MAZY PATH
At Mazy Path, we want to start conversations about plants. In order to survive, plants depend on us and we depend on them. However, since 1950, two trends, urbanization and screen time (starting with television), have reduced our engagement with plants, and, more broadly, the natural world. With less time in the woods and more time on the web, we think, speak and write less about nature. Accordingly, nature-related words such “grass," “trees,” and “plants” have declined steadily in popular culture: books, movies, songs... Even the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has replaced words like “blackberry” and “buttercup” with words such as “blog” and “broadband.” The loss of these nature-related words matters because what occupies our thoughts, and what we name out loud, is what we care about. In other words, talking about nature is the first step toward saving it.
With that in mind, we place plants at the front and center of our visual, spoken, and written expression. We develop wallpapers, textiles, and art that capture plants’ unique aesthetic qualities and physical characteristics: unusual creations that are literal conversation starters. In addition, we share plants’ stories at every opportunity, from our speaking engagements to the backs of our samples. We add these tales of botanical survival, adaptation and wonder to the public discourse so that they are widely shared. Our goal is to keep plants top of mind and on the tongue for their sake and for ours.
Alexis Audette was raised by a family of printmakers, painting conservators and art historians: enthusiastic naturalists all. She spent her childhood summers in Vermont meandering through the fields and woods that surrounded the family home, a nineteenth century farmhouse with bookshelves that beckoned with titles such as Masterpieces of Flemish Painting and How to Know the Ferns. Growing up in a world that revolved around art history and nature shaped her passions for printmaking and plants, both of which inspire her designs for Mazy Path. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and veteran of the textile industry, she lives with her family in New York and frequently wanders to Vermont.
Represented by Design Social Studio in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia
