Let the light in! I have always had a love affair with chandeliers…
I hope you like my most recent fabric design hand screened locally in Sydney. It’s very heartening to see people get behind locally, handcrafted products made in the slow tradition.
Thanks y’all and especially to Cleo Glyde of Sunday Style Magazine.
So thrilled to be again featured in Sunday Style Magazine for my latest steph & gaia hand screened design Lumiere.
Lumiere in colours of BLACK, TANGERINE ORANGE, WHITE & FLUORO YELLOW pay homage to fallen empires.
Thank you Cleo Glyde.
Kindness IS the new BLACK.
Well it is my belief anyway. And as with all my designs they evolve around a narrative of many facets that seem to manifest into something tangible. Since silk screening my own fabric design with I wish I was WARHOL, I had been chomping at the bit to get back to it.
Enter Peter Walsh local screen printer with aplomb, who also shares a concern for keeping a sensitive approach to manufacture. These are key for me when I design or work with craftspeople. Peter and I embarked on a shared passion for bespoke design made locally.
My diaries (doodle pads really) travel with me as I notate, scribble, draw and giggle at vignettes of the sublime, ridiculous, humble and uplifting.
The idea of Kindness is the new BLACK evolved from the often ephemeral and fickle nature of design following trends. As a self proponent of following stories and heart not trends the quote lent itself rather nicely.
I knew that I also wanted to silk screen on something other than fabric. Long have I coveted and collected apothecary bottles in particular the amber kind. The idea of silk screening on bottles made a quirky kind of sense to me. So why not use these humble amber bottles to dispense olive oil, water for that matter? It all came together very fortuitously in Australia’s wine capital .
Hope you like!
Not long ago I was approached by Cleo Glyde, editor of My Space Magazine to re run a Vogue Living feature on my partner Adam Laerkesen and myself. This newly pressed magazine had in its sights interiors that went beyond a cookie cutter definition. Cleo recounted how she’d approached Vogue Living to suggest a home and couple they’d worked with. I was flattered I’ll admit that, however, something akin to panic set in as I imagined all that would be involved for yet another photo shoot. Relief was quick as it was the interview over telephone calls and emails that was made current with a selection of Vogue Living pics re pressed.
Thank you Cleo Glyde
And look out for an upcoming feature in My Space Magazine on a wonderful friend and sculptor, Aly Aitken.
steph & gaia My Space feature
Sunday Style Magazine
As a child, I spent countless hours looking up into the dun sky scouting for owls. My grandmother Artemisia said as they were the wisest of all beasts, you could if you really tried see them hover taking wing to the hidden school nestled guardedly in a furtive cave. These tales spun by the warmth of her bed, recounted the enigmatic triumph of The secret schools in Greece under Ottoman rule preserving the language under the steer of orthodox monks. It was said that children faced peril following the wise owls under the cloak of darkness to the caves of knowledge.
And so in vain I watched the night skies, ever dutiful, ever romantic, but alas no wise owls did shepherd on those Delphian nights.
steph & gaia Night Song Toile owl in House & Garden Magazine.
It’s always wonderful connecting with confluent people who in a sense become ambassadors for your brand. So Vic Bibby of cush & nooks NZ great having you on board promoting steph & gaia’s hand made Australian products.
steph & gaia’s “The Road To Memphis” in blue leopard print.
ALY AITKEN
I know this woman who is a conjurer of the Romantic and the chimerical though she would not claim this. Aly Aitken possesses herculean spine to make art which is at once hallucinatory, beguiling, menacing, puzzling, and filled with the wild imaginings of a child’s playground. I am roused by this woman who sits (I imagine romantically) hand, heart and hammer to the grindstone in a cobbled hollow of Melbourne’s CBD.
I have eaten at her communal table, drunk and laughed in the warm crucible she inhabits with her family and lost my breath speechless at her vignettes of Kitsch, Karma and Madonna relics. Aly lives in a Wonderland. Festooned with repositories of marbles that once scratched gritty streets, curiously primped dolls that capture your attention, Madonna reliquaries and taxidermies mesh unapologetically with domesticity you begin the see the antecedents of where her art germinates. Where her quizzical forms begin and trail into vagary. She is at once the clothier, mage and sculptor of her sweep that clutches in its grips, fish eye apertures of the cinereal city sky line.
Her hand stitched leather menaces, sit, stand and writhe for their salvation. I’m not sure I know what they want or of what they speak, but I have seen their faces before-in that realm where only children dare go. Aly’s sculptures go in advance of rational definition as they morph beyond what is known and experienced. But one has only to close their eyes to see the pages of disremembered fairy tales of the lusus naturae in Aly’s work. She is a storyteller that crafts the dark creatural full of wonderment and metamorphosis.
I am a reader of fairy tales, poems and songs and as these follow their own logic so do I find meaning in between the lines of Alyson Aitken’s sculpture. Whether you are a first hand witness or art voyeur, Aly invites you into her world.
Stephanie Margaritidis
Every now and then things happen quite spontaneously and keep you smiling…and so it was when Kate St James & Karsha Green approached me to see if I was interested in being profiled in the re vamped killer edition of Luxury Home Design. I was thrilled of course. The new look mag is amazing and being featured alongside Mark Newson…I don’t mind at all!
Steph xx
I have finally moved towards screen printing my own fabric. I won’t go into too much detail about the story behind it..I’ll save that for the launch which will also coincide with my feature article in Luxury Home Design magazine. Art continues to make segues into my designs in so far as I don’t separate between the two disciplines. The use of the text ” I wish I was a WARHOL” references a quote by Ian Curtis-lead singer of Joy Division-but more on that in the unfurling story to come.
But for now a small preview of my fabric design and other custom made home wares by steph & gaia. As with all our products they are hand printed and hand made in Sydney.
& Thank you to Model Bianca Jade Levy.
Steph xx
2013 is already shaping up to be an exciting year for me..I’m looking forward to the launch of my latest collection as well as my new feature article in Luxury Home Design Magazine. But in the meantime and equally thrilling steph & gaia’s feature of Aloha Oe and Elvis Matinee in Fantastic Living Magazine.
Enjoy the rest of the day, it’s searing hot here in Sydney. Steph xx
steph & gaia 