Meet Diana Adams: Artist & Designer

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

Hi Diana, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I see risk as being a direct connection to growth and fear. Too many times we let fear stop us from taking risk, but I’ve learned that moving towards the fear is what allowed me to grow as a person. Of course, I always compare the positive to the negative outcomes before taking any risk, but usually, taking risk always wins, even if you lose. You’ll learn, grow and repeat.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
There’re two visions going on simultaneously. My main focus started off with upcycling interior design remnants and samples, and creating home decor and accessories with it. This included fabric collages, and earrings using twisted fabric and leather. I just hated seeing all this good material go to waste! I wanted to include pottery somehow because I loved it so much, so I experimented with adding fabrics and textured wallcovering to my pottery to see if it stuck. Surprisingly, most of it did! I’m still experimenting with this concept, but I haven’t seen many artist do this, especially with remnants. The other vision is more consumer and product based. Once people saw I can do pottery, I began getting request for planters and everyday objects. Since people were stuck at home and buying a lot of plants to decorate their homes, people began to know me for my planters. The pottery is funding my passion project.

As far as my style goes, I’ve always been interested in tribal patterns and markings. It didn’t matter what ethnic background, African, Latin, Indian, Hawaiian, Japanese, I loved it all. I quickly decided to narrow down my focus on Western and Southern African patterns and textiles for inspiration. One of the challenges I’m experiencing now is finding a balance of what people want vs. what I want to experiment with. On top of working a full-time job! There may not ever be a balanced, but I’m determined to figure it out. For now, SampleHAUS will have a more artistic fine art side where I will experiment with found materials, and a more product based side for my everyday pottery.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
That’s a great question! I think I’ll start off by having breakfast at Two Guns Espresso in El Segundo, then roller blading or biking at the beach. I like to bike from El Segundo to Vince Beach. If I’m skating, I’ll go from El Segundo to Hermosa Beach. Then head to Leimert Park, walk up and down the streets and check out all the black art and shops, and have lunch at the Hot and Cool Cafe. I’m not a vegan, but they have really great vegan food. They usually have live music there, so we could hang out and vibe with the community.

Website: www.mysamplehaus.com
Instagram: @Sample.haus
Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/in/diadams
Other: Etsy: Etsy.com/shop/mysamplehaus

Image Credits
Justin Galligher