HEJ!
I'm Pia Bergholtz. A graphic designer with a passion for patterns. My Swedish roots & US Mountain West branches provide me with inspiration from childhood memories and the colors, shapes and patterns of nature around me. This site is dedicated to my pattern & surface designs.
MY BACKGROUND
I come from a family of artists. My grandmother Eivor Fisher, father Ralph Bergholtz, mother Randi Fisher , and sister Katarina Gill, all have made their living as artists. Watching my parents work in glass, wood, textile and enamel, cultivated in me a love for patterns and abstract form.
My grandmother taught textile arts at the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm, Sweden. Some of my earliest memories are filled with colors, textures and patterns from her apartment.
I have a strong connection to the form and color of the mid-century Scandinavian textile and surface design that surrounded me growing up. Images and color palettes from my favorite children's books, have stayed with me and strongly influences my color sense and style.
A more recent confirmation of the influence my roots have had on my work, was the 2011 exhibit of my mother’s lifework, at Skissernas Museum in Lund, Sweden. Seeing a cross section of her work—much of it for the first time—I noticed how her personal abstract style and consistent color palettes subconsciously are the foundation of my own instinctive style.
The beginning: MFA Thesis “From Form to Form”
During my time in the BFA program in Graphic Design at Utah State University I was encouraged by my teachers and peers to pursue the simple and direct “Scandinavian” approach to form and design that felt natural to me. Continuing in the masters program I knew that I wanted to explore the evolving nature of patterns, and test their origin in some way.
My MFA thesis consisted of designing four original Scandinavian style patterns, with imagery and colors drawn from my roots and childhood in Sweden. I then explored how to make new patterns from each of those, using only the original lines and elements, but transforming curves, changing position and color.
With the inspiration and direction of a variety of different cultural imagery and form, I ended up designing over 100 different patterns and variations from the original four. The variations of each “mother” pattern represent the range of transformation that can be achieved; and also the blending of many different cultural influences in my own life, and in our society today.
Through the process and stages of creating the variations of the patterns, I made many interesting and unpredicted discoveries. Some of my favorite patterns came to be unintentionally, from using the tools in Adobe Illustrator, as I was moving in a new direction.
Color combinations and scale play an important role in use and everyday application of pattern and surface design. Patterns on surfaces are to be combined and used as an integrated part of our surroundings—something we connect to. Elements of rhythm and surprise are equally rewarding, and different color combinations provide a range of mood and emotion.