arts&life

ALLEN EINSTEIN

at home

ANDREW POTTER PHOTOGRAPHY

Einstein in the Detroit Wallpaper studio

TOP TO BOTTOM: Detroit
Wallpaper’s Penny, an homage to
the Heidelberg Project. Detroit
Wallpaper’s Willow . Detroit
Wallpaper’s Treehouse .
Wonderland by Einstein.

Josh Young and Andi Kubacki, co-owners of Detroit Wallpaper Company

40

February 9 • 2017

jn

her studio, he liked what he saw and invited Einstein to sub-
mit designs.
“Her stuff fills a space for us in our offerings that we didn’t
really have, something in the vein of what we want to do. We
treat wallpaper like an art installation. It’s not just a back-
ground, and I think that’s where Nanci’s work stands out,”
says Kubacki, who does all the design work at DWC.
Extracting the repeating patterns in Einstein’s work
in order to create a wallpaper wasn’t all smooth sailing,
though, Kubacki says. Some just didn’t translate well.
“I had to henpeck the best things about her work,” he says.
“The things I thought would be wonderful weren’t won-
derful,” Einstein explains. “Quite often, I needed [Kubacki’s]
input on how this would work in today’s market — not wall-
paper a grandmother would put up in her house.”
No, DWC does not print cabbage rose wallpaper — unless
you want it. Its offerings veer toward the bold and arrest-
ing. They make a statement. DWC also produced patterns
inspired by “street” artist Tyree Guyton, creator of the
Heidelberg Project in Detroit. Guyton, says Kubacki, blessed
the project.
Kubacki’s business partner (and former life partner) Josh
Young describes DWC as a bridge between Andy Warhol
and Henry Ford — a place where art intersects with mass
production.
“We use commercial processes and machines, but we
create art and beautiful things at the end of the day,” says
Young, 39.
Kubacki, 40, and Young grew up in the Midland-Bay City
area, though they didn’t know each other until they were in
their 20s. In 2004, they pooled their resources and opened
Great Wall custom coverings, which produced large-scale
photo and customized wall murals. Their clients began
requesting reproductions of out-of-print patterns and then
digital scans of their own patterns that could be produced
on a large scale. Kubacki, a visual artist, was inspired to
create original patterns for DWC and, in 2012, the partners
formed Detroit Wallpaper Company.
“The popularity and reach of Detroit Wallpaper immedi-
ately eclipsed everything we’d built with Great Wall,” Young
says.
DWC and its designs — there are some 150 — have been
featured in publications like dwell, House Beautiful and Detroit
Home. About half the work is commercial, half residential,
and the company has a thriving private label business. The
company created an online custom color tool to allow cus-
tomers to choose a pattern, a colorway and material (the
company offers five types, including metallic grass cloth).
Today, there are 11 full-time employees, including Young
and Kubacki, a Ferndale resident. DWC can turn out orders
in 7-10 days. DWC’s growth led to the purchase of a new
building, which it will occupy exclusively, not far from its
current location on Livernois, north of Eight Mile Road.
Although it’s not a significant part of their business, DWC
has worked with “some of the greatest minds in event plan-
ning in the Detroit area” to create themed decor for bar and
bat mitzvahs, says Young, a Rosedale Park resident. DWC
has also worked with Aish in the Woods to create photo
murals on stretched canvas for the Huntington Woods out-
reach center.
“Now we typically provide print services for other local
decorators,” Young says. Among them is Rachel Zimmerman
of Huntington Woods.
Zimmerman runs Rachel Zimmerman Design, a boutique
interior design company, and she comes back to DWC again
and again.
“I use their wallpaper a lot,” she says. “They’re on the fore-
front of printing digitally. You can do anything you want.” •

