Wallcoverings with Flavor

About a year ago, an interior designer friend told Jon Sherman about a great find she’d made while working on a project for Lenny Kravitz: some far-out psychedelic, metallic wallcoverings that had been designed in the 1970s by a guy out in Oregon. The company was still around, but the designer—whom Sherman refers to only as “Ted”—had passed away and his brother was about to close up shop. In fact, he was about to burn the shop down; he’d sold Ted’s property and needed to clear it, but the printing equipment was too difficult to move.

In love with the few patterns he’d seen, Sherman took a trip to Oregon and while there, made an impulse decision: he would buy Ted’s designs and equipment and use them to recharge the sometimes staid world of wallcoverings. Joining forces with architect Joseph Peraino Jr., Sherman, who worked in real estate, trucked the equipment back home to New Orleans, upgraded some of it, and set about learning how to do hand-screen printing. He and Peraino debut at ICFF with patterns based on Ted’s original designs, offered in new colors.