Erin Minckley’s Relativity Textiles Puts Wallpaper Back in Style

By Megan Kirby

Erin Minckley (Post-Bacc 2009, MFA 2012) never planned to make wallpaper. 

As a Fiber and Material Studies graduate student at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she became an expert at screenprinting fabric. Soon after graduating, she got a job as a studio assistant for the artist Dzine, who dreamt of covering the walls in custom wallpaper for an upcoming Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago show. Could Minckley figure out how to screenprint it? 

“I’d only ever screenprinted on fabric, but I’d done it for so many different people and projects,” she said. “I was like, yeah, I can do it. How hard can it be?”

Today, Minckley runs Relativity Textiles, which touts “wallpaper as art form.” Relativity sells wallpaper and art prints all created and printed in Minckley’s Ravenswood studio, where she has a hand in every step of the process: designing, printing, cutting, and often even installing. Customers reach out to commission custom designs, too. What began as an artistic challenge has become a full-time career more than a decade strong.

Before she ever dreamed of Relativity, Minckley had to figure out how to create wallpaper for the Dzine show. She approached a Chicago wallpaper manufacturer to ask about a five-week turnaround. They told her that the deadline was tight; to make it happen, she would need to draw the screenprinting films herself. 

“So I worked there for three days, hunched over the light table, and came up with six color separation films,” Minckley remembered. The wallpaper manufacturer was so impressed that they offered her a job—and she accepted. “I learned everything there was to know about where to buy paper, and how to make a purchase order, and how to mix the colors,” she said. She started creating custom wallpapers for exhibitions, galleries, and people’s homes. As word of mouth spread, people began hitting her up for her designs and expertise. “People would just randomly call me,” she said. “They’d be like, ‘You’re the wallpaper lady, right?’ and I’m like, ‘Yep, that’s me.’” An idea grew in her mind: Why don't I just start my own business?

“Why don’t I just start my own business?”

In 2015, Minckley launched a successful Kickstarter that brought Relativity to life. Part of the challenge of starting a business was learning how to outsource—which can present a challenge to artists attached to ideas about DIY authenticity. “Artists have this conundrum a lot. ‘Oh, I’m going to write a poem, so I need to drive up to Wisconsin, chop down a tree, and whittle it into a pencil,’” Minckley said. “Girl, just go buy a pencil.” 

After peaking in popularity in the 1970s, wallpaper fell out of vogue in the 1990s and 2000s. “People were doing things like shabby chic-ing and sponge-painting their walls,” said Minckley. But today, wallpaper is having a renaissance. People are drawn to wallpaper’s ability to transform a room with different colors, textures, and patterns. “It’s very much back now,” she said.

Her current studio is at the Ravenswood Work Center, an industrial building where other manufacturers create everything from guitars to 3D-printed mustaches. Her space includes a digital printer for creating wallpaper and long tables for cutting it down. “I always had a sweet spot in my heart for manufacturing, because I started working at the [wallpaper] factory, and I like that intersection of art and business,” she said. 

One of her latest projects is a collaboration with the Jane Addams Hull-House museum, working alongside fellow alum and curator Ross Jordan (Dual MA 2013). Minckley created a wallpaper pairing historic photos with ornate green borders for the exhibition Perennial City: Experiments in Urban Gardening. 

In 2020, she added author to her résumé. Her book Artists Who Thrive offers expertise to artists who are ready to jump into their own businesses. “In order to be in business for yourself, you have to love selling things,” she said. “You have to love networking. You have to love marketing. Or you have to be really good at outsourcing all of that to someone else.” 

The book led to her latest venture: life coaching. For Minckley, coaching combines all of her pursuits: the artistry, the business acumen, the people skills. Her clients are mostly young, female artists who want to start their own businesses. “I empower people who are like me, 10 years ago,” Minckley said. 

While business centers Minckley’s career, she’s still a creative at heart. On the Relativity website, there’s currently a collection of wallpapers inspired by countries on the travel ban list. “It might look like a pretty wallpaper, but the part that really sets a fire to my conceptual artist heart is that I get to make a little political statement about bringing the world home,” she said. ■