THE RISKY BUSINESS COLLECTION
New for 2017, the Risky Business patterns are made up of tessellating shapes, cut out of paper and layered digitally. The patterns are at once perfectly geometric and yet some (on closer inspection) are gloriously imperfect. While finalising these designs, a loved one described making this collection as "a risky business", presumably because they are unashamedly bold, bright, statement pieces. I think this was followed by the phrase "wouldn't some florals be safer?" Naturally I decided to go with the risk...
While discussing photography for this collection, my peerless collaborator Susan Castillo wanted to explore the concept of risk. I told her a story about a children's birthday party I attended a few years ago. We were living in South East Asia at the time. During a very humid al fresco dinner, a fan swirled lazily from the veranda ceiling above our table. Gradually one of the helium balloons, tied to a kid's chair with ribbon, worked its way loose and drifted gently up, towards the blades of the rotating fan. Adults and children alike fell silent, mesmerised by the balloon's slow but inevitable progress towards the propeller. The sense of impending doom during that long moment while all was still well (but all knew it wouldn't be for long) was horrifying. The intensity of that jeopardy still makes us shudder when we talk about that dinner, years later. I explained to Susan that it was that moment that I wanted her to try and capture in her photographs. That moment when everything is still technically OK, but the jeopardy - the risk - cannot be denied. Disaster is inevitable. As always, Susan captured this feeling precisely, resulting in photographs that make my heart skip a beat every time I look at them. Moreover, these photos illustrate with eerie accuracy the sensation of running a small creative business in the twenty-teens: never more than one decision away from catastrophe!
