Text by Mary Forsell • Product photography by Lotta Jansdotter • Photograph by Rinne Allen • Photograph by Rebecca Wood • Photography by John Bessler

Hey, no one said it would be easy. Lotta Jansdotter waitressed for four years before she could afford to focus full time on design. Costumer Donna Langman weathered sweeping changes in the theater world, but survived—and thrived—by claiming her niche as a specialist in period clothing.

Even after achieving success as a children’s book author and illustrator, William Joyce had to reinvent himself midcareer. “I was burned out on painting,” he admits. A transition to television and animated film generated new inspiration. “Now I miss painting,” he says. “I’m fresh and ready to go back.” Rebecca Wood was originally a painter, but discovered her talent as a potter by necessity. “I’m glad I was flexible,” she says. “I’ve seen so many artists give up and go to law school.”

Luckily for us, these talented individuals stayed the course.

He used to be the lone figure at the desk and easel, writing and illustrating such children’s classics as George Shrinks, Santa Calls, and Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo. But about 10 years ago, William Joyce got an offer to turn a beloved book, Rolie Polie Olie, into a television series. Animated films followed, including Robots in 2005 and Meet the Robinsons (based on his most autobiographical book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson) in 2007. Suddenly, William was part of a team, serving as producer and production designer. “It’s exciting to work with a group,” he says. “It gets crazy and wild, with shouting and hollering, throwing stuff, cheering, laughing till you can’t breathe. That doesn’t happen when you’re working by yourself…I hope.”

William’s studio is in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he’s also artist-in-residence at Centenary College. He works in a multiroomed space that mimics the worlds he has created in books and on film. At about 4,000 square feet, it’s a big switch from his former upstairs sunroom studio at home. “It’s like a series of little lands here,” he says.
Each room contains art for a separate project, so that he can completely immerse himself. One area, for example, is devoted to storyboards for The Leaf Men, an upcoming animated feature film based on his book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. In another room, art for a soon-to-be-announced “cool project that I’ve been working on for a long time” fills every corner. “It’s so much fun to immerse yourself in a different land that doesn’t exist—but you wish existed—and make it seem plausible and real.”

Everything about her intrigues—her cult following in Japan; the fact that she dreams in Swedish and English but is technically Finnish; her upbringing divided between a remote island in the Baltic Sea and bustling Stockholm…

No wonder Lotta Jansdotter’s motifs are so unexpected. At once geometric and irregular, they meander and curve in surprising ways. “People say they feel calm when they look at my designs, which is funny since I’m not a calm person,” Lotta says. She moved to California in 1991 to study art and began screen-printing on fabric, eventually opening a San Francisco shop that carried her designs for handbags, aprons, pillows, kitchen towels, stationery, ceramics, and even lampshades.

The Jansdotter universe has shifted once more—this time to Brooklyn, New York. “My husband’s family lives back East, and the trip to visit my family in Sweden now takes much less time. I reconnect with them as often as I can,” especially now that she has a baby son.
“It’s hard being a working mom,” Lotta admits. “I have to schedule in my creative time.” But when she needs to sit down and work, she doesn’t waste a second. “I have a lot of sketchbooks to fall back on and I often turn to them for ideas. I keep a visual library on hand to inspire, pictures torn from magazines, even if it’s a photo of a woman’s haircut. Inspiration is so abstract. People always ask me what I was thinking when I drew a particular design, but I like to say, ‘What do you think when you see it?’”

A multitalented artist, Rebecca had a pretty good run as a still-life painter—until the 1987 stock market crash left her suddenly without patrons. So she switched to craftier pursuits like fabric painting and jewelry making. “At first, I didn’t think of ceramics,” she says. “Whenever I’d go to shows, I’d see pottery that was boring brown or gray and I’d think, ‘What is wrong with these people?’”
When a friend presented her with a yard-sale kiln, Rebecca couldn’t resist experimenting with color. “I ordered some clay and glazes and started playing around with a rolling pin. I had no idea what I was doing.” On a trip to a posh downtown boutique in New York City that stocked her hand-painted outfits, she unveiled her pottery and the buyer went wild. Soon after, she decided to focus all of her energy on ceramics.

Located in a former produce warehouse, the R. Wood Studio in Athens, Georgia, houses a dozen artists plus Rebecca herself, all feverishly producing a handmade signature line as well as their own one-offs around the clock. “Everyone’s on his or her own schedule,” Rebecca says. “I used to live across the street and was at work all the time. Since I moved to the country four years ago, though, I’ve found that I really need the downtime to regenerate. At 5 p.m. on a Friday, I’m out of there to have fun.” Her idea of a good time includes gardening, hiking, being with her pets, and having long-distance conversations with her grown son, an English teacher in Japan. “I can’t wait to visit Japan this spring and get all inspired!”

Not many people move to New York City for a more tranquil lifestyle, but that’s what Donna Langman did some 25 years ago, when she left the roadie circuit as a costumer for regional theater and “settled down” in Manhattan. A position with the grande dame of costume houses, Barbara Matera, paved the way for her own shop soon after.
Much has changed in her professional world, points out Donna, who studied the theater business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “It used to be that an entire Broadway show would go to one costume house, but now the lead time has been shortened and I’ll focus on just one or two performers,” explains the Buffalo, New York, native. “One of the things that makes this industry so expensive is that everything is one of a kind, made for each individual. These clothes take a beating—the performer has to wear them in extreme circumstances, so they’re constructed in a way that makes them more lasting.”

While you’ll mostly see her credits on Broadway and opera performance listings, Donna will occasionally work with an individual talent, such as Liza Minelli or Bette Midler. She’ll also work in film, so long as the project interests her. Recent credits include the remake of All the King’s Men, with Sean Penn and Kate Winslet, and Fur, a portrait of Diane Arbus starring Nicole Kidman.

“These are period films,” Donna points out. “Contemporary films don’t attract me. You get everyone voicing their opinion for a dress that doesn’t even get used.” She’s happiest with a cup of coffee in one hand and a designer by her side as they fine-tune a costume to suit a period. She doesn’t have a favorite period: “They all have their pull.”

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