Houston watercolor artist Kristen Steen, founder and artist at Kristen Leigh Studio in West University Place, is set to make a colorful splash next month with her latest textile and wallpaper collection. Inspired by a family vacation to Hawaii, The Island Collection features four new patterns in shades like soft seafoam, muted blue, terracotta coral, and crisp white.
The collection unfolds across four patterns, each offered in a range of colorways. Mili anchors the group and is the only pattern to come through in both fabric and wallpaper, moving through chambray, lakeside, terracotta, olive, and shades of blue and green. Lana follows in a similar range of chambray, lakeside, blue and green, and terracotta, while Meadow Check and Kiko round out the offering with the addition of forest and, for Meadow Check, olive green. Fabric is woven on French linen and linen cotton canvas, with wallpaper finished in a premium matte.
The Island Collection brings the Kristen Leigh Studio line to approximately 85 fabrics and 30 wallpapers — quite an accomplishment for a studio that, like many, was created during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Relying on what Steen refers to as “the power of Instagram,” Connecticut-based Cailini Coastal tapped Steen to design her first wallpaper, a delicate herringbone pattern named Parker that is available to this day.
The success of her first wallpaper commission inspired Steen to design collections of her own, which have become designer favorites for providing classically-relaxed, nonchalant refinement elevated through their quality craftsmanship and sophisticated finishes. Fabrics are woven in either French linen or a linen cotton canvas, while wallpapers are premium matte, paper weave, or premium grasscloth. As with anything, trial and error ensued, but Steen quickly found a community that she credits with offering continuous support throughout the evolution of Kristen Leigh Studio.
“I just jumped in and learned everything I could about manufacturing wallpaper. I tried out a few here and there; it’s just a lot of research,” explains Steen. “Now that I am in it and have friends who are wallpaper and textile designers, we talk and get together. For being such a singular and solo industry, it’s so valuable to have other designers to bounce ideas off of: what’s working, what isn’t, and what swings in the industry.”
A family health scare kept Steen from creating anything new for a couple of seasons, until a wayward family vacation forced her hand. What was meant to be a week on the beaches of Hawaii ended up being a week indoors during a tropical storm.
“You just kind of had to make the most of it. We couldn’t just sit there and complain — that doesn’t do any good,” says Steen. “There was a lot of sketch time — a lot of just doodling — then afterwards I was playing with color and thought ‘this could be fun.’”
As a studio that mainly markets to designers and showrooms, the pressure to create a new collection each season can grind the gears of the creative process to a halt. After an 18-month hiatus, Steen credits the lack of pressure she felt while just passing time on vacation, while admiring the local flora and fauna, for the inspiration she needed to accumulate enough sketches for a complete collection.
“It sounds really cliché, but just being able to draw and sketch without any end game in mind, being able to not really care about it, is where this collection came from,” explains Steen. “I’m biased, because it’s one of my favorites now, because that’s how it was created.”
Lush botanicals, winding vines, and the easy, unhurried rhythm of island life came into focus, not as literal tropical motifs but filtered through a quieter, more classic point of view. As a watercolor artist, Steen’s work often maintains a traditional, serene dialect. However, her occasional use of bold, saturated color can feel electric and dramatic — something entirely foreign to those who speak in watercolor.
“I do love how the watercolor will have variations in the tones and the shades. You can’t mimic that, you can’t fake it,” says Steen. “There are some patterns — like the Kate, or even the new Mili — that all started with just sketches and brushstrokes, but it just didn’t translate as well to pack that color punch that I wanted. So, when I was editing, I ended up really pushing the saturation to where it almost felt like a solid. But everything is done by hand, for sure.”
More consumers than ever before are seeking out niche studios like Steen’s. Kristen Leigh Studio is not exclusively to-the-trade, a distinction that once made products nearly irresistible. Steen’s collections are available through her Houston studio, website, numerous trade studios throughout the country, through interior designers, and even through select pop-ups. So, with that being said, who is a Kristen Leigh Studio client?
“Someone who wants to have something that feels warm and joyful. Something that feels special and authentic, but not necessarily fussy,” says Steen. “They want to feel proud of it, ‘This is a designer fabric. This is a designer wallpaper. This is something special that I don’t see in my neighbor’s house all the time.’ They want to feel like this is something special, but I’m also a mom of three kids. I realize that the fabrics have to be durable. They have to be something you can touch and live in and it’s not like a museum. Something that’s approachable and sophisticated. Just approachable design—something that’s everyday, but still special.”
Kristen Leigh Studio’s The Island Collection will be available beginning October 1.
