Trisha Lynn is a designer with a love for illustration and stationary. She combines her passion for art with practical needs, creating patterns and making prints. Her sweet cards are inspired by vintage botanical prints, and we especially love her "Thankful" themed 2018 calendar. What a perfect way to ring in the new year, with a reminder to have thankfulness with each month!
Who are you and what do you do?
I am Trisha Lynn, the artist and designer behind the stationery company Designs by Trisha Lynn. I have always loved illustration and in stationery I discovered a place where I could combine my love of drawing with something practical and useful. I gain much of my inspiration from nature and browsing antique stores. I opened my Etsy shop in 2015 and have done a lot of local shows as well as expanding my online shop. My first product was a botanical illustration of Pears (inspired by old school pulldown charts). Its been fun to continue to develop my style and develop new products.
What’s the latest thing you’ve been working on?
I am just completing my 2018 calendar. The focus of the calendar is on being thankful. Each month has a short poem expressing thankfulness for the season and has a place to add personal expressions of thankfulness for that month. The theme is dear to me this year as I have been through a lot of change and found it difficult to be thankful with so much upheaval in my life. So it’s been fun to develop the calendar and have my own mind focused on being thankful.
Have you always been passionate about art and design?
I have loved art for as long as I can remember, and besides a brief stint of wanting to be a zookeeper, I’ve always wanted to do something with art. I took as many art classes as I could through school and then went on to get a bachelors in photography after high school. In college I rediscovered printmaking and post-college discovered pattern design. I loved how these art forms are both practical and able to be quickly reproduced. Both of those art forms are often used in stationery products, which guided me towards opening a stationery shop.
What was your first memory of making something?
When I was little I used to draw all of the time. I remember one day sitting in the car drawing in my notepad and for some reason I had this epiphany of how to draw a dog profile. It totally changed how I thought about drawing and was pretty much all that I drew for quite a while. I thought I was a pretty amazing artist.
What do you love most about craft show vending?
My favorite thing about being part of craft shows is getting to meet my customers. I always enjoy hearing what they like about my products or what suggestions they have for me. I also love meeting other artists in the shows and learning about their work and how they run their businesses.
Check out more of Trisha Lynn's work online, and be sure to stop by her booth at the Minneapolis Gift & Art Expo, November 3-5, 2017 at the Minneapolis Convention Center!