Transcription of Erin Flett for the show Designing Maine #175
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Dr. Lisa: It’s a privilege of mine to speak with people that I have known from the community for many years and maybe not had quite as much of an opportunity to speak with them in depth. Today, I have in the studio Erin Flett who is one such individual. I actually own a couple of her pillows from maybe a generation back I guess.
I met her a few years ago when she was at picnic I think doing sewing some of her projects. She is a graphic textile and surface designer with her own line of hand screen textiles and woven fabrics. Her line includes pillows, bags, wall art, limited edition paper products, and also custom projects from interior designers and architects.
Anyone who’s on Instagram or Facebook has Erin Flett because you’re everywhere, so thanks for coming in today. You’re so busy.
Erin: Thank you so much.
Dr. Lisa: I have really enjoyed watching the evolution of your business and your career because I know that you initially had done some work here at 75 Market Street affiliated with Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design. You had a couple of daughters. You just like burst out on the design scene and you work so hard, so it’s so gratifying to me to see a woman who is just, “I know what I want. I’m going to keep moving forward.” And to see that you’re getting such traction from this.
Erin: Thank you. It was an interesting start. As you said, I’m a graphic designer. I have a BFA in graphic design and fine arts. That’s where I started. I worked in an advertising studio for the first four years in my life and really honed in my design aesthetic as far as graphic design and typography and worked on packaging and collateral and branding and then into websites. When they first start hitting, really, everybody needed a website.
Quickly, after four years, I realized that I was never going to make any money doing that. Basically, if I would stay being an employee sort of [inaudible 00:33:34]. Also, I was pregnant, so I also had a vision of what my life is going to be with a child and I was working really crazy hours and I wasn’t able to come home every day at 5:00.
It was challenging, so what I end up doing is … I think having Breshia, I was probably four months pregnant and I realize, “Okay.” I really kind of searched for an outlet as soon as that happened. What happened was I got a band … I call it, “my Band Aid” basically. I got an opportunity to work at an advertising studio for Briggs Advertising who I love him as Walter Briggs.
He gave me a break. He gave me 20 hours worth of work every week. I was able to stay home. We built my own clients and then from there, I was just starting my own business. It was really that one little piece of just stepping out of that comfort zone of having a full time job and just building and then I had Breshia, so that parenting mode kicked in and I just wanted to be home with her and I wanted to nurse as long as I wanted to. I wanted to be able to go put her down for a nap and I didn’t want to do the whole day care thing right away.
That’s really what started all of it really is just being a mom and trying to have a good daily life and trying to … I’m seeing long term what the potential being in a workforce like having to be at a job all the time. That’s the foundation and then quickly led to … I think I worked for Briggs for a couple of years and then I slowly waned my way off of that and plus he was starting getting busy on different things and I started building my own client base.
Then that sort of happening and then literally after a couple of years of that, I got a little bit angsty, just kind of bored with what I was doing. I love doing the branding and stuff, but I was just a little bit more interested in some of the patterns I was making on the graphic design pieces, so people started talking about the patterns more so than my graphic design work.
It was interesting. I literally started doing research and I found print source in New York show that just sold pattern work. I visited New York City with my mom and I quickly realized that I could actually make a living to make pattern work. It wasn’t like a quick, quick thing. In 2007, I started my first at [C Shop 00:35:40] doing letter press cards. I took that paper, that graphic design piece to the pattern work and then that quickly fizzled out because I spent so much money on different things and I was like, “I don’t know if I want to do this and the cards.”
I really started and stopped really quickly in 2007. It wasn’t until 2009 that I really started try to figure out that I could actually textiles. That’s kind of like the segue into that.
Dr. Lisa: You have a lot of energy.
Erin: Yeah, I know.
Dr. Lisa: It’s a really great thing, but this I think tells me why it is that you’ve been able to be so successful and to move forward. I think that I remember seeing you at Sonny’s one time with your husband and I think you are working on a website or something.
I get the sense that for you, even though you backed off so that you could have more flexibility in your schedule with your daughters and you do spend a lot of time with your daughters who you said they’re 10 and 6?
Erin: 10 and 7.
Dr. Lisa: 10 and 7?
Erin: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: You integrate them into your work life.
