Nottene – Kim Hall and Justin Hardison  

This design of the West Gallery Lounge was created by Nottene Studio, pronounced [nuh-ten-uh]. Nottene is the creative team of Kimberly Ellen Hall and Justin Hardison. Hall is an illustrator with a master of arts degree in textiles from Central Saint Martins in London. Hardison is a self-taught printmaker.The husband-and-wife team draw and create objects and patterns for the home through commissions and as part of their collections of handmade wallpaper and fabric that encourage people to look for longer. Their work, a kind of storytelling through drawing, reflects their interest in the histories of objects in the home and how the stories embedded in them can change over time.

Hall and Hardison studied wallpapers in the Winterthur house and archives during their 2020 Maker-Creator Research Fellowship, but the couple says, “We found ourselves equally drawn to the gardens and grounds each day we were here. We went for walks every day and filled sketchbooks with drawings of the vistas and views. We also collected little leaves and bits that fell from the trees and plants all over the estate. These became motifs in the wallpapers we created out of the fellowship, and when we were invited back to consider this space, our sketchbook drawings from those walks blossomed into these full color mural paintings.”

The objects in the room reflect their interest in collecting and making. The lamps are collections of rubber bands and string balls, “both things that my frugal grandmothers collected,” recalls Hall. The wood blocks reference the printing processes they use in their wallpaper work, and while these large cubes of wood are not traditional blocks typically used to make production prints, Nottene has created a limited edition set of prints with them for this project.