Tell me a little about you and your company
Rose Valley Textiles is an art & design studio offering decorative fabric designs for interiors and home decor. My name is Brittany and I am the Creative Director. As a textile designer, I have an affinity for exceptional quality textile materials and sustainable manufacturing practices. My color palettes are refined; my patterning references traditional textiles with a modern twist.
With a wide range of skills & experience, I offer the textile industry a source of patterns & inspiration for new collections that reference historic textiles; artwork with a sense of human hand with the utilization of the latest textile technologies; and a partner in the creation of memorable textile collections.
My inspiration is rooted in process; making things – drawings, crafts, food; new and old technologies; the garden and its constant replenishment and source of nourishment and beauty; and the anonymous makers of historic textiles.
How long have you owned your own business?
Rose Valley Textiles was launched in July 2014.
What made you decide to start your own business?
My passion for textile design and a desire to share my knowledge and expertise motivated me to open my own design studio.
What was the best advice you received when you started your career?
“Follow your bliss.”
I remember being in NYC with my design professor. She was a great mentor. We had just visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and we were in a cab on Fifth Avenue. In “The Book of Tea” by Kakuzo Okakura, she inscribed it with “follow your bliss”. The book emphasizes how Teaism taught the Japanese many things; most importantly, simplicity.
What do you wish someone had told you when you started your business?
Don’t go it alone. Hire professionals to help including accountants and business consultants to help with business planning and strategy.
What are the three skills that new entrepreneurs need in order to succeed?
Perseverance, Confidence, and Faith.
What routines do you have in place to help your days run smoothly?
I establish monthly goals that are broken down into weekly and daily tasks. In order to achieve tasks of the day, I block out chunks of time to work so that I stay focused.
How do you find balance as and entrepreneur?
By making sure there is time on the calendar to spend time playing with our kids and visiting art galleries and museums for inspiration.
What is your favorite thing about being an entrepreneur?
The freedom to follow my bliss.
What do you do to unwind?
Family time, practicing Pilates, and drinking tea!
What is a project that you are working on right now or just finished?
Right now I am working on creating a Weaving Workshop.
The Weaving Workshop will offer online creative weaving projects to motivate, inspire, and provide practical tips for time spent at the loom. The first e-course is designed to motivate, inspire, and challenge weavers to focus on their creative process and explore materials and media. There will be practical information about classic weaving structures, along with readings and discussions for the group. It had been nearly a decade since I worked at my alma mater as a weaving professor when I had the idea to create an online weaving course based on the curriculum I developed during my time as a design educator. As a weaver, I design and create artisanal weavings using a variety of materials & colors. Swatches are used to create textile patterns for woven production, used as further investigations for other artworks, or they are simply artworks unto themselves.
How can people get in touch with you?
Social media provides such a wonderful way to build and maintain a network of like-minded creative people. Please find Rose Valley Textiles here:
www.facebook.com/rosevalleytextiles
www.instagram/rosevalleytextiles
www.pinterest/rosevalleytextiles
www.twitter.com/rosevalleytext
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanywittman
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