The seedlings on her windowsill are part and parcel of that vision. “Food is really important to us as a family, and I love gardening and flowers, and I wanted that to be part of who we are as a business as well.” Staff are encouraged to spend a couple of (paid) hours a week at the Atelier Ellis allotment, “fiddling in the soil” or cutting flowers for the store “so that we always have something alive.”

Aside from planting seedlings, ripping up old carpets, and training new staff, Cassandra has—of course—been busy mixing paint. There are now 90 colors that make up the collection of breathable, virtually VOC-free, water-based, deeply pigmented paints. The most recent collection, which is aptly named “Beginnings”, is, according to Cassandra, “my best yet and the most me.” A reflection on the rhythmic migration of birds that marks the changing of the season, the palette includes avian shades such as Lark, Floof, and Hummingbird as well as personal memories of transportive colors such as the milky, oceanic blue, Tamaki.

“Color is the thing that people always come back to,” Cassandra concludes. “It’s the thing they hold on to at the beginning of each new move or project. They want to be able to see themselves sitting in a pale blue sitting room, looking out at their garden with their dog, and they choose their colors because that’s the way they want to shape their lives. It’s about the colors that they’re going to live inside. I find that fascinating.”

For more on Cassandra, see our past stories:

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