Making magic: Art Dreams
By Lisa Casinger -- Home Accents Today, 3/1/2006
Kathleen Koszyk
BackgroundKathleen Koszyk comes from a creative family. Growing up in Ireland she frequently watched her grandfather on TV; he was a musical savant who could pick up just about any instrument and play it beautifully. Her grandfather and his sons, including Koszyk's father, also designed and made tin plates.
"I remember having these beautiful plates in our house growing up," she said. "My grandfather explained that after the War they made them out of tin because there wasn't any china. They also made airplanes that we suspended from the ceiling."
Koszyk came to the United States when she was 18 years old. She studied design here and in France before making her home in California. Early in her career she designed custom luxury homes in California and Chicago, something she said opened the doors for her and her husband, Don, to enter the home furnishings industry with their company, Art Dreams, 15 years ago.
They started out designing and making exclusive product for specialty retailers.
"Our strength, then and now, is that we knew how to work within each company's personality," Koszyk said. "We understood their needs. Doing the luxury homes helped me learn what products pass that quality test, what looks ageless and authentic."
Koszyk brought her eye for design and her understanding of what retailers want and need to the masses when Art Dreams debuted at the inaugural Las Vegas market. The very name for the company came from Koszyk's vision of a dream home and her design process of starting with the art and expanding from there.
Design process, inspiration and influence
For Koszyk the design process typically starts with art and she builds a collection from that. Growing up she had an affinity for contemporary abstract art, though she likes to mix it with comfortable furnishings. When she's working on a design, Koszyk takes her sketches and ideas to Art Dreams' staff of craftsmen and artisans and often within 24 hours has a prototype.
"I'm very lucky in that we have our own facility right here in Ventura," she said. "I can work with the carvers or artisans and that really helps the design process."
Art Dreams' product line crosses many categories and its showroom is set up in vignettes that tell a story, all by Koszyk's design.
"The shelter magazines and home shows do a great job of showing the end consumer how to tie things together and our goal was to do the same thing for retailers," she said. "It's all about creating magic and making the shopping experience exciting and easy for the buyers. Our product is unique in that you can't take it in at one glance. I love to stand back and watch people when they 'get' the product."
Koszyk plans to expand on her goal of helping retailers with merchandising by providing more in-depth information on the company's Web site.
Like many designers, Koszyk has many favorites in the line. She said you know when you have a great product when you "get a feeling in your stomach," like with their calligraphy mirror and the figurinas.
"The figurinas are otherworldly," she said. "They're intriguing and slightly mysterious; you have to have that in your products and in your stores to get people's attention and hold it, otherwise they'll take everything in at one glance and walk out."
An inventor at heart (she's patented several products, including a travel humidifier), Koszyc's biggest challenge is taking her ideas and making them into something functional. For years she worked on the otto chair that's now in the line, a design idea that sprung from her daughters' needs for a functional piece that fit into a small apartment.
"Anyone who knows architecture and design knows that there's a fluidity to it," Koszyk said. "Good design is all about that rhythm that runs through the piece."
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