Lindsey Adelman and Calico Wallpaper are teaming up again

Shortly after Rachel Cope became friends with New York lighting designer and artist Lindsey Adelman, the co-founder and creative director of Calico Wallpaper was impressed by Adelman’s passion for fine art and nature. “She painted watercolors of flowers, and I thought they were unique and beautiful,” Cope remembers.

The charming motifs fit the Calico aesthetic, and Cope messaged Adelman with her idea to convert them into wall coverings. The timing was coincidental. When Adelman visited Belle-Île, an island off the coast of Brittany in France, she was surrounded by inspiring greenery from which emerged Eden, her wall collection for Calico, which launched in 2020.

Amid the harsh landscape, Adelman and a friend explored media outside of their day job. “It only lasted a week, but it seemed like such a radical and rebellious step to go into the work with other intentions,” she says. “We felt so connected to the land and went out every morning looking for plant material. In the end I painted what I found.”

Ultimately, Calico collaged these paintings into botanical portraits and then digitally printed the images, highlighting primed, hand-applied metallic accents that give the wall coverings an organic sheen. Whether it’s a light sculpture like the hand-blown Branching Bubble chandelier that made her famous or an experimental painting, “I tend to follow a desire or longing and then start designing shapes to achieve it understand what I’m attracted to,” Adelman explains.

Earlier this year, Eden’s dream range of PVC-free, clay-coated papers was expanded with seven rich new color variants. Much of the planning for the initial release went smoothly, despite being practically hatched during the pandemic.

This time, Cope and Adelman were able to “bring that rhythm back in person,” Cope says, deepening their relationship. “Lindsey taught me to go with the flow and trust my intuition,” while Cope, says Adelman, “illuminated the path to staying true to yourself.”

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of HD.