Handmade Historic Wallpapermaker.
...the making of James Randolph Rogers.
Born in Johannesburg in 1979, JRR moved to the Stroud Valleys for his school years before studying Creative Arts in Bath. It was there that he first discovered printmaking, and took a particular interest in etching and bookbinding.
He spent his early and mid 20s travelling and working....teaching English in Japan, working as an apprentice Dry Stone waller in the Cotswolds, travelling around Europe and Central America, working as a teaching assistant in Bristol, and hitch hiking small sail boats across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and eventually Brazil.
It was on return from this hitching trip that he heard of Allyson McDermott.
Allyson is arguably one of the worlds leading authorities on the Historic Interior, specialising in the conservation, recreation and restoration of historic wallpapers. The sound of which spurred James to write a letter, which led to a meeting, then to a trial, then to employment under Allyson as a Conservation Assistant focusing on Historic wallpapers, based in a beautiful studio near the Forest of Dean on the edge of the River Severn.
Over the next 3 years, James learned directly from Allyson, the skills required to restore and conserve historic wallpapers. He became versed in gilding, paper relining, block carving, colour mixing, block printing, flocking, paper hanging, and how to combine all of these skills to recreate and install authentic hand made block printed Domino wallpapers.
New York.
In 2010, JRR decided to make a move to New York where he started working on his own collection of block printed wallpapers.
It was there, in a small apartment in Ridgewood, Queens, that he began sourcing historic designs and painstakingly carving them into pearwood.
Days were spent working in the city as an Art Handler, dealing with fine art installation, gallery exhibition installations and moving high end works around the city. Evenings were spent in his apartment, carving historic wallpaper designs into pear wood blocks, and trial printing samples in hand mixed distemper paints.
After 5 years in New York, JRR had created a collection of 12 hand made block printed wallpapers, which he exhibited in his first show in Brooklyn in 2015.
Return to the Cotswolds.
JRR returned to the Cotswolds in 2016 and immediately set up a new wallpaper studio in the tiny village of Chedworth, close to Cirencester.
The studio became a business which continues to evolve and grow, taking on exciting historic wallpaper recreation projects as well as restoration work and bespoke commissions and installations of his own wallpaper reproductions.
JRR now resides back in his hometown just outside of Minchinhampton in the Stroud Valleys.
He works from a remote studio cabin in the woods, where he carves pear wood blocks, creates historic wallpaper reproductions to add to his collection and prints bespoke wallpapers for clients around the world.
