Rosemary Fox Designs
Rosemary Fox Designs - Illustrator and Decorative Painting

Rosemary Fox Artist and IllustratorMeet Rosemary Fox

Specializing in unique works, I offer interior, theatre and film production designers, architects, licensing agents, publishers and the informed individual an array of products and services, including: hand-painted tiles, sculpted relief plaques; drawings, paintings, collages, prints, stitched pictures and commercial illustrations.
 

Rosemary Fox Designs, Rose Fox BiographyBiography

I began drawing animals, houses and women wearing large flowered hats at the age of three, then had the heady experience of being "Class Artist" through elementary and high schools.

Later I attended Pratt Institute and The Art Students' League, where I studied a  number of media.

Then I worked in New York City at magazine and book publishers, learning about illustration; and at architectural firms, acquiring some basics of interior design.  At one of these offices I met my architectural-designer husband.

We had two children and moved to rural upstate New York.  My spouse began designing and building one-of-a-kind houses, while I found work doing print ad, magazine and book illustration from home.  After elaborately decorating an old dresser bought at a garage sale, I found a small local market for painted furniture.

My husband and I became a team that lasted more than twenty-five years, where my contribution to the homes he built was painted tile and ceramic relief plaques, murals, color/pattern/material consultation and interior touches like vintage mouldings, hardware, "wavy glass" windows, doors and columns; and faux-painted mantles and table tops. To see large interior installations and close up vignettes, go to our website.

Ross-Fox

From this enterprise Rosemary Fox Designs was born.

 

Rose Fox ArtistPhilosophy

After learning drawing, painting and sculpture, my focus gradually shifted to modifying and combining decorative elements (one of the first ways I did this was to surround a painting or drawing with as many as four patterned borders that, for me, acted as a kind of "Greek Chorus" for the central image, telling more of its story.)

While experimenting with these elements, I fell in love with styles of the past - from the earliest art created through Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, 18th, 19th and 20th century European and American fine and folk art, the millennia-long legacy of the East and the unique contributions of indigenous cultures - for example, Inuit, Samoan, Ainu and the treasure trove of African tribal motifs.  Pattern has also played a big part in my oeuvre - especially textile and that found in Nature.  As has color...

My design kit includes a huge hands-on library of books and magazine pages gathered over the past thirty years (among my thousands of volumes are sections on textile and wallpaper patterns, natural history, costume, holidays, ethnic arts, children's toys, books and readers, to name a few, all as pictured in a number of historical periods): reference for the creation of designs rendered with simple, time-honored tools on a variety of natural surfaces.  I love the tradition of creating with one's own hands and feel connected to the vast community of artists and artisans on whose shoulders I stand.  I believe that things worked on in this way confer a subtle, almost magical and deeply satisfying experience of the human heart and soul.

To be immersed in the splendors of artistic tradition is a joy. To resurrect and integrate them into our everyday lives is a mission and an honor.