Today’s Creative Mix guest is someone I wrote about two weeks ago and have loved for a while. Martha McQuade has such an interesting creative path and I’m so glad she took the time to pop in to tell us about it.
What is your Creative Mix? Tell us about all the creative things you do.
My home life and work life are really integrated – my studio is in my home and I consider everything a creative challenge, which can be a bit of a problem – I want to design and make all the things! I guess I call myself a designer/maker and the majority of my designing is divided between teaching design, architecture, clothing and textiles. I also design/make jewelry, furniture and objects, do graphic design, draw and paint, take photographs, teach design, write, cook…
I just learned that in addition to designing beautiful scarves and clothing, you’re also an architect. How do these two worlds intersect for you? How do they inspire each other? Did you start designing textiles before or after you were trained in architecture?
I grew up in a creative household and was always making things, painting and drawing, knitting and sewing. I guess my first “designs” were the clothes I made for my barbie dolls. My mom knit and sewed incredible outfits for my dolls and this was pretty inspirational for me. I grew up in a modern ’60s house filled with modern art and objects and my dad really liked art and architecture – we were always going to museums and to look at buildings. This was all very inspirational as well. I was pretty good at math as a kid and thought I would be a CPA like my dad, and then one day my older brother’s best friend said he was going to the university for architecture. That sounded interesting so I decided I would do the same. And that was it.
I studied architecture and went to work for a firm and it was great for several years -there is so much to learn about making buildings when you first start out. But after a while I realized I didn’t know how to begin a project – I knew nothing about the design process. My undergraduate degree really focused on making buildings, not on the process of design, or how to work. I thought since I didn’t know how to start designing something I wasn’t good at it. I decided to go back to grad school to see if this was something I could learn or not and it was like a switch was flipped. The teaching methods were so different from my undergrad experience. The focus was on design, not on objects.
“I started figuring out a process that worked for me and also discovered that really this process could be applied to anything. This was the beginning of my love of thinking, talking and teaching about process.”
I also realized that I missed making things. The process of designing a building and having it built is so slow and essentially hands off. I found that my process required making things and then responding to what I had made. It was around this time I started making clothing again.
“It’s been very interesting to me to test out ideas I have about volume, texture, contrast, etc. in a textile or garment and see immediate results but to then be able to think how that translates into a space that the body can inhabit on a larger scale.”
I am currently working on a residential project that started with some wood I stained with ink. I had been using the ink to dye textiles and liked how it penetrated and spread throughout the fabric in a sort of semi-solid way. I thought it would be interesting to see how it reacted with wood and it was so amazing the project has sort of grown up around this wood.
Tell us about The Workbook section of your site. You’ve documented your work and inspiration in such a lovely visual way. How did you develop the idea to share the behind-the-scenes with us like this? Do you plan to keep doing it? Please? :)
As I mentioned above, process is really important to me. Always being aware of the way I work and documenting it so I can see the cause and effect. The documentation is the basis for moving forward. I love seeing other artists studios and works in progress as well and I thought the workbook section would be a way to record a part of my process and also open it up a little bit for others – sort of stand in for a blog, which I don’t really have time to do. I definitely plan to keep doing it and I have a backlog of images I need to upload!
I love your scarves. I have one from your Aqueus collection that I wear all the time. What was the transition from scarves to clothing like for you? Did you intend to design a clothing line all along or did the desire come from your experience with scarves?
It was actually the other way around! I started with clothing and hand dyed a lot of my fabrics. People were asking me where I got the garments and when they found out I made them they would ask if I could make them some too. So I started an etsy shop. Once in a while I would make some accessories – jewelry, scarves, bags, pillows. People really responded to the scarves. I guess they fit everyone and are an affordable way to add personal style to an outfit. People kept emailing me about them and so I started to think about having a place to put all the colors and styles together.
That’s how SCARFSHOP came about and it has been a joy for me. I can just play with color and fabric in a not too serious way and I love being able to offer something handmade and affordable to people. I also love graphic design and photography and the site gives me a place to do a little bit of all these things. Eventually SCARFSHOP got so busy that I stopped making clothing – scarves are just so much easier. But I missed the more complex spatial nature of garments and so I recently launched a new collection.
How have blogs and social media impacted your career?
The internet and social media are really why I can do what I do. Not being located in a city like LA or NYC, I rely on social media for marketing. I have been incredibly lucky to have generous bloggers like you write about my work. My new website is a consolidation of of all my design work; clothing, textiles and architecture. Eventually I’ll have a misc. category for all the other stuff too. It’s a work in progress – I still have so much to add, especially in the architecture category. Until I put up the new site my architecture projects came mainly from word of mouth. Now with the new site I’ve been getting some inquires about architecture from there.
Of all the social media outlets Instagram has been the most fun, inspiring and had the most impact on my business. I’ve had so many customers say they found me through Instagram! I absolutely love it. I’ve discovered so many creative people, many right here in Minnesota. And as someone who is obsessed with process, I love being about to see inside the studios and work days of other creatives.
I am feeling so inspired right now. What about you guys?
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Martha! I’ll be stalking your workbook and architecture pages. :) xoxo