Artist Spotlight: Wildberry Studios

Wildberry Studio is a stationery company that creates unique paper and lifestyle goods for special occasions and the everyday. Co-founded in 2017 by husband and wife team, Hillary Ting and Christopher Burkart, their line of artisanal stationery products is designed to evoke sentiments of comfort and joy, while also being playful, whimsical and wholesome.

All their products are proudly made in Canada, which means working closely with local printers and suppliers, while assembling and hand binding each product in their cozy Montreal studio. It is their goal and passion to supply a variety of quality paper goods that bring both function and beauty to the day to day.

Tell us about the birth of Wildberry Studio!

Wildberry Studio officially started in 2017 after a year of making cards and selling at markets as a combined creative outlet between Chris and I. We have always wanted to work together and after a particularly rough week of work, we decided to design my sister-in-law's birthday card as a fun project to make something that promotes connection. We continued creating cards, printing them at home on a snazzy Canon and eventually came up with a line we felt proud to sell. From there, we added other stationery and lifestyle products to our collection and the rest is history!

Did you always want to be an artist, even in childhood?

Both Chris and I are creatives at heart, always seeking new projects and wanting to try new mediums when we have a chance. I loved to paint and sketch as a child and even had my own little business as a young age! I would sell hand painted notebooks, based on my client's design guidelines. Chris has always been interested in film and graphic design, and was passionate about pixel art for as long as he can remember. He's a true 80's kid!

What is your favorite medium to create with? Describe your process.

As an artistic medium, I mainly work with gouache, which is like a soluble acrylic. We typically conceptualize together and I will then go straight into sketching and painting once we have a finalized idea.

Where do you find your inspiration?

We are inspired on a daily basis by our children and our family life. We have a lot of fun together and the neatest ideas can come from the simplest interactions. Greeting cards are all about connecting through words and sentiments, so we find the best way to be inspired is to pay attention to the little details of the everyday. Otherwise, we are inspired by music, fairy tales, books, and movies!

What's your solution for combating “creative block” and maintaining productivity?

What I've found works best when I'm in a creative block is to step away and put the idea to the back of my mind. When I'm ready, I will clean up my desk and any clutter that might be distracting and once I sit back down, I'll commit to making something, good or bad. A creative block simply means we're not satisfied with the ideas or final product that are coming out but as soon as we abandon the expectation to create something perfect, the ideas flow again.

In terms of productivity, we have to find a balance between work and rest in order to stay productive. Productivity doesn't necessarily mean constantly being busy, it means getting the work done with room to step back and reset.

What does a typical day at your studio look like? How do you manage your time?

We start the day off with a short meeting and discuss the tasks at hand. We then pack any opening orders and write emails that need to be sent. The rest of the morning is reserved for creative work (painting to photography) and the afternoon is for manual work (binding books, packing products, etc.). Because we are a small team, we have to be jack of all trades and adapt as the workload changes!

What do you enjoy doing in your “free time?”

Free time? What is that? Haha. We love to watch movies together and play board games. Chris loves video games and I love to work on small projects on the side (cross stitching, sewing, writing, etc.). We aren't too hard to please!

What are the biggest challenges you have faced to get to where you are now?

We didn't have any financial help so our business is really built from the ground up. We took a lot of risks along the way, but all in the name of chasing our dreams! We had to deal with a few hurdles with our other studio, and faced many challenges when finding the right printer for us, but we wouldn't be here without all the valuable lessons those challenges taught us. We are stronger because of them!

How does the culture of your city contribute to the development of your independent business?

Our studio is based in a small town in the vibrant city of Montreal. There is a beautiful atmosphere here and the people are passionate about supporting small and independent businesses from restaurants to boutiques to salons! We have met and worked with many other wonderful small business owners and the sense of community is definitely a driving factor for us.

We hear you are working on notebooks and other stationery. Can you tell us a bit about it?

We have been dreaming of adding new stationery to our product line up for some time now, but it's been challenging to find local printers that can take care of the projects as we need. It's very important to us to have all of our products made in Canada, and we work hard to make it happen. We are so close to being able to offer more notebooks, recipe books, journals and beyond! In due time!

Wildberry Studio greeting cards were featured in the April 2021 Snailbox Collection – a limited number of boxes may still be available for purchase.

Purchase more Wildberry Studio stationery goods at their website www.wildberrystudio.ca, and follow them on Instagram @the_wildberry_studio.