Brazilian-turned-Brummie Priscila Baker is on a creative roll with her garage rock band Cherry Pickles alongside magazine fashion styling and a newly launched illustration brand, Unselfish Lover.
We caught up with the adopted Kings Heathen to get the low-down on her latest project…
Tell us a bit about Unselfish Lover?
I started the brand about six months ago. I’ve been illustrating for a while, doing little exhibitions in Birmingham and selling prints. At the same time, I was studying to be a stylist, so to make t-shirts with my illustrations seemed like a natural progression. My first one was hand drawn with fabric pens that I made for myself. After that, a few friends started to ask me to make t-shirts for them too, so I thought, ‘no, I will sell you one instead’.
We LOVE your illustration style – how would you describe it?
Thank you! Initially, I was very inspired by a traditional type of Brazilian folk art, named Cordel. They are very simple woodcut booklets with poems or songs inside. It’s amazing how they talk about difficult themes in a very funny way. I’m also a fan of many forms of outsider art. So that probably subconsciously leaked into my process too.
What’s the ethos of the brand?
I love the idea of when you find a vintage t-shirt in a thrift store and it has a design that you don’t know the origin or what it is, so you come up with your own ideas in your mind. This sort of ambiguity, it’s what I had in mind for the brand.
Your t-shirt designs are a little cheeky, how do you come up with the ideas?
The ideas come from all over. Lyrics of music that I like, movies, a vintage slogan I might see on something, it varies. I love spending time looking at vintage 70’s t-shirts online. There are some crazy ones. That definitely inspires me too.
Where do you hope the brand might go in the future or what are your plans for it?
Hopefully, I will eventually be able to open a small physical store and branch out making other types of clothing as well. That’s the dream.
You’re in a band, Cherry Pickles, and regularly DJ, how does it all this fit together for you?
It’s very natural because for me they are all types of art that complete each other. The band is especially connected as a big part of it is how we dress and the artwork.
You’ve made Birmingham your home – what’s your favourite thing/s about the city?
Well, I’m from Brasilia, Brasil, which is a city that is unlike the rest of the country. It was entirely built in the 60s, and so like Birmingham, it’s not very big on natural beauty but both have some incredible architecture that I like. But what I notice about places like that is normally the people are much more interesting than the actual place itself. Like, sometimes when I go to London, I feel very overpowered by the city, it’s easy to be lost in the sea of voices. Here, the best experiences have always been the amazing people and the community. And also the curry houses, of course.
Model: Polly Waddicor.
Photographer: Katie Lester.
