Alison Stein was born into a heritage of great imagination and design talent.
Her great grandfather, Lewis Hallock Nash, was a successful inventor and held many patents, including a hydraulic pump design that is still manufactured and widely used today around the world for many practical applications.
His daughter, Mildred Archer Nash Bly, Alison's grandmother, was a painter and sculptor who was apprentice to Solon Borglum, the renowned sculptor and brother of Mt. Rushmore creator Gutzon Borglum.
After growing up in New Canaan, Connecticut, Alison studied first at Rochester Institute of Technology, then transferred to Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. There she majored in Surface Pattern Design and studied with two of the acknowledged experts in the field, V. Ann and Donald Waterman.
She received her BFA from Syracuse, and was quickly hired as a colorist for Styletown Fabrics in New York City (a division of the Manes Organization), where she received invaluable experience in preparing textile designs for lines of clothing (including some featured at Lord & Taylor) and for fabric stores nationwide.
Her interest in surface pattern design is not exclusively related to commercial production, and Alison expresses herself as a fine artist and craftsperson, working in the media of weaving and knitting. She has also participated in the Institute of Weavers of the University of Minnesota's famed Split Rock Arts Program.
After living in Southern California for some time with her husband, Rick, Alison decided to brush up her skills further and attended LA's Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, where she graduated magna cum laude and was a finalist for the 2001 TALA (Textile Association of Los Angeles) Award.
Before she graduated, she was invited to work for MMfab, producers of South Sea Imports and other major lines of fabrics for the home quilting and medical scrubs markets.
Alison's non-commercial work has been exhibited in solo and group shows around the country and in 2015 she was the recipient of a year-long Kenneth Picerne Foundation Artist Outreach Grant.
Alison possesses a unique perspective on design, developing ideas with lines of coordinating patterns and colorways in mind. Much of this derives from her high degree of practical knowledge of the production process, enhancing her ability to create designs that are not only inventive and bold, but lose nothing in translation when mass produced.Further, her experience in the area of line development has given her a unique perspective on shaping design concepts to market realities. ♥
