I feel very lucky to be able to call California my home. It’s a magical state, filled with diversity and color. From the lush green-hued forests to the warm earth tones of the desert, the cool blues of the Pacific, and the bright sunny skies, there’s a spectrum of hues and sights to be inspired by. It’s easy then to understand why this State has been the muse for so many great designers. One in particular has had an incredible and vast body of work that defines the notion of “California” design- Gere Kavanaugh.
I have to be honest, I only became aware of Gere when she received the AIGA medal in 2016. Here’s an amazing profile video from AIGA :
Even if you don’t recognize the name, her work is instantly familiar, especially if you’re a fan of mid-century design. Lucky for us, Louise Sandhaus and Kat Catmur have written a new book, published by Princeton Architectural Press, that gives her many designs a proper showcase: A Colorful Life- Gere Kavanaugh, Designer.
Gere Kavanaugh is one of those designers that could do everything. She designed interiors, graphics, packaging, products, textile patterns… all with her signature vibrant and optimistic flair. The sheer volume of examples documented is truly awe-inducing. I recently got the opportunity to ask Louise and Kat about the making of the book:
A Colorful Life is such an amazing accomplishment! How daunting was it to go through all of Kavanaugh’s archives? Was there anything that didn’t make the final cut that you wished could have been included?
Gere Kavanaugh is a collector, and as a collector, she holds onto everything—from design sketches on scraps of paper to stacks of magazine and newspaper clippings about her work. She lives surrounded by her own designs—from silk-screened textiles that she had hand-printed while in graduate school at Cranbrook to the furniture and product design prototypes that fill her awe-inspiring home. And then there were the boxes of her work, notebooks brimming with slides, and drawers stuffed full with drawings. It wasn’t necessarily a daunting task, but a delightful treasure hunt of joyful discovery.
It was from this miscellany of artifacts and images that we began to shape our ideas for the design of the book. As a result, the volume is jam-packed with gorgeous images of her work; sketches juxtaposed with final outcomes; numerous photographs of Gere from throughout her life; and magazine clippings that are printed full spread reflect her extensive press coverage throughout her career. We wanted the audience to feel some of the simmering excitement that we had felt unearthing her work.
Although Gere preserved much of her work, sadly there were some projects that either weren’t documented or that the documentation had degraded too much to be included, especially some of her older slides. For example, although Gere worked on eight interiors for Joseph Magnin stores—known for California Cool shopping experiences—throughout the 1960s, the images that documented the work were somewhat scant and from the photos that existed, we could tell that these spaces were chock-full of daring ideas. It was sad not to be able to share more of these projects.
In 1977 Gere curated the fabulous exhibition “Fantasy Clothes, Fantastic Costumes” showcasing futuristic costumes as conceptual art. She also created amazing exhibition type using shimmering plastic discs but unfortunately, all we could show in the book are a few small images that appear in an excerpt from Interior Design magazine,1980.
But as this is the first book on Kavanaugh, we included as much as we could. Hopefully, there will be more books in the future that will expand on sharing the work of this prodigious talent.
Do you have a favorite piece of work of hers?
We both have a different favorite so…
Louise: My favorite piece of Gere’s is her paper mâché bird ornaments. I respond to them as these petite embodiments of wonder—colorful creatures in vibrant colors with patterned details that just seem to all hum together. They have these sweet expressive faces and the tail feathers that add another level of detail that makes the ornaments even more special.
Kat: I adore Gere’s pigeon bench that she created for the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship (COLA). Her idea was to create a flock of cast-iron pigeon benches to be placed around a plaza serving as both a charming urban sculpture and seating for those weary of foot. I just love her whimsical concept combined with the cast iron and curvilinear shapes of the birds. I would be ecstatic if this project was ever fully realized!
Was there anything that surprised you about her work, her process, or any behind the scenes anecdotes?
One of the most striking things about Gere is her belief that she can do anything that she sets her mind to, and that nothing is outside her scope. Some of this can be attributed to the daring and multi-disciplined education she received at Cranbrook, but you can see that confidence and curiosity is something that Gere has always had. She will tell you about the times she used to create color palettes as a young girl by stacking and restacking spools of her mother’s sewing thread or how childhood trips to the zoo with her father became the inspiration for work she created years later. Her life is the inspiration for her work, and at a certain point, the two became inseparable.
In terms of process, it was interesting for us to see how much of Gere’s work was self-initiated, rather than commissioned. Gere would come up with an idea, sketch it out and find a fabricator to help build it—so many of her works were just willed into being by her sheer force of nature.
For some clients, Gere’s design services extended to more than a single design specialization. For Isabel Scott she not only designed fabrics, but also designed invitations, labels, and announcements. For Toys for Roy she designed store interiors as well as the store logo, wrapping paper, and gift cards. She would say she did the “kit and kaboodle!”
If there’s one thing you want people to take away with after reading the book, what would that be?
One comment we keep getting after people see the book is something along the lines of “Gere is a woman of so much accomplishment; how did I not know about her!” As in many fields, the canon has been largely been about work produced by men, written by men. This has meant that so many amazing women have received less than the recognition they deserve. So it’s very exciting to be two women creating a book about such an accomplished female designer at a moment of collective reflection and re-examination. Gere is a stunning example of remarkable vivaciousness and a life well-lived. We hope that the readers come away as inspired as we have!
The best part of all of this is that Gere, (currently at 90 years young!) is still very much alive and rockin’ it. She’s become a fixture at any design related function, and very much involved in the conversation.
This book is a MUST and will give you total #goals. It will remind you to enjoy life, never stop being curious, and live a life in color!
A Colorful Life – Gere Kavanaugh, Designer (Princeton Architectural Press) is out now.
Images courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press