Big Picture - October 2020 - 25

K YRA HARTNETT
CO-FOUNDER

"Kyra is a true leader who not only aims to support
the community, but to create a company with a
supportive, educational culture. She propels the
wallpaper, and now fabric, industry forward by
creating a private-label, environmentally sustainable
product sold by more than 100 businesses."
- LELA ILYINSKY, ASSOCIATE, twenty2 wallpaper and textiles

Has there been an enthusiastic response to digital
printing from your clients?
It's been pretty incredible. When we offered this to a few
colleagues seven years ago, we said, "You know, if you have any
thoughts about wallpaper (there were people who were doing
textiles or carpets already), we'd be happy to work with you,
and I think we could create some great products together." And
the response was so overwhelming that honestly, year over
year, our business has just boomed. Seven years ago, we had
one printer and it was just my husband and myself. There's now
20 employees who work for us and we've expanded into digital
textile printing, as well. We're really incredibly fortunate to have
helped so many designers understand. And these are designers
who might have been making traditional wallpaper since the
1800s or an independent designer in Brooklyn who just started
making wallpaper. So really we have the privilege of working
with the full spectrum of customers.
What does it mean to be a woman in the wide
format digital printing industry?
I'm so proud to be a woman in this industry. Our team, which
is now 20 people, 18 of us are women so we are an incredibly
powerful group of hardworking, creative, passionate women
who are lifting huge bolts of wallpaper and printing on these
incredibly sophisticated machines, so it's really empowering. I

grew up with a very politically active family. My mother was a
Civil Rights activist; she became a lesbian when I was a child,
so I definitely had a very open and politically diverse upbringing. The power of being a women was something that was
really instilled in me at a very young age and I'm really, really
proud to be able to employ as many women as we do in this
male-dominated industry. There's scientific data on how women see color differently and better than men do, so particularly
in our industry where we really pride ourselves on our artful
color management and color accuracy of the products we
produce, we feel really lucky to have these incredibly talented
women working with us. I have two young daughters and I'm
proud to be setting the example that I am as a business owner
and as a mentor for people in the industry.
Our approach has been that we don't necessarily look to
hire people who have wide-format experience; we look to hire
people who are artists, surface designers, and print makers.
There's almost more women than men who are going to art
school to pursue those careers. But then, it's hard to find a
tangible career to apply those skills to, so we've really found
that having that sharp eye and understanding the beauty of art
is what makes a good employee for us. We can teach the
wide-format printing onsite; that's on the job training. Some of
our employees might have worked in the print shop at their
college and helped other people print their work for their
courses, but we rarely look into our industry to hire. We really
look for people who are artists themselves. For our employees
to understand the value of the process is important. We're
making our customers dreams come to life. There might be
someone who doesn't know how to make wallpaper who might
have envisioned this for their future for a decade before finding
the right manufacturing partner, so we're really helping make
those dreams come true. Our employees coming from artistic
backgrounds really helps them facilitate those dreams and
helps them take great pride in what they're doing.

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B O T T O M L E F T P R O J E C T- D E S I G N C R E D I T: R U L E O F T H R E E S T U D I O ; T O P L E F T P R O J E C T- P H O T O C R E D I T: L I Z G O L D W Y N , D E S I G N C R E D I T: M A I S O N C
B O T T O M R I G H T P R O J E C T- P H O T O C R E D I T: R A C H E L R O B S H A W, D E S I G N C R E D I T: C A I T L I N M CG A U L E Y ; T O P R I G H T P R O J E C T- P H O T O C R E D I T: R A C H E L R O B S H A W, D E S I G N C R E D I T: J O H N R O B S H A W & S A R A B E N G U R

twenty2 wallpaper and textiles | LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT
twenty2.net

25
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Big Picture - October 2020

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