The individual casita and all rooms except one, she adds, have been converted into storage space for produce and packaging materials, and meetings are usually held around the coffee table, where they can lounge around. on the velvety sofas, enjoy the view, and relax.

Having employees is different from the way she is used to working as an artist, but the extra hands give her more time to create. Her process, a “hybrid of collage and painting,” begins each morning with a quick inventory of all the ideas in her pile of sketches to see if anything in particular speaks to her. After painting for the day, she lets everything dry overnight before scanning the paintings into a digital library, where she stores all of her flowers, insects, fruits, people, and handwritten alphabets until the stage of collage assembly.

While greeting cards, journals and gift wrap remain the basis of Girl w / Knife designs, Castaldi plans to expand with new home and gift items that will be marketed under the Knife / House brand – like a next line of candles, with scents inspired by jasmine, grapefruit, pomelo and the roses of his yard.

“Although the pandemic was difficult, it gave me the opportunity to be inspired by what was right in front of me, on my property,” she says. “Inspiration is everywhere. You just have to be open to receiving it.

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