Paper-Cut-Project
Nikki Nye and Amy Flurry met while the former owned a fashion boutique just outside of Atlanta and the latter was working as a freelance fashion editor. “We discovered a mutual love for the theater and fantasy as it played out on the runway,” Flurry says. Nye, a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Art, has been working with paper since art school, while Flurry was also making textiles on the side. Joining forces, the pair founded Paper-Cut-Project in 2009. “I had been an artist since I was a little girl, but always as a hobby,” Nye says. “[Paper-Cut-Project is] when I realized that it is possible to make a living doing what I love.”
While Nye is responsible for sketching designs for client approval, Flurry works on the accents and details of their pieces, which are constructed from heavy art paper and glue. Recently, they completed their first permanent installation at the Eve on Adams rooftop lounge at the DoubleTree by Hilton Tallahassee, designed by Steiner Group. Measuring 9-by-5-feet, every piece of paper for the floral sculpture was hand-cut and assembled in three panels that were then shipped and put together on location.
Craig Alan
Born in San Bernardino, California and raised in the greater Atlanta area, artist Craig Alan spent his youth drawing on the walls of his parents’ house. “I decided my mom’s kitchen walls needed more color and took it upon myself to resolve,” he says. From there, Alan temporarily found passions elsewhere, accepting a scholarship to play soccer at the University of Mobile in Prichard, Alabama. But when his GPA slipped, his coach enrolled him in art classes to pull it back up. “These classes ended up changing the course of my life,” Alan says. “Art made all of the other classes I was taking come alive.” On weekends, he began driving to New Orleans to create and sell portraits of pedestrians, which was the first step in opening his eponymous studio a few years later.
His most acclaimed series, “Populus,” was inspired by a wedding he witnessed, and comprises 3D portraits of historical figures such as John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Recently, however, he worked with DAC Art Consulting to install From the Ground Up, a mural depicting a rising phoenix on Atlanta’s multi-use 8West building. The original mixed-media painting was completed in studio and then reproduced on stainless steel metal sheets. “I love finding ways to shape people’s perspectives in unexpected ways, taking them from one sense of reality to the next,” Alan says. “This notion of transformation fuels my inspiration.”
Emily Herr
“The art option in any scenario has always been what I deferred to,” says Richmond, Virginia-based artist Emily Herr. “I was dedicated to making art a functioning career while keeping my interests and passions centered.” Attending Virginia Commonwealth University, she found a love for murals and focused on illustration and art that feels ready for the interior design world. “Murals just had everything that I wanted to do—a broad audience, large scale, interesting materials and settings, and the ability to work within a specific context,” she explains.
Upon graduating, Herr inserted herself into the Richmond art scene, notably including the Quirk Gallery. When that became the Quirk Hotel, she worked with the property on “Girls! Girls! Girls!,” a series of 17 murals that pay tribute to all those who identify as female. Inside the hotel, designed by Bristow Proffitt, she also created murals for a number of the guestrooms that bring together various local landscapes and overlaid them with the silhouettes of two roses. “Quirk’s whole sensibility and focus is on love and happiness and the bright shiny side of things,” she explains, “so framing these little portraits of the city in two overlapping roses [made sense].”
Project Backboard
Sam Peterson’s brother Dan started Project Backboard while Sam was still studying graphic design and illustration at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York (he also started on the basketball team all four years he attended). Dan’s initial mission was merely to outfit outdoor basketball courts with game lines, but with Sam involved from the start, the endeavor morphed into an artistic opportunity. “The vision to incorporate artwork wasn’t an intentional evolution, but a reaction to the responses we received after our first go at using the entire court as a canvas,” Sam says. “From then on, it just made sense to incorporate artwork to highlight the central place basketball courts have in a lot of communities.”
Sam has since taken leadership over court renovation projects, collaborating with local artists to bring authenticity to the final product, while his brother handles partnership development and special projects. Locations for the vibrant murals have ranged from the brothers’ hometown of New Rochelle, New York and Memphis, where they have family, to Oakland, California and Puerto Rico. “We like community and we like color,” adds Sam. “From there, we don’t limit ourselves to a particular aesthetic.”
Photos courtesy of Quirk Hotel and Project Blackboard
This article originally appeared in HD’s 2020 Product Marketplace issue.
