Week 45 - Mewvember, a month of cats

Lilac, Periwinkle, Soft Blue & Cream

A new theme for November: after October’s Dog theme we’re using Cats as art inspiration and I’ll be featuring four women artists.

I’ve a few surprises in store for you and will tell you more in the colour mixing post coming up. November’s first featured artist is new to me, but was a real mover and shaker in her time. As someone who is both an artist and designer I really enjoyed learning more about her for this week’s prompt.

Some background about my own journey as artist and designer: my first studies were in textile design in the 1980s, a time when everything was still done my hand, from designing to colour separation, and then printing on silk screens. The digital revolution had a massive impact on the industry and the way textiles and surface patterns are now produced has changed dramatically: a simple repeat pattern can now easily be done in Photoshop or Procreate. Even though I’m more of a fine artist, I still do textile and surface pattern designs and everything I do still starts off as an original painting on canvas or paper before it’s scanned and digitised to be turned into a repeat.

My wallpaper at Dear Irene in Bend, Oregon

Once a year I create a new quilt fabric collection for Freespirit Fabrics and my designs are licensed by different publishers and manufacturers including Robin Sprong Wallpaper, represented by SARZA in the States. It’s always a thrill to see my designs on the walls of private homes, restaurants and hotels.

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This week’s colours come from a repeat pattern by Suzie Zuzek (1920–2011). She was an American textile designer best known for her vibrant, imaginative fabric prints. Although largely uncredited, Zuzek was the creative force behind the tropical prints synonymous with the Lilly Pulitzer clothing brand that defined the iconic resort-look of the 1960s and 70s, and were popular with celebrities and socialites including Jacqueline Kennedy.

Zuzek was born on a farm in Buffalo, upstate New York. After serving in the Army Corps during the war, she took advantage of the G.I. Bill to study at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where she trained in textile design.

She moved to Key West, Florida where she began working for the newly opened Key West Hand Print Fabrics in the early 1960s. Some of their fabrics had been seen by Lilly Pulitzer, and Pulitzer herself travelled to Key West to track down these bright and stylised motifs.

Finding the source, Pulitzer placed an on-the-spot order for 300 yards which she later called to change to 3,000 yards. Regular orders allowed Key West Hand Print Fabrics to expand, eventually supplying over 5,000 yards of Zuzek-design fabrics every single week.

Between 1962 and 1985, Zuzek created over 1,500 designs in her distinctive style, featuring bright, stylised motifs inspired by the ocean, flora, fauna, and island life.

The fabric company was acquired and became part of the Lily Pulitzer brand until the larger company’s bankruptcy in 1985. After it’s split up and sale, the textile archive was lost and was assumed to have been thrown away until a collector of vintage fabric, Becky Smith, met Zuzek’s daughter in Key West and began archiving the collection in it’s entirety.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Zuzek's work, and she has gained posthumous recognition as a pioneering American textile designer. Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Artist Behind an Iconic American Fashion Brand was published in 2020 and her work was featured in a retrospective exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in 2021,

See a selection of Zuzek’s designs at Christie’s here. There’s an entire website about Zuzek from the company that now holds the copyrights to her works here.

“Gallery”, gouache, ink, graphite and collage on paper, Suzie Zuzek, 1973 (image source)

Colour Combination

The colours for this weeks prompt are Lilac, Periwinkle, Soft Blue & Cream. Use the #coloricombo colours along with any neutral light and dark colour to create an artwork in any medium and style. 

November’s (or Mew-vember’s) theme is “Cats”. You can use this as topic and create in any way as you wish, using the week’s colours in any medium and style.

I love to see what you do with the coloricombo colours. If you'd like to share your work, please tag #coloricombo and #estemacleod on social media. You're also welcome to join and post in the private Facebook group Creative Prompts. Add the tag #mewvember this month.

Let’s Paint Cats….

Keeping with this month’s theme, the mini-course Let’s Paint Cats is available at a 25% discount until the end of November. All courses have one year’s access from registration.

Paid Coloricombo subscribers get a 40% discount, please see below for your exclusive code.