Tapping Their New Upstate New York Roots, Calico Wallpaper Expands its Horizons

On a crisp evening in September, some of the best makers and names in New York’s Hudson Valley gathered at the home of Rachel and Nick Cope, the couple behind Calico Wallpaper. The event celebrated the launch of their latest collection, an ethereal series of silk-inspired prints, some of which adorned the walls of their own interiors. But on display was something else: success.

For over a decade, Rachel and Nick steadily built a reputation that many makers dream of building; they don’t just make wallpaper, they make art. Their wallpapers take root in handmade designs that never repeat, envisioned as wall murals instead of traditional rolls. Every art panel can be custom-fit to your space—in a way, they are all one of a kind.

“Typically every collection starts with an original artwork,” said Rachel during a recent visit at her studio in New Chatham, New York where the Brooklyn-born brand established a new home base.

From the beginning, the bespoke nature of their work catapulted Rachel and Nick into the upper echelons of interior design. Their murals often pop up in the homes of people who win Oscars or own major companies. They collaborate with some of the brightest names in our business, from Faye Toogood to Daniel Arsham and Colin King. Together, they’ve launched textiles, dabbled in furniture, and even printed designs on chocolate bars.

And to think, it all started amid a tropical cyclone?

It was 2012, after Hurricane Sandy flooded NYC’s most exposed neighborhoods when Nick and Rachel made their first move. With the city virtually shut down and little to do but shelter inside (Nick’s small contracting company was on hold, and Rachel’s art therapy post gave her paid leave), Rachel tried her hand at an art project. As an outlet, she experimented with the ancient craft of paper marbling, floating natural pigments on a liquid surface, creating organic and mesmerizing effects that transferred onto paper.

Rachel did hundreds of tests, and eventually, Nick scanned her designs, turning them into expressive wall murals for his real estate projects. Later, they turned the concept into a proper—and immediately popular—product.

“Wallpaper was just starting to regain broader relevance with interior designers, and the non-repeating murals that we offered were truly unique,” recalls Nick of the timely interior design trend. “The motifs we initially launched were craft-focused and baroque–something different in a period where minimalism was the dominant style.” They followed up their popular debut with marbled patterns that incorporated metallics and then released something different, Aurora, a meditative series of gradients inspired by vistas of distant lands.

“It became an instant hit,” says Nick, having struck gold for a second time. “It was interesting to see that two very different concepts could be back-to-back hits, and it was at that point that we realized that embracing craft–both by hand and digitally–was the key to our brand.”

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Life happened fast, professionally and personally. Rachel and Nick’s first child arrived in 2015, prompting an expansion to a separate office in Red Hook. Their second child arrived three years later, prompting a move to a Brooklyn Victorian in Prospect Park South. They eventually opened their first physical showroom (which they share with Stellar Works) in Tribeca.

But another life event, the COVID-19 pandemic, led them to rethink full-time city life.

The couple had purchased a weekend house upstate around the same time they opened their first office, which made the Hudson Valley (with its rich history of makers and artists) a sensible place to relocate during the global event, one that shifted the very nature of Rachel’s practice.

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Rachel's studio includes space for entertaining, backdropped by a mural made in collaboration with British designer Faye Toogood.

At her upstate art studio, located beneath Calico Wallpaper’s new design offices, Rachel (who has a BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and a master's degree in art therapy from the School of Visual Arts) is free to explore even more ideas. Liberated from the "frenetic pace" of city life, she now has more space (physically and mentally) for larger-scale artworks, often with more natural materials and methods than before. These new projects aren't always intended as wallpaper—although, she admits, most of her work ends up in their growing collection.

That’s true of a recent release plucked from an impromptu painting session with Rachel’s children while they all had the flu. Entirely unplanned, Rachel experimented with jewel tones and deep colors she hadn’t worked with before. A snippet from that free-spirited session resulted in a playful series full of massive brush strokes called Ensemble that taps into the inner child.

Of course, while each wallpaper often begins with a physical piece of art, it’s not as easy as clicking "scan" and "print" on a computer. The end result can take years to digitize, finalize, and roll out. After Rachel fiddles with art tests (small paintings sampling different mediums, brush sizes, and papers) she sends them upstairs where Calico’s design office (with three designated designers) expands each test's dimensions in more ways than one.

“We scan those, mock them up digitally, and try different filters and digital processes,” explains Alexandra Karamallis, Calico Wallpaper’s Design Director. “It’s truly always different from one collection to the next, totally depending on what the artwork itself is.” After lengthy experimentation, Rachel paints one final artwork (she’s been doing this so long she can picture almost anything at six times the scale). The team scans it once more, applying their chosen filters and effects to scalable prints.

And beyond her own art, Rachel’s intuition leads Calico to fascinating personal collections with fellow friends and designers, which has become one of their most popular endeavors.

“Moving from creating all of the collections myself to incorporating guest designers felt like a sea change for me personally and for the brand,” recalls Rachel of their first partnerships. “I admired so many of my collaborators for years before having the honor of working alongside them.” One of their first collaborations was Woodlands, channeling childhood memories of rural England with none other than British designer Faye Toogood, who brought with her a massive following–and endless new eyes for Calico Wallpaper’s brand.

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While their inspiration can be global, their collections often remain personal, if not close to home. With Alchemy and Enchantment, two of their latest collections, Rachel tapped their newly formed roots in Ghent, working with Janene Ping, a longtime educator and puppeteer at The Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School. Located on a 900-acre farm upstate, the storied school helps students connect with the natural world and counts Rachel and Nick’s children as students (their new home is a short, idyllic walk away through farmland).

The beloved teacher has long produced dreamy silk tapestries for local and student theater productions, using all-natural dyes (think leaves, bark, flowers, and insects) to create evocative and watery prints, translated into large-scale murals (in some, you can even see the silky fibers in the print). Organic colorways like Turmeric, Walnut, and Marigold (yes, dyed with locally collected marigolds) conjure the "elemental dance between sun and earth," one of nature’s most steady relationships.

It speaks to the slower, more grounded rhythm of Rachel and Nick’s upstate life–where Rachel’s own artistic experiments aren’t an isolated perk. “Ironically, the move also helped Nick in his role to grow the business, even though we no longer had a central office,” says Rachel. “Having a slower pace of daily life with less of the distractions that come with city life made it easier for him to focus on the team and the organization of the company.”

Slowing down for Calico Wallpaper, of course, means a very different thing for Rachel and Nick. In the past few weeks alone they’ve launched a batch of thoughtful collections, including Unami, a new tulip tree-inspired series with artist and Lenape leader Joe Baker and a celestial-themed collection called Supernova with New York’s Studio DB.

Surrounded by nature in their new upstate universe, it appears the dreams for Calico aren’t exactly closer to earth–they’re downright stratospheric.