Piece by Piece

If you were to send one of Adam Pogue’s stylish patchwork textiles to 23andMe for analysis, the aesthetic DNA would roam all over the map—from patchwork traditions such as the quilts of Gee’s Bend, Korean bojagi, and Japanese boro, to the sunny, color-drenched vibes of Los Angeles, where Pogue makes his home and atelier in a defiantly ungentrified building a short stroll from the Fashion District on the edge of Skid Row. “I love my surroundings,” he says. “I’m inspired by all the unintentionally interesting things I see—from the colors of the signs to the storefronts piled high with clothes and random goods.” In his airy, sun-washed studio, Pogue stitches foraged fabric remnants into high-end home furnishings such as curtains, pillows, bed coverings, and ottomans.

Pogue first reached for a needle and thread in college, where he studied architecture and sculpture. “I had no money—I needed materials that were either free or super cheap,” recalls Pogue, whose output ranged from amorphous fabric objects stuffed with batting to an eight-foot tall, three-legged sculpture made from salvaged wood, faux fur, and metal piping. After stints as a draftsman, bookseller, and barista, Pogue, who is 46, helped run retail operations and art projects for Free City, the cult favorite clothing company founded by Nina Garduno. During his 11-year stint, Pogue helped to conceive and fabricate everything from gigantic floor pillows inspired by color field painting to realistic, life-size lions for a museum-themed store installation.

So when it came time to re-cover his own threadbare couch in 2010, Pogue was undaunted. “I had very little cash, but I gathered a bunch of old jeans and cords, cut out shapes, and kept stitching until the entire thing was re-covered, then did it all again to elevate the composition,” he says. “Almost every culture has some form of repurposing worn-out clothing into something new—of necessity. I’m a proud part of that tradition.” Pogue also turned old bedsheets—cut up, stitched together, and dyed—into a room divider and made a hand-looped rug/wall hanging from a pile of ripped-up Free City fleece remnants.

These projects and more made their way to then-nascent Instagram and caught the eye of designer Justina Blakeney, who included Pogue’s apartment in her book The New Bohemians: Cool and Collected Homes (Abrams, 2015). The book’s photographer, Dabito, also featured Pogue on his design blog, Old Brand New. “And it all kind of snowballed from there, very organically,” says Pogue, who also uses the platform to meet and engage with like-minded makers, such as quilter Heidi Parkes, weaver Janelle Pietrzak, and ceramist Bari Ziperstein.

A Melange of Materials

Pogue’s studio sits one floor below his apartment and allows him to spread out larger pieces, such as the panels for the 300 feet of curtains he fabricated over the course of four months for Fanny’s, the restaurant in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. Pogue dyes almost all his material himself (the kitchen sink serves as a dye bath) and is something of a color savant. Using just three Rit primary colors, he can conjure almost any hue on the first go—a useful skill when matching subtle shades for interiors projects. A utility closet against the wall is stuffed with fabric, much of it gifted: old kimonos donated by a neighbor, military surplus canvas left over from a run of Free City puffer vests, piles of antique homespun linens sourced on Etsy, swatches of vintage kilim rugs courtesy of Commune. For Pogue, the holes, tears, and imperfections are cause for celebration. “Part of the composition is the repair—it’s like this unintentional design element. When I highlight flaws with interesting colors or embroider around a hole with gold thread, I create an area of interest.”

Pogue’s compositional process is intuitive and organic—guided by a finished mental image and muscle memory rather than a sketch. “And even though I never make two of anything, over time I’ve created a vocabulary that I can riff off of,” says Pogue. As if to prove his point, a sextet of cushion casings is fanned out on the floor, destined for a home in the Northern California coastal town of Sea Ranch. Not only do they share a common visual language—which Pogue describes as abstracted landscapes—they engage in an elegant dialogue with the celebrated bold and geometric supergraphics Barbara Stauffacher Solomon created for Sea Ranch in the mid-1960s, which visually help dissolve the rectilinear planes of the master-planned community’s redwood buildings. “When Commune asked me to create something for Sea Ranch, it was a total fantasy,” says Pogue. “I’d long admired Solomon’s graphic language, and I’d like to think that—like her—I’ve come up with specific shapes that are identifiably me.”