Monday, January 30, 2017

The Artist UnSEWn - FreeSpirit Presents Erin McMorris' Intermix


I always dread it when someone asks where I got my inspiration. I know, I know, it sounds strange—I mean, the question should be easy, right? After all, I designed it! I was there when I put pencil to paper for that first sketch. Yet for some reason, it is SO hard for me to articulate. I guess it’s because I get my inspiration from…everywhere!


Intermix by Erin McMorris

Perhaps I’m just embarrassed to admit that many times an idea just pops into my head as I’m watching cat videos. But typically, collections are a snapshot of what was happening in my life: what vacations I drew inspiration from, what trend was interesting to me in the design world, or even what colors I was missing in my own stash. My new collection, Intermix, is one of my favorites so far is drawn from all of the above. Here’s how it started…

Intermix by Erin McMorris

I was hiking in the Arizona mountains with my sister, and while she was probably feigning interest in my work, I explained to her that cacti and succulents are a big print trend in both home dec and fashion. That got me thinking. While enjoying the scenic view of the crazy-shaped cacti, I thought about doing an eclectic scenic leafy print that is more in line with the Pacific Northwest, where I live. Using different brushes and textures as well as solid line work, I drew Britta, where I tried to show the textural qualities of the plants, and making it as packed as a landscape would be. And then to co-ordinate, I decided to show those textured leaves and plants in rows of potted plants. My latest obsession is ceramics, and I’ve been making a ton of vessels for my own plants, so I thought it would be nice to make it more personal and draw the pots as some of the shapes I’ve been throwing on the wheel. 

Intermix by Erin McMorris

Finn is a slight homage to the Memphis Milano Group whose graphic style has made a return as a print trend (yay...hello 80’s!!)  and is yet another reference to a pattern I’ve painted on my ceramics. No collection would be complete with some sort of dotted pattern, and Quimby is a raindrop allover is covered by the gridded dot.  I love blending structured and organic patterns.  Helix is a pattern which started out as a doodle probably while watching an aforementioned cat video (see, I wasn’t joking!). Because my doodles looked like crazy colorful crystals, I started thinking of geology and the hard and soft of natural elements, and decided to make a blender print of Granite.  Granite is a marble-type pattern that I drew by hand, which took forever while binge-watching the entire mini-series “Making of a Murderer”on Netflix.  It’s weird how some prints become cemented with whatever podcast, or tv show I was listening to at the time. The show is very bleak and takes place in Wisconsin and got me thinking about icy, stark contrasts and winter landscapes as I was drawing tiny gray lines. So I used a lot of black and white and some icy or earthy colors with my usual aqua/pink (to make me happy again).  I’m always going to try and make a collection look happy regardless of my viewing preferences and think the quilt that I designed looks like shears of a springtime mountain cliff.  

Intermix by Erin McMorris


Which sort of brings us full circle!

Intermix by Erin McMorris

So you can see that answering the “where do you get your inspiration from” question isn’t necessarily going to result in an exotic answer.  It might just come from items I come across in my everyday life, a bleak TV mini-series or even a baby goat video!


Erin McMorris

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