In a city awash in black and grey, and more than just a few shades of neutrals—even on the most sun-drenched, sweltering days of summer—the sight of a marigold-yellow beach throw, or a hand-dyed shirt conjuring all the colorful variations of a peacock’s feather might feel like a shot of adrenaline to the visual cortex. But such sightings are de rigueur for those familiar with Kalen Kaminski’s clothing and housewares line Upstate.
The brand, which comprises a polychromatic assortment of textiles and linens, all of which are dyed by hand in Kaminski’s downtown Manhattan studio, launched in 2010, and has grown to include glassware pieces in similarly dreamy colorways. At the time, the name Upstate signified a sensibility, a feeling of escape versus a specific place. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Kaminski would someday find her own actual piece of “upstate” in the form of a charming abode outside of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where Mother Nature now informs her creative process more than ever.
Despite having grown up in Colorado surrounded by mountainous nature, Kaminski looks back on her first few years in New York as “city slicker” times. “Upstate was always this very exotic thing to me. Since I didn't have a car, I just didn't even know it was there,” she says, referring to the Hudson Valley and its stretch of verdant countryside north of the city. “I don't even think I left the city to go upstate for two or three years. I eventually went for a weekend to the Bovina and Delhi area and had the most epic time. It was like, ‘I can't believe this kind of nature exists right outside the city.’”
Meanwhile, the urge to create was becoming harder to ignore. “I grew up always helping my mom in the garden, cooking, making jewelry, just being very crafty,” she recalls, though the idea of a creative career didn’t surface until her arrival in New York. “It didn’t really start until I was 21. I’m very self-taught. I’ve taken some workshops and classes, and I look up things on YouTube all the time,” she says, crediting a roommate who was “an insane shibori dyer” for introducing her to textile-dyeing. She also took up prop styling and set design.
Upstate’s launch was a somewhat impromptu endeavor: a crafting project with two friends that quickly turned into a bona fide business when another friend requested an order for her store. Reflecting on its name: “It’s the idea of escape, like ‘going upstate.’ It can mean so many different things, but overall it's the idea of escaping, mostly through handcraft,” she explains. In 2018, Kaminski introduced glassware, which she designs herself and produces locally—one-of-a-kind glasses and jugs in woozy swirls of color.
Ten-plus years and a pandemic later, Kaminski now has her own countryside parcel that fits the “upstate” billing, and the perfect backdrop for inspiring new colors in her work. “I go through color fads, and it sounds cliché, but nature is a huge part of it,” she says. A recent obsession with shades of green led to discovering the vibrant hue of chlorophyll derived from a mulberry tree’s leaves. As she expands her palette of one color’s variations, complimentary colors—lilac to contrast the green, for example—come into focus.
“I’m always taking photos and bringing them back. I have so many different swatch tests all over my studio. I think my passion really comes from being curious and researching.” This month Kaminski is debuting a new homewares collection at New York’s Design Week, entitled “Lucid Visions,” featuring sculptural pieces in shades of buttery yellows. It’s her first time participating in the annual event, but likely not her last. “I feel like the past few years, I've really been shifting more into the art world, and design world,” she says. Whatever the outcome, one should expect gloriously colorful results.
