About Stephen Wilson
Stephen Wilson uses sustainable materials to create unique and everlasting designs. Each art piece begins with an up-cycled luxury bag, box, silk scarf, or handbag. Wilson then digitizes a custom embroidery design by hand, layering in each stitch individually. Once the design, colors and elements are decided, the piece moves on to assembly.
The boxes and bags are deconstructed, becoming the canvas for his creations. The embroidery then goes directly through his chosen medium and the visible texture begins to bring the piece to life. Appliqués, patches and butterflies are all stitched out individually and placed onto each piece, creating a unique, one-of-a-kind work of art. Every element of every piece is designed, stitched and created in my studio in North Carolina.
Meet Stephen
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey - it’s an incredible feeling to know that there are others out there who share the same appreciation for my one-of-a-kind pieces as much as I do.
luxury up-cycling
Some of Stephen’s favorite pieces are the ones that use very unique up-cycling techniques. Often the process consists of utilizing what some would view as disposable materials. He takes the scraps and restores them to their once luxurious status by making them into art. Each art piece begins with an up-cycled luxury bag, box, silk scarf or handbag. He then digitizes a custom embroidery design by hand, layering in each stitch individually. The boxes and bags are deconstructed, becoming the canvas for his creations. The embroidery then goes directly through his chosen medium and the visible texture begins to bring the piece to life.
The Studio
Most everyone is surprised when they visit the studio for the first time, believing it will be like a traditional artist’s studio with paints, easels, and traditional art supplies. The studio is large, taking up about 15,000 square feet and setup to create work using alot of traditional art techniques mixed with modern technology. Stephen uses 3D printers, laser cutters, commercial large format embroidery machines, yarn embroidery machines and laser cutting embroidery machines. When people see the amount of craftsmanship and steps involved in each piece they are always surprised and impressed.
sourcing
The number one question Stephen receives when making appearances is “Where do you find all of these boxes?” Every product purchased from a luxury brand comes packaged in a beautiful box. Usually, these boxes are thrown away or put into storage somewhere, remaining unused. He turns these materials into art. Each box or bag is carefully selected for each work of art and sourced from locations all around the world including: donations from clients and friends, auction sales, estate sales and more. Every piece of fabric used in the pieces is also from luxury materials, whether that be a luxury scarf, article of clothing or packaging material. Stephen spends time every day sourcing boxes, scarves and luxury materials to use in the work.
Prepping
Some of the pieces are created with one box and others use multiple boxes that are cut up and collaged into a pattern. Most of the patterns in the collage are based on vintage quilt patterns. Stephen has worked in the quilting industry for many years and this is his way to pay homage to the many quilts he has designed. The boxes are cut into pieces and held together with adhesive to prepare for the next step making the background canvas complete and ready to be moved into the computer for digitizing. The image is scanned into the computer, squared off and edited so the size of the canvas precisely matches the piece.
Digitizing the artwork
Stephen brings the image of choice into his digital drafting system and hand traces all of the stitches using the image of the canvas as his guide. He masterfully engineers the stitches allowing beautiful patterns and designs to emerge as a decorative background for the final piece. Most of the small works have over 50,000 stitches while the large pieces can easily require 1,000,000 stitches or more.
Everything is embroidered
There are over 30 different types of embroidery machines in the studio, including standard embroidery machines, laser cutting machines and even a yarn embroidery machine. Depending on the piece, a machine is selected and prepped for the piece. Each spool of thread and coordinating fabric is selected at this point in the process. Each spool of thread is loaded onto the machine and the canvas is meticulously placed onto specialized backing, prepping it to stitch. Once the machine is started, pieces can take up to 16 hours to stitch depending on the amount of embroidery in the given design. All appliqué fabrics are then added into the piece at this time along with extra elements like butterflies, flowers and patches are embroidered during this stage for each piece of art.
Hand finishing
Once the pieces come off of the the embroidery machine it is moved into finishing and meticulously hand trimmed. Each butterfly and embroidered element is hand trimmed with skill, patience and a very sharp pair of scissors. Each pom-pom is perfectly hand rolled using remnants of luxury scarves, ensuring every part of the luxury materials are used and not wasted. Every piece is full of amazing intricate detail.
