A Labor of Love

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It may be you can walk into a large, national department store and find a pattern that would work for the new draperies you've been waiting months for, the couch you love but need to reupholster, or the pillows you want to scatter around your freshly painted living room. But more than likely, those patterns you find at that department store will seem curiously like the ones you saw at your neighbor's home last week and, suddenly, the pattern you thought would work doesn't.

That's because those patterns are “run of the mill.” Literally.

But not so the patterns from Galbraith & Paul. These fresh textiles are anything but ordinary, and they aren't produced in a fabric mill. And because they sell to the trade and do custom work, you aren't likely to see them everywhere.

Galbraith & Paul began with Liz Galbraith and Ephraim Paul back in 1986.

“Liz and I graduated college in 1984,” says Ephraim, “and moved to Philadelphia together. Liz studied painting and I studied writing. After college, Liz set up a hand papermaking studio while I pursued a graduate degree in writing. After a couple of years, Liz designed a small collection of lighting with handmade paper using traditional Japanese papermaking techniques. We brought them to a wholesale craft show in 1986 and that was the beginning of Galbraith & Paul.”

Today, all the patterns Liz creates are hand block printed in Galbraith & Paul's Philadelphia studio on a variety of ground cloths: 5 linens, 2 velvets, and a silk. Take your pick from 30 patterns, 8 grounds, and more than 100 colors. That adds up to a lot of beautiful patterns. Each of which is decidedly fresh: The botanicals are lively and colorful, the florals inventive and yet hint at tasteful classicism.

From whence does such beauty spring? Ephraim notes that Liz is inspired by nature. “Gardens especially, as well as by the great variety of textile traditions. She tries to combine something inspirational with a formal concern--such as the balance of positive and negative space. Developing a pattern is a process of developing a core idea, editing its elements into something that can be put into a repeat as well as serving some kind of need for the designer. We go through a lot of trial and error, first with the pattern itself, scale, repeats, and then with color which can take an incredibly long time. As with most creative things, editing takes the most time and is essential.”

Once the pattern is ready, the handcrafting process is done with the help of about a dozen artisans employed at the studio. “Most of them have gone to art school and studied printmaking or textiles,” Ephraim says. “It's an incredible mix of people who all work very hard to make our textiles look beautiful and care very much about the process and the product.”

Galbraith & Paul say they love working with textiles because of the endless possibilities of combining patterns and colors. “We enjoy pushing the colors in combinations that are both fresh and classic at the same time,” they say. And that's why these patterns are equally at home in contemporary and traditional settings.

If you're looking for something that doesn't reveal the name of the department store where you bought it, Galbraith & Paul textiles offer that something. “Trends are not something that explicitly interest us,” they say. “We tend to approach design from two directions: One is to pursue our own interest and passion to create new patterns, which could be the result of some recent influence (like Moroccan textiles) or a formal problem such as creating a botanical pattern where the negative space is as interesting as the positive. The second direction is to look at the holes in our line in terms of scale — large, medium, and small — and to try and design collections that include both designs that are fresh in a variety of scales to meet the clients' needs for different curtain and upholstery applications.”

Just imagine your curtains and roman shades, upholstered sofas, dining room and living room chairs and ottomans newly sheathed in Smokebush, Spring Garden, or Birds ... or, perhaps a headboard in Seville Medallion.

No matter what you choose, the passion and creativity expressed through the many hands at the Galbraith & Paul studio to the textiles will work in your home. And it's good to know that the people who make them love their work. “Making something beautiful by hand, employing artists, creating an atmosphere of support for those artisans,” says Ephraim, “all adds up to making our day-to-day lives a labor of love.”