Designers

Cynthia Mann

Cynthia Mann is the creative visionary behind Birch Fabrics. She is an organic fabric enthusiast and a momma to two beautiful boys.

 

Birch Fabrics was born in 2009, out of a genuine love for organic fabric and a lack of it on her neighborhood fabric store shelves. Cynthia believes that with heart-felt, assertive action, each person can contribute to a healthier planet. You can find Cynthia on the beach playing frisbee with her two boys, and her four dogs.

 

Today, Cynthia is one half of the Jay-Cyn design team, and serves as the Art Director for Birch Fabrics.

Jason Rector

Jason Rector started out as a Multimedia Designer in the Bay Area and after many years of building a diverse design background, has collaborated with Cynthia in starting Birch Fabrics as the Lead Designer. Jason is the whiz behind the scenes turning Charley Harper’s art into striking and gorgeous patterns for print! Now after what seems like such a long journey it’s been a personal pleasure of his too have seen Birch grow into such an amazing company and to have such wonderful employees to bring Birch into a new era.

Jay-Cyn Designs were accepted into the fabric world with open arms and Jason continues to thrive in the partnership he shares with Cynthia and the work he does with the talented group of people the company has surrounded itself with.

Charley Harper

Charley Harper, born in 1922, was a Cincinnati-based American Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters, and book illustrations. In a style he called “minimal realism”, Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. When asked to describe his unique visual style, Charley responded: 

 

“When I look at a wildlife or natural subject, I don’t see the feathers in the wings, I just count the wings. I see the exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior, and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of painting; in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe.”

 

Read more about Charley Harper and his amazing body of artwork here!

Arleen Hillyer

Part of the in house design team, Arleen Hillyer shares a deep love of design, sewing, knitting, painting and the like! She has been a part of the Birch team since the early days, cutting fabric in our first, small store. These days, you will find Arleen assisting Cynthia dreaming up collections and working with our designers to bring you the Birch collections you love. 

 

Arleen has designed a few collections for Birch fabrics, and will continue you bring you quirky, fun, and retro inspired prints. 

Jenny Ronen

Jenny is an artist and surface pattern designer from a sunny city near Tel Aviv, where she lives with two boys, a man & a cat.

Her work reflects the simple and magical things in life. She creates art for book covers, textiles, paper goods, musicians, magazines, and more. While creating artworks for wall art, textiles, books, and all kinds of surfaces, she is trying to maintain the hand-painted quality and leave a lot of room for intuition to guide her work. She loves dreaming up things that didn’t exist before and making hand painted illustrations with intuitive and dreamy combinations.


Jenny is also the face behind Touchka | Fashion Tales, a brand of illustrated scarves inspired by stories, that she founded with her sweetheart Tomer Ronen. They work together from their little home studio.

Kristen Balouch

Kristen wants a world where everyone belongs. She draws it everyday with color, pattern and texture; inspired by nature, diversity and kindness. She writes and illustrates books for children and designs just about everything she touches… things like houses, dishes, quilts, kitchens, gardens, fabric, baby clothes, grown up clothes, shoes and even kitchen sinks. Maybe she is making that world piece by piece. She hopes the pieces that make it to you feel like home.
 
Kristen makes a world where everyone belongs. Folkland is Kristen’s debut collection with Birch Fabrics. Amiable bunnies hop over winged unicorns and doting fairies while fox, chipmunk and mouse whisper of fields peppered with blossoms, mushrooms and rooted four-leaf clovers. There is room for you too in this soft, earthy, enchanted world. Kristen is an award winning children’s book author and illustrator and the designer behind the Little Blue Mushroom Studio.

Elizabeth Jean Younce

Elizabeth Jean Younce is a Los Angeles based Printmaker and Illustrator. She operates a small business called Mustard Beetle through which she designs and produces hand-printed Textiles, Prints, and Goods. Elizabeth and Mustard Beetle are both very inspired by the natural world. With a focus on flora and fauna, Elizabeth captures fleeting moments of our fragile ecosystem. The Wild Coast is Elizabeth’s debut collection with Birch Fabrics. This collection features some of the West Coast’s most unique habitats from the Redwood Forest, to the Superbloom wildflower fields. It examines the symbiotic relationship between Sea Otters and Kelp while also admiring the beauty of Hummingbirds and Passion Flowers that can be seen even in some of the largest metropolitan areas.
 

Emily Isabella

As a child she would wander her family’s wildflower prairie and press Queen Annes Lace flowers against her cheeks, pretending they were powder brushes. Memories of how it felt to be that child hold firm in her daily life, lending inspiration to her hand-painted works. 


Emily’s pattern driven work reflects her background in textile design. Her drawings and gouache paintings have been applied to products like books, bedding, clothing, furniture, fabric, dishes, rugs, toys and wallpaper.


She lives and works from her studio in the Hudson Valley, just north of NYC.

Kate Capone

I strive to bring color, pattern and some fun into people’s lives and homes through my art. A mixture of painting, collage, design, imagination and a “pleasure in the process” style of working lends to wonderful little pockets of excitement that can be seen in my work.

Oana Befort

My artistic journey began when I was just a child. I had an innate love for various forms of art and design. I loved creating with anything I could get my hands on, which led to exploring different mediums and techniques that would spark my creativity. I collected greeting cards from family members that lived in other parts of the world, and I used to hand-paint cards for friends and family on special events. I continue to hold that passion in me today, and I love applying various analog and digital techniques to whatever inspires my work.

 

Since 2010 my work has grown slowly and organically from humble beginnings, progressing to collaborating with prestigious companies and developing my own stationery line. I gather inspiration from the endless beauty of the natural world, botanicals, fauna, nostalgia, and the timeless folk motifs of my Romanian roots.

 

Although I strive for elegance and timelessness in my designs, I enjoy pushing my creativity through composition, themes, and colors while adding a touch of sweetness. My hope is that our paper goods become small works of art for you to enjoy, treasure, and share with others.

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