About Heatherwick Studio Christmas Cards

To show our gratitude to people who had supported us or worked with us, the studio began sending out special cards at Christmas. Each year, we looked for ways of turning inexpensive materials into postable objects.  Our earliest cards were little more than decorative test pieces. The first one came from experimenting with the studio’s new rotary trimmer, a piece of office equipment for cutting paper, which, when used to slice card very finely produced tiny, twisted slivers. Another card was an object made by taking a stack of birch plywood strips and weaving them through each other. As we carried on looking for ways to send love, we became interested in the process by which they were sent, the rituals of posting and receiving a card, and found that the subject of our Christmas cards became Christmas cards themselves.

About Oil and Cotton

Oil and Cotton opened in Oak Cliff in September 2010. Blending an appreciation of the past with current multidisciplinary art practices, our students are invited to engage in the expressive languages of both music and visual art. Our hands-on classes are taught by professionals with knowledge of traditional and contemporary practice. We provide creative space for education, exhibition, performance and exchange between the public and the art community.

Owners and instructors, Shannon Driscoll and Kayli House Cusick met while volunteering for the Better Block, a neighborhood improvement project that included a free public art studio. Shannon had been working as an art conservator of works on paper as well as teaching adult workshops in traditional handcrafts and materials-based projects. Kayli was a piano teacher and children’s arts curriculum writer who had recently relocated to Dallas to raise a family with her husband, artist Matthew Cusick. The community response to the Better Block studio was positively overwhelming. Neighbors of all ages came into the space to create together using a variety of donated materials with guidance from area artists. The synergy was perfect. Encouraged and assisted by our friends and neighbors, we decided to make our temporary outpost permanent.

Our motivating philosophy is to make do with what you got. We place a high value on the resourcefulness within ourselves and are dedicated to doing things the old-fashioned way. Whether it is through the reuse or repurposing of materials, like turning fallen walnuts into archival ink, or by accepting the possibilities of what can be created by hand, we honor he pioneering spirit of our elders and the character of our community.

Oil and cotton are natural resources of Dallas, Texas, and also the foundation of the most basic art materials. Oil is a binder in paint and inks. The binder imparts adhesion, binds the pigments together. Cotton is used to produce textiles such as canvas and paper. We believe the arts, like most natural resources, are essential for our survival and quality of life, and we are proud to be a part of our local arts community.