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Dori
McKearn
Vice
President of J.D. Chamberlain, Ltd.and designer of the "Chamberlain" line
" Color is a basic human need like fire and water...a raw material indispensable
to life!"
- Fernard Leger
" To a more sensitive soul the effect of color is deeper and intensely moving."
- Vassily Kandinsky |
"Designing
Chamberlain"
By Sandy Balzo
"Color is a basic human need like fire and water...a raw material indispensable
to life!" Some people seem destined from birth to be who--and what--they ultimately
become.
"It sounds silly," says Dori McKearn, "but when I went back to school fifteen
years ago, I had a feeling that at this point in my life, I would finally be
doing what I was meant to."
And is Chamberlain it? "Chamberlain," she says with a grin, "is
the beginning."
Chamberlain is the signature line of J.D. Chamberlain Limited, the company which
McKearn and her husband John founded. Dori McKearn is vice president of J.D.
Chamberlain and the creative force--visionary, her husband calls her--behind
the Chamberlain line, the culmination of her lifetime study of art, color and
design.
McKearn cites 1985, the year that she returned to the University of Wisconsin's
Interior Design program and began an intense study of color theory with Professor
Marjorie Krelick, as a watershed year, but her interest in color and design began
well before that.
Number three in a family of six children, she came by the family
values and strong work ethic that have guided her life, quite
naturally. She also sought, in the
midst of such a large family, to create her own space--both literally and figuratively. "My
mother encouraged me to redecorate my bedroom when I was quite young. I went
on and eventually did the entire house--paint, wallpaper, curtains, carpet, the
whole thing. It's funny--I was very shy, but I look back at pictures of myself
and in every one of them, I'm wearing bright colors. Even then, I was attracted
to light and color, which are interchangeable really. Light is color and color
is light."
Feeling like she'd found her niche, McKearn switched into the art department
at the university. Now, fifteen years later, she continues to share her love
of color, art and design through her work. With more than twenty years experience
in residential and commercial interior design, as well as sales experience on
both a retail and wholesale level, McKearn seems uniquely suited to her present
position.
"Dori, as a person," says her husband, "is the blueprint, the inspiration, for
the company in general, as well as for the Chamberlain line in particular. She
has what I call simple elegance--beauty, refinement, strength, whatever that
conjures up to you--with a touch of splash--her love of color, art and balance.
Add to that her innate personal ethics and the wealth of experience that has
led her to this point, and . . .
He shakes his head, at a loss for words--something, you get
the impression, that doesn't happen often to John McKearn.
He begins ticking things off on his fingers. "She's
a designer, artist, photographer, has done product development, supervised overseas
manufacturing, was VP of National Sales for Bramble Company, a top ten sales
person at one of the top 40 furniture stores in the country . . . her experience
is unparalleled.
But in all her endeavors, color and art has ruled Dori McKearn's life. And that
color and art is what she brings to Chamberlain--a line defined by the simple
elegance with a touch of splash, as her husband puts it, that defines the woman
herself. It's also defined by that basic likableness, that down-to-earth common
sense that makes Dori McKearn believe that everyone deserves to live with beauty
and art.
"People have told me that I'm a good salesperson--that I seem to know innately
what they need. But what I really do is listen. I've been listening to what people
want and need in their homes for more than 20 years. I can look at a piece now
and say, 'That's good, but this color is off,' or 'Those styles don't work together,'
or 'That's too overdone.'
"Designing Chamberlain has given me the freedom to fix all those things--to break
rules if necessary, to make it all work together in form and function. I can
tell you, there is nothing as exhilarating, as satisfying, as finishing a sketch
and knowing instinctively that you've got it right. That this is it. This is
right. And, most importantly, this will fit beautifully in someone's home and
be cherished." |
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