Erin: We do. I say we, because my husband has been an integral part too. When I started doing the textile design, I was actually asking other people to work with me and print for me and slowly after me being completely insane about color and all the different patterns, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to hire anybody that really help me that was going to …
It’s a long story, but basically, I had to recruit my husband who’s a carpenter to help me build a table down in our basement and this is totally how it started. He literally helped me build this amazing table. He started printing for me. He learned how to silk screen. We both taught each other how to print. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to do it.
That’s really that when you’re in your basement mixing ink and all the sudden, you just … Having somebody support you too was huge. He was always supportive of what … He really wanted me to do the graphic design work which I did all the time. I still do a little bit of graphic design work now. That support system is really big to have that.
To circle back with the kids, I feel like, as a mom, what’s been really powerful for me is that I want to guide them and show them that they can have a passion and they can actually work towards something that they just been shown and they work really hard and they put in those hours and then they see their parents working together as a team.
It’s not always like roses and happy talk and blah-blah-blah all the day, all the time, but they see real life and they see real two people that are passionate about with each other and something that they believe in and they see that every day. Then of course, they’re in the midst of it. They’re in the midst of printing or they’re in the midst of making and they see things not working out and then we fix it and then we do it again. Then they see the highs were like they were going crazy.
I think what’s hard for them right now is that they’re really excited that we’re doing really well, but they also know that because we’re doing really well, we’re working more a little bit more than they want to, but I also pick them up every day at school at 3:00. I take them to dance or ballet, or gymnastics. I’ve really made it a priority to spend serious hours and time with them.
I think, just … Every morning before we go to school, we talk about stuff and I drop them off. It would be easier to get them on the bus and go, but they’ve asked for me to drop them off at school. It’s interesting. I just listened to what they really want and I feel like because we have an agreement I think in the house like as long as …
I will give you everything that you need and I will give you everything as far as spiritually, emotionally and that connectedness, but the agreement is that they have to be connected and spiritual and grounded themselves. They’re only little but they understand that they’re going to be supportive and part of this family but they need to be mindful and understanding that mommy and dad are doing this and I get everything I need.
They know that they get everything that they need and everything that they really want in theory and within reason, but it’s a balancing act. It’s that you get whatever you need if you support us. That sounds really weird but I feel like that connectedness run like, “Mommy needs to work here, but I’m also driving you to ballet three days a week and I’m staying there waiting for you an hour not worrying about anything else and being completely connected with you. Or like in the middle of the night when you need me, I will always be there for you.”
I think it’s almost like a camaraderie, family, team effort that this whole thing has to come together and the more you connect with them and talk to them about that and how important it is that they all have a buy in to it. It’s a support system that we all have. It’s interesting. It doesn’t make any sense as like some sort of weird agreement that you have with your family, but I think we all need to be connected and talk really bluntly about what we need as people and I’m completely honest with them about what I need.
I think therefore they’re very honest and completely mindful of what they need like, “Mom, I really want you to do this. I need you to drop me off at school because I don’t want to ride the bus for this reason or I want you to come to this thing because it’s really important to me.”
I feel like that opening that up and being honest has been what’s been really helpful of keeping our family unit together. They know. “Mommy is really passionate about what she’s doing.” Hopefully I’m showing in that as women can do whatever we want to do and have a family as long as we communicate and we have good values and we stay grounded I think.
Breshia, my daughter who’s 10, she’s always been very … I could talk to her and she’s … I think she’s just her own soul and that’s always how she’s been. Ary is definitely a different mindset and she’s still very sweet and young and I don’t … She’s not as easy to talk to as connected. As she gets older, she’s easier to talk to, but they’re distracted and they’re doing things and, “Oh the birdie.” Like you’re talking about some really serious and they’re completely distracted.
I have two different souls that are with me, but basically at the end of the day, Breshia has always told me, “Mom, I love how you talk to me. I love that you talk to me like you don’t talk down to me.” She has issues with different things. Like some teachers in the past talk down to her and she doesn’t understand that talk because I literally …
We never talk down to our kids. I always involve them and I don’t know if this might be not for everybody, but for me, it always felt really authentic and real that I could just be like, “This is the deal of Breshia. This is what’s going on. I’m doing this.” Or whatever it is, but as she … She thanked me another day, she’s like, “I really thank you for being my mom because I don’t like it when people … Like adult say that just because I’m younger, it doesn’t mean I can’t understand or get talked down to or like, ‘Oh, you need to leave the room.'” This is really serious topic.
