Meet Ilana Foglia and Jeremiah Catling of The Small + Savage Wild

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ilana Foglia and Jeremiah Catling.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
After we had lived together for a little bit and started to settle in, we were looking at ways to start replacing leftover furniture from college, grad school and early days on our own and make our home truly OURS. Ilana was trying to find geometric shelving for our living space but was unable to find anything that was both functional and fitting to our aesthetic. Jeremiah offered to design and make shelves and storage units for around the house.

Shortly after our friend Krizia, owner/ designer of Concrete Geometric, commissioned us to make a display for her booth for craft and trade shows, knowing Jeremiah’s background in Installation art and retail space design. When she saw the pieces we designed for our home she suggested we should sell our products as well. Within six months we had our first collection and were doing craft and trade shows as The Small + Savage Wild.

Since then we have continued to apply our background in art, architecture, and photography to finding aesthetic solutions to the hustle and clutter of daily life.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Its always a challenge to start a small business with no financial backing or business loan, especially as we both work full time jobs in addition to TS+SW . We work out of our garage and home so it is literally a home grown company. We love this work, we love making things, and we found ways to make owning and running a small business work for us instead of the other way around.

Its been a challenge to maintain healthy boundaries, sleep schedule and learning when to say yes or no but when you love what you do it is always an incredibly rewarding experience at the end of the day. Balance is the ultimate goal that we are constantly working to aim for.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the The Small + Savage Wild story. Tell us more about the business.
We create modular installation spaces for the contemporary environment. Through the utilization of geometric principals ts+sw filters 20 years of experience in art, architecture, and carpentry to create planer objects that form intimate focal points. Combining function and aesthetics equally, the philosophy of ts+sw is to offer well crafted objects that empower and enliven the spaces they reside in.

Our goal in our design is to ensure that everything is cohesive, that any two pieces in any two finished will have a harmonizing effect, both between themselves and their environment

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We find that we have been incredibly lucky to have met and become friends with some phenomenal makers not only in the Los Angeles area but across the globe. With the power of social media, we have had the wonderful opportunity to “meet” people in Berlin, Australia, Spain, Canada and North Hollywood.

We also began making our work at just the right time. Being apart of the handmade movement has been fantastic. We’re sure there was a certain amount of luck that brought us together, as this company is certainly the perfect fusion of the two of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: thesmallandsavagewild.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: instagram.com/thesmall_savagewild
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesmallandsavagewild

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