She She Hand-Painted Wallpaper

After four years of living in our house, Julia and I decided to start figuring out what to do with our guest bedrooms. Our home used to be a guest house, that was part of a local family farm until the early 1900s, so we have been really lucky to have extra space we can offer to friends, colleagues and family when they’re in town. But we spent so much of our savings on re-drywalling when we moved in (the walls were rotting from the inside out and full of walnut shells from squirrels, fun!) that we needed some time to rest and save up before we could think about actually decorating them. But now that we feel ready to do something (still keeping a low budget in mind), I’ve got my eyes on something dramatic for the walls. I’ve always wanted to have more wallpaper installed, but I don’t know that it’s in our financial range, so I’ve been thinking seriously about a hand-stamped or painted pattern. I’ve been looking online for inspiration and was so happy to come across the work of She She.

Based in Minneapolis, She She is a custom hand-painted and printed wallpaper studio run by two friends, illustrator Kate Worum and interior architect Jennifer Ann Jorgensen. Kate and Jennifer met when they collaborated on a custom wallpaper design for the American Craft Council. They enjoyed working together and realized they were both ending long-term relationships and were able to support each other in the process. Those pep talks turned into a discussion about wanting to create new lives for themselves, and Kate and Jennifer realized how much of their visions for their creative lives aligned. So three years ago, they decided to create and install their first design together — and She She was born.

I asked Kate and Jennifer what that process of creating something so unique for a client looked like and they said that their goal is for everything to be 100% collaborative. “Whether we are working with a local homeowner or a global brand we have the same outline. The first and most important step for us is to get to know the client on a friendly level and the purpose or message behind their design. Once we’ve fully bonded with the client and the idea of the design, we tap into our different backgrounds and throw ideas at each other until we’ve landed on what we feel is the perfect representation of illustrative interior design for that client’s purpose.”

I love the broad style range She She has tackled, from more traditional flora/fauna designs to bold graphic installations. “[For our personal work] we pull all of our inspiration from our own experiences like recent travels and life experiences. All of our patterns end up having something to do with what is going on in our lives in the present moment. When we look at our patterns in the order that they have been created, it’s almost like a journal of our last three years.”

I’m excited to see where this creative duo takes their work next (they’re planning on expanding into painting furniture and fabrics and collaborating with fashion designers). They’ve done some beautiful collaborations already with local Minneapolis designers Celina Kane and Emily Trevor, and I’m curious to see how their work could be used in hospitality or public spaces as well. I keep imagining how gorgeous (and uplifting) their hand-painted wallpaper would be in a senior center, community shelter, doctor’s office or hospital setting. Art and design have so much power to create and influence the mood and feelings in a space and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll see more lovely work like theirs pop up in public and private spaces. Click here to check out more of their work online. xo, Grace

Photos by @2ndtruth and @judithmarilyn_ (of Wit + Delight)