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A born creator, Tina Frey took a few side-paths including a career in finance, before becoming a full-time artist, sculpting handcrafted resin designs.
Looped in by Alison Damonte
Based in San Francisco, born in Hong Kong, and raised in Canada, Tina Frey has a lot of travel and cultural references to inspire her. Mostly self-taught, Tina left her career in finance in 2007 to launch her labour of love, Tina Frey Designs, a line of hand-sculpted tableware and home accessories. Known for her beautiful, organic and functional resin pieces, Tina is proof that if you follow your heart, you’ll find your happiness.
It plays a great deal in my life. When I think about community, there’s a couple of things that come to mind. There's a community of fellow creatives and designers that is a beautiful support group of like-minded people where you can share ideas and thoughts.
Then there’s the public community. For example, almost a year ago, we opened the flagship store and part of the reason I opened it was because I missed the connection with people. When you create a new design, how are you supposed to show and share it with people? And that’s the part I really realized I missed with the pandemic. That there were no exhibitions, no travel, no getting the product out there. And it was also about connecting with the local people as well. Having pop-up events and other fellow local creatives in the shop. And that’s where the community and connection really spawned from. Having a physical location where you can welcome people has been amazing. Pop-ups were a big discussion before the pandemic, and now I can see us exploring different places where we can pop up and connect with other people.
It’s funny to call it a failure because failure is such a bad word in our society. But every failure, everything that you encounter or struggle against, you learn something from it. Even when I think about the first part of my career, in some ways I was not good at it but was it a failure? No, it was a side path, and I learnt a lot which also allowed me to run my current business.
Also, learning to let go and trusting people when running your business. It's the only way you can grow. I don’t think you can call it a failure, but it has been a learning experience. It’s about working with people vs. fitting a square peg into a round hole. It’s a continual process - how do you do things better in every single way. Honestly, there are many failures, even every day, haha.
The biggest risk was giving up my career in finance. But I was fortunate to be doing that since I was consulting 4x a week while trying to start my own business. Eventually, it went from 4 days a week to no days a week. But I remember that transition and slowly leaving finance; it was safety, a security net. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Will I ever go back? It was a big leap, but 14 years later, the thought of doing that, I don’t think I could even imagine going back! We are often fearful of change, but you have to put yourself out there.
Creativity and ideas come from everything or everywhere. That’s why getting away from your desk is so important. I see inspiration in everything, from travel to different cultures to people’s outfits, colour, decor, nature, it goes on and on. Taking that mental break, seeing what comes back in your head and then listening to music while sculpting, is very natural for me.
You can be walking outside and looking at a rock or a tree, and something about the shape or colour is an inspiration. Nature itself is so inspiring, and then I just sculpt something to achieve that softness or texture.
There is a certain aesthetic to my collection. Surprisingly, the white pieces are the best sellers; there’s something so pure about it, its simplicity, and it’s a baseline piece. But I love the pops of colours, the yellow from Spring or moss for Fall. Every season, different colours evoke different feelings and moods. It’s sort of like fashion, and it changes all the time. And all you need is a pop of colour sometimes.
I generally really like minimal design. We decided to paint our walls white in our home, and there’s something about having this plain palette, similar to the collection, where you can just throw in pops of colour and change things out. It’s about having this foundation of minimalism aesthetic.
When I’m home, it’s nice to just clear my mind. Since my studio is surrounded by colour, it's nice to go home and decompress and not be influenced by anything. So when I go into inspiration mode, I’m really coming at it with a clear mind and fresh eyes.
I would say to just follow your gut feeling, your heart and your dreams because I sort of postponed it for the first part of my career, but I always knew I wasn’t really good at what I was doing. I mean, I did it, I could do it, but you can tell the difference when you struggle to learn something vs. when something just comes easy to you, when it’s more natural. For example, my husband is good at physics, whereas for me, I’m good at the creative side, and it’s so obvious when you put us in different roles.
I never really realized that if you follow and surrender to the experience, you inevitably find what you’re good at. If you don’t fight it, you end up following the path you're supposed to be following. So, if I was going to give my younger self advice, it is not to struggle against what you’re supposed to be doing. Whatever is supposed to happen, just let it happen, and it naturally develops. If you know in your heart that something brings you joy, follow that joy, and it’ll cause a lot of happiness all around.
I collaborate with her for our pop up store displays in Montecito. She is amazingly talented, is a photographer, has written a book, is working on a second one, and has done work with Kinfolk magazine, etc.
I collaborate with her for our pop up store displays in Montecito. She is amazingly talented, is a photographer, has written a book, is working on a second one, and has done work with Kinfolk magazine, etc.
She is a maker, writer, teacher, and connector of people. She is the one I collaborated with to do the creative retreat in Puglia, Italy (although that got indefinitely postponed for now).
She is a maker, writer, teacher, and connector of people. She is the one I collaborated with to do the creative retreat in Puglia, Italy (although that got indefinitely postponed for now).
She is a food and lifestyle photographer I have worked with in the past and I love her work! She is super talented and it has been a joy to see her work evolve from her photos to short videos.
She is a food and lifestyle photographer I have worked with in the past and I love her work! She is super talented and it has been a joy to see her work evolve from her photos to short videos.
She is an illustrator and artist that has some cool clients. She has exhibited her artwork at our pop up store and also currently works part time with us.
She is an illustrator and artist that has some cool clients. She has exhibited her artwork at our pop up store and also currently works part time with us.