Is a 'Palette-First' Approach the Key to a Personal Home? Designer Simone Brewster on Using "Color as a Material in Its Own Right" to Craft Spaces That Feel Alive

A young woman in a blue, sleeveless dress wears wooden jewelry in front of a colorful canvas and next to wooden vessels in a teal-colored, naturally lit room.

Some people find the idea of decorating with vivid, primary colors absolutely intimidating. But for artist and designer Simone Brewster, no project starts without having a striking palette ready to manifest across her boldly sculptural furniture, jewelry, and canvases. In many ways, it feels as if her three-dimensional creations wouldn't even exist were it not for the swathes of pigments that define their silhouettes. And so, who better than Brewster herself can make a case for interiors that start and end with a predetermined color scheme?

Whether applied to the canvas over instinctual brush strokes celebrating the essence of Black womanhood, relied on to emphasize or break down the different segments of her sinuous wooden sculptures, or applied in block to the ceremonial passageways that punctuate many of her walk-through public artworks, color is a constant and comforting presence in the burgeoning designer's work. One that, however, Brewster doesn't want us to take at face value.