Meet Rebecca Saylor: Watercolorist, Textile Designer and Maker of Whimsical Things

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

Hi Rebecca, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
Being an maker / entrepreneur / artist – it’s so easy to get distracted by the world, by things that inspire you, by work that you must do rather than work you want to do. Finishing things is always the best answer. Everyday my goal is to finish SOMETHING I’m working on and it’s a difficult task most days. Most art never goes as planned – there is a lot of rework and do over and it’s very easy to just give up and do something different. Success for me lies in the ability to complete my projects even if they aren’t initially as I imagined. To me, it’s always a good idea to just keep going and to trust in the creative process!

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m on a mission to make the world more huggable and more colorful. My love of color and design comes from helping my grandmother design her hand stitched quilts when I was a child. She had a designer-level sense of color and how colors worked together. I learned from her how to pull different colors and patterns together into unique designs that appeal to the senses. She really infused that into my brain when I spent time with her and the idea of colors attach to everything I design as an artist. Art careers are very fluid and I began in a very practical way, I wanted to create beautiful and whimsical home decor items (mainly pillows) – in the beginning I was focused on selling my creations. As I grew as a watercolor artist, I leaned more into my art practice – pushing the boundaries of color combos and then really having a desire to translate my watercolors onto fabric so I could bring the art off the walls and into your arms. I spend 2018 as the Artist in Residence at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco playing with the “Power of Touch.” I built a giant 6′ diameter huggable heart pillow that included a audible heart beat. The heart beat was programmed to be arrhythmic and when participants hugged the heart, it would regulate the heart beat. I am very proud of that project!! It led me to think more about how I can interact with the people who buy my art and I started creating fabric dye kits to help people make their own art.

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?
My favorite things to do in LA center around eating at all the food trucks and shopping at all the fabric stores! So hopefully my best friend is up for eating everything in Koreatown and shopping at Mood! Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
A BIG shoutout to my SF Etsy Street Team teammates. We are a collective of independent Etsy sellers living and working in the Bay Area with a mission to help each other rise through education and information sharing.

Website: https://oodlebadoodle.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oodlebadoodle/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCDa6fPMJVE4ueNO58m3NeAA

Image Credits
My headshot is from CallMeChristine – all the other photos are my personal ones