House Calls: Nicole Kagan creates wearable art from her basement

By Rebecca Caldwell The designer Nicole Kagan, a work-at-home mom and former graphic designer. The studio The basement of her Bathurst and St. Clair house. The goods Kagan camps out downstairs, surrounded by old canvases (she studied visual art at the University of Guelph), spools of wire and hundreds of thousands of beads. She weaves all of these materials into wearable art; the Scribbles collection, for example, has a complicated, Cy Twombly–esque framework (right). “Those pieces are almost like abstract art to me,” she says, “so it’s fulfilling if I haven’t had time to paint for a while.” The outlet Savvy shoppers know to find Kagan’s work at a handful of Toronto boutiques, including Distill Gallery and Made You Look, and on her website. Her studio is also a showroom, by appointment, and she’ll be at the Art Market at Artscape Wychwood Barns this fall.