Only recently I came upon a glittery website of Confetti System, got excited about their work immediately, and decided to share with you this confetti system blog. Nicholas Andersen and Julie Ho, duo behind Confetti System, transform simple materials such as tissue paper, cardboard, and silk into interactive objects that to me evoke a nostalgic feel, reminding me of days when we all made our party decorations by hand, a sense of craftsmanship that converts even the simplest decoration into a focal point and an object of entertainment, creating a perfect party mode or a display for an event, gallery, store…
Monica Khemsurov wrote a piece on them for SightUnseen, and I’m sharing it here with you:
Between the two of them, Julie Ho and Nicholas Andersen had designed clothing, jewelry, movie sets, music videos, and Martha Stewart shoots, plus dabbled in painting, drawing, pattern-making, sewing, and crocheting before teaming up creatively in 2008. Ho had even been a studio assistant for Tom Sachs, making foam Hello Kittys with a medical scalpel (and slicing open her hands almost weekly in the process).
So it took a particular kind of alchemy for the pair to decide that — out of all their talents and interests — they would devote their days to making paper party decorations, the kind you’d expect to find in a dollar store if they weren’t so uniquely beautiful. “With our backgrounds in set design and prop styling, Nick and I always loved transforming spaces for our friends’ parties,†says Ho. “We saw how it changed people’s moods, and that’s when we had the idea. We started it as an art project, making party objects like a piñata, blindfold, and necklace.â€
As Confetti System, the pair have since built a business around such festive accoutrements, constructing shimmering backdrops for United Bamboo fashion shows and decking the halls of Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O.’s birthday party. Last winter, their Mylar-fringed piñatas and party hats became an Confetti System Urban Outfitters capsule collection, and later this month, the band Beach House will embark on a six-week tour with custom sets crafted by the duo. Confetti system how to make: They make everything themselves, spending hours slicing 20 x 30-inch sheets of tissue paper into streamers with a rolling fabric knife, or distressing cardboard piñata bodies so they take just the right amount of time to burst open, spewing out handmade confetti in various shapes and colors.
It’s a labor of love for Ho and Andersen, who say they’re primarily motivated by a desire to sculpt things with their hands. Ho grew up in New York taking tons of extracurricular art classes and soaking up inspiration from all the shelter magazines her father brought home from his job as a color corrector. She studied fine art at MICA, where she met the friend who would eventually introduce her to Andersen; he had been raised in Hawaii, his grandmother in charge of the original Jams factory.
“I grew up visiting her there, looking at all the fabrics and helping her sew and clip threads,†Andersen says. “My parents had a company that made sails and sailboat cushions. Everyone was always making everything all around me.†Among many other shared obsessions, the pair bonded early on about the fact that they had both kept curated, rotating collections of things on their bookshelves as kids. Now they keep a collection of inspirational objects at their Manhattan studio, which they share with graphic designer Alex Lin, and which they offered us a glimpse at on a recent March afternoon.
