Geyserville designer continues reinventing herself through multiple art forms

As a little girl, Dallas A. Saunders thought she might want to be a ballerina. Her mother, on the other hand, held out hope she would become a musician. But Saunders always knew her calling was to be an artist.

Her path led her away from the bright lights of the stage and into the field of fine arts, graphic design and eventually to textiles, fabrics and tapestries.

Working as a part time administrative assistant at the Philadelphia College of Art, now known as the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Saunders discovered one of the benefits included an opportunity to take free classes. She already had a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing, so she studied typography and printmaking, eventually becoming shop supervisor for the graphic design typography department.

“They let me teach summer school and, at night, I worked on sets for a large opera production,” she said. “The neighborhood was so bad they locked us in the set shop to paint at night and we couldn’t go home until dawn.”

The Hoboken, New Jersey, native later earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Although she had been offered a full scholarship, as well a teaching assistant position, when she arrived they asked if she would mind working in the design offices rather than doing her teaching assistant job since they had no design students yet.

“Chicago was quite small and principally a graduate school with a new department focused on what people would probably now call technology arts,” she said. “I was doing large installation works at the time, as well as photography centered around color Xerox and other industrial print methods. I was maybe one of the first five students in the Time Arts Department.”

Exploring wonderful world of art

Saunders spent many years in London and Paris doing art research, getting to know both cities very well.

“With my junior high French, France was always a work adventure,” she said, “especially the Bibliothèque Nationale de France where you were not to utter anything except French.”

In Barcelona, where she worked for a number of years printing posters and calendars, she watched the city blossom as large swaths of post-war housing were torn down and the waterfront and city were revitalized in preparation for the 1992 Olympics.

During her early career, Saunders had been an art director working on paper products, such as posters, greeting cards, calendars and framed art reproductions. She also did a great deal of work with museums and individual artists, until the advent of computers, digital printing and the internet changed everything.

Around this time, home furnishing design was taking center stage in the world of licensed design. Saunders noticed that the Hearst Castle in San Simeon was taking part, but very minimally, so she sent an email to the then-museum director, who invited her to “come on down.”

“After two years spent researching at the castle, I can honestly say I know it from under the Neptune pool to the roof of Casa Grande,” she said. “I signed on three major furniture companies, multiple manufacturers, including those who handled decorative accessories and custom carved wood, we designed custom pillows and everything launched in 2008.”

One of her manufactures for the licensed Hearst Castle upholstery line was Barclay Butera out of Los Angeles.

“Somehow I had heard about digital fabric printing. I designed four pillows and printed the fabric myself, sending it down to L.A. to be made into pillows at their factory,” she said. “The economy was collapsing at the time and no one was buying chairs or sofas, but they still wanted to decorate. Pillows really took off in 2009 to 10.”

Using industrial media to create art on fabric dovetailed perfectly with her fine art background and opened even more artistic doors for her to explore. She also had access to the archives of Julia Morgan, a well-known California architect whose designs included La Cuesta Encantada, better known as Hearst Castle.

Selling, showcasing her own stuff

During the late ’90s and early 2000s, Dallas A. Saunders Artisan Textiles & More was located in the Marin County town of Ross as a wholesale only showroom doing the Architectural Digest Show in New York, Licensing Show, New York Gift Show and the High Point Furniture Market. Originally planning to focus on fabrics, wool and linen in particular, elegant tapestries came into her business life less than a month after signing the lease when her co-signer decided to sell his business and move with his family back to Wales.

After a moment of panic wondering how she was going to pay the rent on her own, Saunders called her old friends at Magnolia Editions in Oakland and invited them to come look at the space.

“It was the perfect space for them to showcase their tapestries, which were already known all over the art world as an exciting new digital media,” she said. “So, again, new digital media – but being created by friends, not myself.”

Except for a small exhibition, all of her tapestries were made in Belgium by Magnolia Editions. While prices are set by the artist, tapestries generally sell for between $6,000 and $200,000 depending on the size and intricacy.

Fellow Geyserville resident and business owner Daisy Damsky said, ”Dallas is an example of the elegance you may not expect from a town this small. We have interior designers, fine art craft people and artists galore in Geyserville and Dallas provides wonderful resources for that community”

When COVID-19 struck, Saunders again had to make adjustments to her original business plan, one of which was downsizing to a smaller space at 112 School House Lane, next to the post office.

No longer a retail store, she meets clients by appointment. Her offerings include fine linen and wool fabrics principally for interior use, window treatments and upholstery. While she mainly works with interior designers, she welcomes customers who know what they want for draperies or have an upholsterer ready to help them.

“We refer our designers to a family-owned workshop in Santa Rosa for window treatments, draperies or roman shades, and to a gentlemen here in Geyserville for upholstery,” she said. “For customers who are confident in what they are looking for and select fabrics, we can arrange for the workroom to send out their measuring crew and do the installation for them.”

'Combination of economics and exploration’

Saunders sells linen sourced directly from fabric mills in Belgium, France, Ireland and Italy, wool from Donegal Wools in Ireland and tweeds from Harris Tweeds in Scotland. She says designers find her prices remarkable compared to those in San Francisco.

“We sell many solid color fabrics, special jacquard woven patterns, stripes and plaids. We don’t deal in printed fabrics,” she said.

Healdsburg designer Gregory Pagel said “simple elegance” comes to mind when he thinks of Saunders' work.

“Her fabrics are divine and perfect for the comfy cozy designs so many of my clients want,” he said. “I regularly purchase fabric and other items from her for both my business and my own home. Her pillows have made great gifts for friends and family, as well.”

Most of the linen promoted online as Belgian or French is misleading. The seed may be purchased from France or Belgium, but the entire growing, spinning and weaving is done in China or India.

Michael Sasso is a new Geyserville homeowner who first learned of Dallas A. Saunders Artisan Textiles & More when he spotted a poster with photos of her Belgium linen. Unfamiliar with the town, he stopped in at another local business to ask directions.

“I like really high-quality linen,” said Sosso. “And hers are certainly that. So far, I’ve purchased seven of her pillows in different sizes, four with designs of shells and butterflies and three with horses for my 92-year-old mom. We couldn’t be more pleased with them.”

While reorganizing and moving to her new location, Saunders discovered some lovely black and white photogravure book plates of orchids and sea shells. She purchased all the copies she could find and designed matted print ranges that fit into standard picture frames. Prices range from $39-$59.

Her print and poster collection of designs she did in the ’80s and ’90s are also finding new homes all over the country via her website.

As for what comes next, Saunders says she does not even want to speculate.

“My business has been a combination of economics and exploration all along. Honestly, I’m still reinventing myself, which has taken much longer than I ever imagined,” she said.