ANCHAL PROJECT

Colleen Clines
[2010, Master of Landscape Architecture]

Based in Louisville, KY

Anchal’s RISD Craft Gallery

Anchal (on-chal) believes design can change lives. As a social enterprise, Anchal uses design thinking to create innovative products and sustainable employment for exploited women worldwide.

Anchal’s designs explore the synthesis of vernacular imagery, heritage artwork and a maker’s journey to empowerment. The contemporary graphic designs are defined by sophisticated patchwork and aggregated stitch patterns, revolutionizing traditional kantha quilting techniques. Anchal’s home goods and accessories are entirely hand-stitched by Anchal’s 130 artisans in Ajmer, India with layers of the softest GOTS certified organic cotton since 2010. All of Anchal’s heirloom quality pieces are artfully crafted with the highest quality and attention to detail.

Tell us about some of your main sources of inspiration.

Coming from a background in Landscape Architecture, I am still constantly inspired by the urban environment. When I am feeling stuck or uninspired, I walk the trails of local parks or neighboring streets and consciously look for things I normally overlook. This practice also translates into my time in India when I am working alongside Anchal’s artisans. Together we challenge ourselves to look at our surroundings through a different lens. This can be anything from the siding on a building to flowering trees to the earth that we walk on. The results are captured in photographs and become the inspiration for our textile-based products.

Is there a work/body of work that you are particularly excited about sharing with us at RISD Craft this year?

We started Anchal with a dream that the brave women of Anchal could become designers. That dream is now a reality. The Curve Collection is the first series completely inspired by an Anchal artisan’s design – from photographs to textile art piece to the final quilt and complementary pillows. The Curve Quilt originated through the lens of artisan Seema and a view of an ordinary rooftop in India.

The results culminated in a bold modernist composition with layers of 100% organic cotton and activated by a radiating stitch pattern. The Curve Quilt and coordinating pillows bring Anchal’s mission full circle by encouraging the artisan’s creative confidence to express their personal identities through fabric while creating unique works of art that tell the story of empowerment and change.

Any recent press, exhibitions, achievements or awards you’d like to share with us?

Anchal will be launching a special collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Store this Fall. We were invited to design a collection of quilts, scarves, and bags inspired by the incredible abstract paintings of Hilma af Klint. The exclusive Guggenheim x Anchal will launch alongside the special exhibition of Hilma af Klint’s work in October 2018.

To see more from Anchal, visit anchalproject.org


ELANA CARELLO SWEATERS

Elana Leanna
[1984, Apparel Design]

Based in Cranston, RI

Elana Carello’s RISD Craft Gallery

I like to create whimsical and unique knitwear with a retro influence. I love designing sweaters because you can design the entire garment. For me, designing sweaters is the closest an apparel designer comes to fine art. I want my sweaters to be wearable art in the most tasteful way. I want them to feel good as well as make the wearer look good and be happy – the first reaction when customers see my sweaters is always a smile. My process begins with my sketching the sweater, choosing yarn and colors and deciding how to knit the fabric. I create a life-size layout and decide on type and size of the yarn. I often knit a first swatch or prototype and then instruct my partner how to knit the garments on jacquard machines; this includes gauge, stitch, number of ends of yarn, and specifications for each size and garment. Everything is done under my instruction and supervision in the USA.

Tell us about some of your main sources of inspiration.

I’m inspired by so many things. Pop culture, music, and art all contribute to my desire to create. The work of the great fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, is perhaps the most inspiring, tho. After I watch a Chanel fashion show, I’m dying to sketch.

How does your current creative practice tie into your time spent at RISD?

I’m always thinking about what I learned at RISD, especially from Professors Lorraine Howes and Marie Clarke. Their words, advice, and the work ethic they taught me are still with me.

Any recent press, exhibitions, achievements or awards you’d like to share with us?

Our sweaters were featured in the last season of The Mindy Project. I’m including my early rough sketches here.

Is there a work/body of work that you are particularly excited about sharing with us at RISD Craft this year?

Yes. I decided this year to design a sweater that did not have any of my signature patterns, and that also incorporated woven material. As a small company, I have to be cautious about taking risks, but I’m very excited about this one.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’m so happy to be back at the Sale.

To see more of Elana’s work, visit elanacarellosweaters.com


ANCHORPAK

Colin Sullivan-Stevens
[2001, Painting]

Based in Maine

Anchorpak’s RISD Craft Gallery

In Maine, ingenuity and resourcefulness are part of our character. We have all sorts of wicked weather and rough terrain to navigate and as a result we have learned to tinker with things to make life go better. It was in this tradition that Anchorpak’s founder, Colin Sullivan-Stevens, a Maine native and Rhode Island School of Design graduate, designed the Anchorpack. He needed something to carry all his stuff to his studio on his bicycle. It needed to feature accessibility, hands free carrying, stability and comfort. Using an old movie screen for material and his geometric expertise from studies in acoustics, he designed and stitched together his first Anchorpak.

It is in the spirit of local community and environmental awareness that Anchorpak manufactures all products in Maine. Maine is a state with a long tradition of quality textile manufacturing but over the years they have lost many jobs to overseas manufacturing. Anchorpak aims to do their part to restore this valuable skill set and employment sector to Maine, and source materials in the USA.

What are some of the most important practices for your creative process?

Brainstorming: My approach to small and large decisions is to attempt to work out flexible connections between the concrete functional aspects at play and the multifaceted soup of ideas and experiences kicking around upstairs. I try to store up on the possibilities even when ideas and things don’t connect because storage is free.

How does your current creative practice tie into your time spent at RISD?

From my current perspective as a designer working outside my field study at RISD which was painting, I was not too surprised to shift my creative practice to address the ergonomic design of bags. The sense that there is always more to understand about everything, that solutions to creative challenges are unlimited if enough focus and hard work are put forth was implicit at RISD and remains the basis from which I begin my work everyday.

Is there a work/body of work that you are particularly excited about sharing with us at RISD Craft this year?

Yes, I am looking forward to being back on Benefit Street to share a design invention I’ve dubbed The Anchorpak bag. I have a feeling that it might appeal in the RISD community where can develops an eye for simple effective product design.

Tell us about some of your main sources of inspiration.

Childhood/Nature: butterflies, building “forts” in the snow and in the woods, downhill skiing, whale watching, flying an airplane at age 11 and The Space Shuttle. Later on… free-jazz, Bjork, the earth, nature and hearty mysteries, food, good civics and well balanced design systems, uncertainty and humanistic ideals.

Any recent press, exhibitions, achievements or awards you’d like to share with us?

Anchorpak has been granted funds by the Maine State Technology Institute in 2015, 2016, 2017 to understand and develop our innovative ergonomic bag design concept for improved everyday carrying. We have been featured in NE regional press often including The Boston Globe and Downeast Magazine editorials, Maine Biz and Old Port Magazine entrepreneur/artist /designer profiles.

Visit anchorpak.com to see more!