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The Easter Bunny has come and gone, but Mother’s Day is on the way. And the whimsical world of cult-favorite artist and décor designer Hunt Slonem is available at Julia Moss Designs in Wayzata.
“When we were placing new items around the country, we knew the Twin Cities is a strong market for Hunt’s art,” says Penelope Kernen, CEO of the business she owns with Slonem, Hop Up Shop. “Julia has such a beautiful store and is lovely to work with. Hunt’s art appeals to many different clients, but has a contemporary feel. Julia’s store has that feel, too, and she mixes her items so well.”
Slonem is best-known as a Neo-Expressionist painter, but he’s also a printmaker, sculptor, entrepreneur, author, historic preservationist, and conservationist. He has been collected by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and in private collections around the globe.
The artist’s signature bunnies, butterflies, and birds magically come to life on dinnerware, barware, placemats, table linens, bed linens, cashmere throws, and decorative pillows. New items in Julia Moss Designs include the artful throw pillows, embroidered cocktail napkins, and a footed dessert stand in the famous black-and-white bunny pattern with a hand-painted gold rim.
Kernen also singled out a beautiful new dessert plate for Julia Moss Designs, festooned with butterflies in an array of springtime colors. A new silver-leaf tray features a design from Slonem’s studio: a wall of bunnies.
Her favorite item from the new collection now at Julia Moss Designs is the Bunny Bar Bowl with a hand-painted gold rim and, for the new season, a pink interior. “It’s perfect for nuts, olives, and other bar snacks,” Kernen says. “But people are also buying it and filling it with little floral arrangements, like a single hydrangea or several small roses.”
A lovely Mother’s Day gift, she adds, “It’s also a collectible item that you can use afterward or keep to pass down through the generations.”