Meet Melanie Nead | Founder & Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Melanie Nead and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Melanie, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I had so many reasons for starting this business! I’m fascinated by pattern and by functional objects. I want everything to be beautiful! As I began working within the interior design industry doing wallpaper-style murals, I observed that there were historic wallpaper companies (like Adelphi Paper Hangings and Bradbury & Bradbury) making gorgeous historic reproduction wallpapers of very fine quality, using traditional print methods. On the other side of the spectrum, I would see wallpaper companies making contemporary wallpapers, but many of these lacked the deep design or quality of print that historic papers have. I didn’t see many businesses bridging the gap: making timeless, deeply-designed wallcoverings using historic print methods.

Prior to starting LP, I was a custom tattoo artist for 15 years, and I saw how unpredictable making a living as an artist can be. I wanted to manufacture a product in order to create passive income for female artists. My vision is to create a design collective wherein everyone gets to build their dream job, and do it with autonomy, creativity, and joy. The Arts and Crafts Movement, and later collectives like the Omega Workshops, are huge influences, both in terms of the quality and innovation of their work, and in their social justice agendas.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I love to make work that is deeply conscious of, and in conversation with, historic design. I’m incredibly inspired by the universality of pattern—people all over the world, across vast time, have found the same kinds of shapes again and again, which is fascinating to me. My experience as a tattoo artist comes through in my work, and I love using that visual language in wallpaper and mural design. After a long time tattooing, I knew that I wanted to do something different, and it has been incredibly rewarding to take the skills I developed over so many years in such a challenging, exacting craft, and apply them in a different way. I love collaboration, and one of the most rewarding aspects of this work is how much I get to collaborate—with my coworkers, with interior designers, with other craftspeople. We just (May 12!!!) released a tile line with Portland-based Tempest Tileworks, and that partnership has been so amazingly rewarding and fun. In June we’re working with a neon artist and friend, Perry Pfister, to create some collaborative pieces, which will be really wild and beautiful.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have so many people to thank! First and foremost: my friend, business partner, and ultimate cheerleader, Sierra Gotelli, who’s been with me since the very beginning of the business, through every single high and low.

My entire career in the arts is thanks to my amazing, dear friend and tattoo mentor Dustin Ranck, without whom my life would look very different indeed.

Jessica Helgerson of Jessica Helgerson Interior Design trusted me at the very beginning, mentored and nurtured our business, elevated our work with her brilliant design mind, and has been a friend and collaborator for years.

My husband Peter and his business partner Noah gave me my very first wall to experiment on, and supported the business in so many ways as we found our feet.

My sweet mom, who believes in me absolutely, and my Grandma Ellen, who passed away a few years ago, but whose passion for decorative arts and design is in my blood.

And finally, I have to shout out the seminal book A PATTERN LANGUAGE, which encapsulates my thoughts and feelings about beautiful, generous design much more elegantly and profoundly than I ever could!

Website: lonesomepictopia.com

Instagram: @lonesomepictopia

Linkedin: Lonesome Pictopia

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lonesomepictopia/

Image Credits
Lola Wallace Katie Newburn Leah Verwey