There’s really no topics like that in our house. We literally talk about for much anything within reason. Obviously, Mas and I will have conversations and we just include them in the conversation because it affects them and I think they respect us for that because we respect them. I think that’s huge.
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Dr. Lisa: Where did this come from in you? Where did you develop this burning desire to create?
Erin: When I was growing up, my mom is very artistic in her own right. She was very mindful like what she put in her house. She put things on the wall. She was a stay at home mom first of all and I think that’s where I get my inner like, “I need to be this really great mom,” because she was a fantastic mom. She stayed home with us and she …
Not that that makes you a great mom because there’s a lot of moms that stay at home and they’re not probably great moms, but she was this very good about being a great mom and she was always there for me, but she was very artistic and she stayed at home. She just cared about what she put in the house, the way she put it up on the wall or her …
She had collections and those collections became more about who she was and what she collected. Always had pattern and color to it and eventually she started selling her pieces that she’d find and it just evolves into a business and that’s how my mom evolved into her own passion which was antiques and buying and collecting and buying and estate sales and selling huge states. Then she had a huge antique shop in Bridgton, Maine. A few year … Many years now like 10, 15 years ago I guess now.
She did that for a few year and loved it. Just her sensibility throughout my life and just being really mindful like how she put things together, she always … Everything that’s about presentation and … That’s the basic I guess of where I grew up. I think just going to college for graphic design and fine arts, I really started appreciating design and really was exposed.
My parents weren’t really about fine art or art. My mom loved collecting things of color and graphic patterns and whatnot but it wasn’t until I went to college that it kind of came full circle for me because I got to get that typography and the graphic design piece of it and then I got the whole, the fine art piece of it. I just love the composition and the push and pull of things.
It really started meshing really well in college. I started meeting people that were really amazing, and I think when you surround yourself with people that are way better than you … I still do that today. I try to connect with people that are like minded by also try to connect with people that can teach me things too, and I think that’s really powerful as a woman.
I know I’m not good at everything. I know that I … I want to be good at certain things and I surround myself with people that are really truly want to help you and that love you and that support you.
Dr. Lisa: I think I officially met you when you were working at this little tiny booth at Picnic which was sort of a … I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but it’s sort of a craft …
Erin: It’s like an indie craft show sort of thing, but it’s really like a new age, like grandma version of craft show but way cooler because now at the indie movement and the handmade movement is so huge right now.
Picnic I think has been an amazing for all of us designers that are small and we need a place to just show off what we do every day and opportunity to make money at what we do and show the public what’s out there. This is like Etsy. Etsy has exploded as well.
Dr. Lisa: I met you there and I knew that you had an Etsy presence. I agree with you. I think this tactile, this fiber textile, all of these things, the stuff that you can touch has become so much more important to younger people I believe than maybe the people in the Sandwich generation.
Now, I know that … I see that you’re reaching out, that you’ve actually had success on a national level. You’ve been featured in magazines, people are recognizing that work that you’re doing. Tell me about some of the things that have happened to you recently and how things are moving forward and what some of your favorite things are that are going on?
Erin: I think last year was a real pinnacle point. I was featured in Oprah Magazine and then I was featured in Country Living. We had a big spread family … They came out and shot our house and kind of profiled our family.
Those two things, they came out within the same year which is really amazing and fun. That really put … We’ve also been in probably over 30 magazines in the last four years too, but they’re …
What I think what’s happening is people … Then Yankee Magazine just did a profile just recently on … It was like a profile of our studio. That was a first actually studio like in our new studio in … Before that, I was in my basement printing textiles with my husband in the middle of the night while the kids slept and I would be working as a graphic designer during the day. That literally how I lived for like two and a half to three years. I literally just decided.
One day, I took a walkover to the mill and I literally just decided to move in to the mill obviously and just take the leap. I have a great blog post that I tell people about if you ever feel like you’re scared to take the leap to go read that blog post because it was me. It was actually the moment before I really signed up and took that first leap.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve gone from Etsy and Picnic and your basement and working as a graphic designer to Oprah Magazine and Country Living and Yankee Magazine. These are things that have happened to you and are happening to you now. What’s exciting about your future? What are you hoping to do? Where are you going?
