How fabric designer Lisa Baudry is making her vibrant art a viable career

Category: General

Country: New Zealand

As told to Joanna Davis.

13th April, 2024

Lisa Baudry did a degree in graphic design with a major in illustration, and found her niche after years thinking you had to have a textile degree to design fabrics.
She lives in Waterview, Auckland, with her daughter, 14.

LISA: I’ve been here in Waterview coming up five years, and previously I lived in Avondale. I wanted to stay in the area for my daughter’s schooling. It’s close to the motorway, easy to get around.

It’s very private, which is very important to me. I feel tucked away, and the living room gets the western sun so you can have a nice nap in the afternoon.

I’m from a Waikato farming family; I grew up in Kaihere on the Hauraki Plains. We have a school but that’s all. Lots of my family still live there. I’m very proud of my roots.

Baudry's popular Kaimoana Crayfish art print is sold by Endemic World in Ponsonby. DEBORAH TEH PHOTOGRAPHY

The way I grew up was very much like everyone goes and helps each other, Dad’s brothers especially. We all lived near each other, shared machinery, helped each other.

It’s sad that a lot of the pressures on that business are intense.

Some in my family are still farming, but on the first of June, it’s going to be handed over after all these decades.

The shirts are some of Baudry’s New Zealand-focused designs for Kaleo, a wearable design store in Kerikeri, Northland. RICKY WILSON / STUFF

As for my art, I’m trying to do this creative path, and it’s sporadic. I’m still learning how to make what I do into a viable business. When I have a contract, I’m in the studio every day. Otherwise casual work in hospo is how I feed us.

I do Uber driving. It’s flexible. I can just drop it, I don’t have a boss.

The plate is special to Baudry as her brother Vaughan, who was 24, died while he was overseas, and had sent this from Turkey. It arrived after his funeral. RICKY WILSON / STUFF

The thing I’ve learned over the years is that you can be good at what you do, but if you don’t nail the business and marketing, you can’t do it.

I’ve had a lot of help through online courses, especially a woman in the US, an illustrator who became an art agent and teacher. She made me realise that illustrators can use all their drawing and skills in surface design. I thought you had to have a textile degree to design fabrics.

I design for an [international] market called Bolt Fabric, for customers who are home sewers, quilters, people with a lust for fabric and who always want new designs.

Another example is a UK store. The woman there has an amazing eye for textiles, fabric on the roll, lamps, trays, other things for her store. They sell really well, so now each year I get a royalty.

One that sells really well here is my crayfish print, an art print that sells through Endemic World in Ponsonby. There’s a lot of people that love crayfish in New Zealand.

Baudry loves the built-in furniture in her sunroom, which is perfect for her work as an artist. DEBORAH TEH PHOTOGRAPHY / SUPPLIED

I’ve done a lot of jobs as a graphic designer so I know what it’s like to be in a studio working for someone, but I wouldn’t draw.

They wouldn’t use me. I’d be using clip art and doing it so fast. I’d rather just keep developing where I can.

Baudry sewed this jacket for her daughter when she was little. Over the years, she has taught sewing from her home. RICKY WILSON / STUFF

My daughter likes drama and music. Because I’m so interested in art, she’s not. But I always feel like the things that you’re drawn to, you don’t get to decide that.

I didn’t do drawing when I was a kid. As a teen I came across painting, drawing and art class and I was like, oh wow. I’d just go into the art studio or music studio at lunch time.

I’m blessed, really. To find something that you love doing and keep on getting better ...That’s satisfying.

Some days I think, why do I do this? But I just followed what I wanted to do, and kept on being open.

I hope that at the end of my life I’ve created something beautiful: That’s all I want to do.

Baudry made this collage jewellery, “a watch that doesn’t tell the time“ which includes her christening gift brooch with her name on, to tell her apart from her identical twin. RICKY WILSON / STUFF