cliff Peacock as well as printmaking under Barbara Duval. “This duo shaped my practice as an artist for sure,” Benedict said. “I learned something important from every bit of criticism they handed me.” After college, Benedict stayed in Charleston for several years, met and married her husband George, and enjoyed storied success as an artist, her paintings snatched up by collectors and gracing the pages of national and regional magazines. A phenomenal selection of her works are currently for sale at Hidell Brooks Gallery in Charlotte, NC, but if you can't make it there, good things come to those who shop online. Her website has an enviable bevy of new works up for grabs in her studio. Benedict has also recently collaborated with Serena & Lily and you can expect to see her original works on paper and canvas as well as signed limited edition fine art prints of her work through their Art Collection, which will be available in May. Stay posted and we'll let you know as soon as they are available so you can make haste and break out your plastic. In the meantime, enjoy an exclusive sneak peek of three works that will be offered by Serena & Lily in their Art Collection.

TOP | Brown Edge Paper, 10 x 13, paper, 2013 MIDDLE | Aquatint, limited edition print, 2013 BOTTOM | Abstract Gold, 20 x 24, canvas, 2013 All three, and others, will be available exclusively through Serena & Lily's Art Collection starting in May 2013

Admittedly, Benedict has been largely influenced by Abstract Expressionists like the great Helen Frankenthaler, a pioneer in Color Field painting, and Richard Diebenkorn, arguably one of the most influential and prolific American modern artists of the 20th century, as well as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell and David Hockney. As such, she dallies part in figurative and geometric abstraction but there is something uniquely fresh and singular about her eye, her particular spin on abstract imagery. Her color sense is recognizably Benedict, her use of flax Belgian linen panels washed in her favorite hues of black, blue and white are a trademark and highly collectable. The subjects in her face paintings are partly abstraction and cubism, but again, in signature Benedict style, often appear well fed, cherubic, and echo Ziggy Stardust with geometric cheeks, blocky neon eyebrows and noses out of joint.

GREEN BROW, 12 x 16, 2010 | guache and oil pastel on linen board

SWEET CHEEKS, 24 x 24, 2013 | acrylic, gouache, ink, charcoal and oil pastel on linen 

Her sumi ink paintings are an altogether different subject. Historically, Japanese sumi ink painting verges on the mystical and is believed to capture the unseen with an indelible inked brush stroke, one that cannot be changed or altered—you know, like deep metaphors for life. Let’s just say Benedict’s sumi ink works are rooted in more of a I've got no idea how this is going to end up kind ofmysticism. She starts by moistening the Arches Rives BFK paper with water, loads her Japanese calligraphy brush with sumi ink and then, in a series of instinctive, broad strokes, water and ink react resulting in a crazy radial ripple effect, a squid ink like plume of subtle shading and tonal variation, that morphs and changes continually until the paper dries. Then for good measure Benedict grabs some charcoal and random pastels, crushes them into small bits and throws all that on the moistened paper. It’s this kind of approach to art that really excites Benedict. “I love seeing how different liquids and pigments take to different surfaces,” she said. ”It's a constant science project in my studio!”

And speaking of fairies again, Benedict has an endearing lightness of being, much like Peter Pan, who knew that the real trick to happiness was to keep the best of the child you were at heart, without forgetting when you grow up.  Is it her lightness of constitution, her ebullience, that drives her creative vision and makes her art so desirable and lust worthy?  At the very least, it certainly lends itself to her emphatic embrace of motherhood to her nine month old son River. Benedict has most definitely grown up but it has only sweetened the deal for her artistically. “My entire being is better with a baby,” she said. “I no longer take time in the studio for granted. I feel like he has turned a light on within in me that I never knew I had.” That said, her days are delightfully filled with lots of painting, laughing and playing with her family. Her perfect day?  “Sunny, 75 degrees....road tripping with my husband and baby boy.....final destination: Duryea's Lobster Deck, Montauk.” My guess is that wherever she is, Benedict is always at play in the color field of her making, picking flowers and making daisy chains with a mischievous grin on her face.

IMAGE CREDITS | Artwork images provided courtesy of Sally King Benedict. All other photography by Tami Ramsay, shot on location at the studio of Sally King Benedict in Atlanta, GA.

Sara Kate Studios

This is a brand new CLOTH & KIND column called Limelight. I'm kind of geekily (is that even a word?) excited about it because at its core this column just feels really good to me - and I hope you agree. It's all about shining a well-deserved spotlight on creative, hard-working, and just plain old good people who are busy doing what they love in life, and in the process making their corners of the world better and prettier places to be.

Limelight is about giving props and spreading the love.

And perhaps the best part about this new column is that at the end of each post, the interviewee will tell us who they would like to share the Limelight with. Welcome to the Limelight, and please meet Sara Kate. I'm the… Owner, Scout & Stylist.

This is what I do…. Travel the country trying to find unique vintage and modern day finds for clients, as well as helping style a plethora of projects...interiors, parties, photoshoots - you name it, and I'll style it.

Something you really need to know about me is…. I am a sucker for the details. I am a fiend for the unusual. I adore things that tell a story, and have character.

This is how Sara Kate Studios came to be… After years preparing to work at a commercial architecture firm I had a bit of a panic attack. The idea of working in a cubicle and not being able to focus on details just wrecked me. After a serious conversation with loved ones I decided to venture out on my own. People had always loved the vintage finds that I had collected, even going so far as to try and buy them out of my house... It seemed only natural to move in the direction of my passion. It happened organically and slowly, but looking back what I had been working towards had been there for quite some time... I just needed to put the pieces together and have the gumption to take the risk.

My absolute favorite thing that I sell right now is… I have had a serious hankering for botanical charts lately. My mother loved to garden growing up, so I have a certain fondness and nostalgia for flowers. I recently happened upon some Swedish botanical charts from the 1920's, and also some German botanical charts from the late 1800's. They are so lovely, and not something that you see every day.

I'm most proud of …. My amazing customers and the culture that we are creating together.

I really detest…. Nothing. My job is an adventure every day with new challenges and rewards popping up around every corner.

I could never have done it without… My mother. She definitely has an entreprenurial spirit, and has been so incredibly encouraging along the way. She encourages me to take risks, make wise choices, and that these things take time. She would often tell me that "people fail not because they have bad ideas, but because they give up too soon", and that's something I've embraced.

I consistently read these for inspiration…. I adore Matchbook magazine. Those girls have such a great aesthetic, and I can certainly relate to their idea of "classic with a twist". Also, I must admit that I still have all of my Domino magazines and will peruse them from time to time. That magazine really did wonders for me, and when I was 19 I put Domino magazine on my bucket list. The idea of being featured by them was something that I would daydream about.

I would like to share the limelight with… I definitely adore what I've lately begun to refer to a my kindred spirits. I am clinging to this idea that there are other women out there, my age, venturing off doing their own thing. One of these women in certainly Shannon Darrough. She's recently begun her own interiors business, Poplin & Queen, and I love that not only is she smart and talented, but she's also eager and willing to do whatever she needs to do. She's focused on her clients, and she's also focused on improving the way that she operates her business.