Erin: Where are we going with this? I think about this all the time. It’s something that I think … I literally had this plan since the beginning and I think you plant seeds into the universe like what you really, really want and I literally think about it every single day like where I want to go.
It’s complete madness. All the time, I have to say like all the different things that we’re making and I’m … Most my days are ironing and shipping at this point because work is so nuts and I have help, but it’s hard to put your stamp on everything when everybody else is helping. I make sure that everything goes out and it looks beautiful and all that.
I think what’s been really amazing about the whole publications is as people are finally figuring out that … It’s pattern and it’s color and it’s design and it’s American made and it’s a story because we’re weaving the fabric. We’re not going to some place in India or we’re not importing the fabric. We’re weaving the fabric ourselves which is a huge piece of it and we have it in …
These people are American families that have been in the business and industry for generations so I feel like, “Okay, there’s like the raw.” That’s just the ground and then we get the ground, we print on the ground. It’s a solvent-free, water-based ink. It’s from Australia. We import it. It’s not the cheapest ink. It’s the most expensive ink we found, but it’s the best ink that we found.
Every little piece of it has a story to it. The inserts are from Florida that’s from a Cuban family that immigrated and they are an amazing piece of it. Everybody that gives me all the little pieces to make what we’re making has a story and I believe in them as much as they believe in me. We’re all supporting each other.
Then once we actually print it, we have local women that are stitching them up and then … I think when the magazines see and read and then obviously hopefully when they feel it and they touch it and they experience the patterns, and only do they have like an emotional response like I’m happy or I feel connected to this whatever it is but I also know that it’s completely mindful in the way it’s been produced.
It’s not even like a perfect thing. It constantly changes like I’ll decide one day like, “You know, I feel like we could find …” If I find something that’s better, then I will change it to make it, so it’s never the same. Like it’s telling you your pillows in your studio are may not be the same pillows that you may find right now because they’ve changed.
For example, the first pillow I had was standard stitch, it was like surge, but now they’re like a French corner and we have a nice zipper, it’s a hidden zipper. It’s weird like little technical stuff that I get excited about. Then just recently, one of our best selling things is zipper bags because everybody wants to …
Today, people sometimes want a pillow, but it doesn’t go with their décor or whatever so they want a piece of pattern that’s just easy to take with them. I think that’s why the zipper bags have been so popular. I don’t know, I just think all of it together is one of those reasons why those magazines really picked up on it. I also think it photographs really well to be honest.
As a graphic designer, I know what sells in the sense of visual impact and having that graphic design background has completely made things so much easier for me I think and I really believe that because I’m able to market myself and design my own brand around where I want to go and that’s always changing too.
I think brands are really powerful and establishing a really strong brand and being consistent. I tell the designers how to become a brand because people get so disconnected and completely … They don’t know how to focus their brand in one direction. They get distracted or they start adding like, “I’ll do this sort of aesthetic and then I’ll try this aesthetic,” and it confuses the customer.
I feel like knowing that I’ve kind of been able to kind of keep myself on a single plane but not … I don’t worry about selling things necessarily. I just make sure that things are cohesive and that it feels really good to me and I really love everything that comes out of it. I feel like that’s all those things together I think is what people hopefully see and feel when they see my things and that’s I think the reason why people are writing about it.
Dr. Lisa: I am very proud to have my original pillows. I’m excited to go get some new and different things from your studio. I’m very inspired. I think we’re proud to have you here in Maine. I really enjoy spending …
I really love that you had a goal, you wanted to do something, you’re passionate about it, you involve your kids, you involve your husband and you just kept moving forward, because I think that’s something that is hard to do. It’s hard to keep doing what you want to do and practicing that and doing it and really putting yourself out there in the world. I give you a lot of credit for that.
Erin: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Erin, how can people find about the work that you’re doing?
Erin: This is my website, it’s just erinflett.com.
Dr. Lisa: Please, do go to erinflett.com. Those of you who are listening, she has beautiful things, very colorful. They make you want to smile really when you see them. We’ve been speaking with Erin Flett, graphic, textile and surface designer who has her own line. I think we will be seeing you really internationally at some point in the future, but don’t forget that you’re on Love Main Radio.
Erin: Thank you so much.