Written by Kendall Shepard, Photos courtesy of Jack Geshel
Coming to Lacoste as an Alumni Atelier has been a long time coming for Kate De Para [M.F.A Fibers 2012]. De Para is a Houston-based artist, who now works for a company designing textiles for furniture and decor.
Luckily De Para still found her way to the south of France. “One of my colleagues did the Alumni Atelier program the pilot year. So through him, Amy Zurcher [Executive Director, Creative Ideation & Design] found out about my work,” De Para said.
De Para wasn’t able to commit to the following year because she had just taken a new job in Houston. So, she waited to apply for the summer of 2019, in hopes there would still be a spot for her. It was then that Zurcher put De Para in touch with Tiffani Taylor, the coordinator for the Alumni Atelier program. “It was mostly a networking thing, I would say,” De Para said.
It was ShopSCAD that changed the game for De Para. During her masters program at SCAD, she was creating only textiles. “I was just making art, not really product,” De Para said. ShopSCAD encouraged her to make women’s clothing which became an essential part of her work this past summer. While in Savannah, De Para developed a close relationship with ShopSCAD. Once she learned how to sew and they began carrying her clothing.
For the program, every artist has to submit a proposal of what they want to create during their time in Lacoste. “I had been making clothes for about seven years, and then started making rugs and pillows for the company I’m working for. So, I had been thinking more in terms of interior product,” De Para said.
Before the program, De Para was looking forward to working with the natural dyes that live in Provence, as well as experimenting with new yarns and new textures. “This summer was the first time weaving my own rugs on the loom. It was awesome,” De Para said. “I tried a lot of things and failed in a lot of ways, and then I finally got to a place where I got something that I wanted and that was working.”
Coming out of the program, De Para is excited to go home to Texas and begin working on more projects at home. This summer, she enjoyed experimenting and now has a better idea of products she wants to make. Going forward, De Para wants to create lines of home-ware items that extend outside the realm of clothing. “They put a lot of trust and faith in me that I think was really generous,” De Para said. “I love SCAD.”
To see more of De Para’s work visit her Instagram and website.
