Today we’d like to introduce you to Corey Caballero

Hi Corey, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.

I moved to San Francisco from New Orleans in 2000 and met my design partner and now husband Randy in 2003. With my academic degrees in psychology and healthcare, I was working as a psychotherapist and trauma RN, but had longed to pursue my passion for art and design. Randy was working as an architect with a firm in Marin specializing in commercial design and he had a desire to do more residential interior design. Randy and I married in 2008 and that same year started our boutique interior design business Bancroft + Caballero Design Studio. In 2010, we moved from San Francisco to Marin and have lived in San Rafael with a design studio in our home since that time.

It is sometimes hard to believe that we have been successfully in business for just over 15 years and that it is through the success of our design business that I was able to return to my love of painting by creating art work for the rooms we have designed for clients. In many ways it feels like we are just getting started. With Randy’s degrees in architecture and my degree in interior design, we are very hands on in our approach to our residential projects. We have never had employees and do our own project management and coordination. Both of our fathers were furniture makers, so we feel a kinship to craftsman and craftswomen, and love coordinating with them on special projects.

The great joy of the work is our relationship with our clients. Any residential design project is disruptive and stressful, no matter how deeply the changes are desired. It is one thing to bring forward a design that is a unique expression of the clients personality and lifestyle, and it is quite another thing to bring that design into form. To be really good at this work you have to love the entire process. You have to love how the wall is made not just what you hang on it.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

We were lucky at the beginning that our first residential design job was a big one. We got to reimagine large spaces and do many custom pieces to get the proportion and scale of the large rooms correct. Some years, we had fewer projects than we desired and that always creates anxiety. Any design business follows the economy. When there is economic uncertainty, business will be slow as clients become conservative about embarking on large projects. All very understandable. And then there was Covid.

Clients were working from home during this time and many came to understand what was working and not working about their homes. The period of time helped many people imagine how their homes might be changed to better serve them on a daily basis. We were lucky to be busy during that time, but the supply chain for goods had collapsed and completing those jobs was very challenging. That’s when you really realize the importance of your relationships with craftsman and venders. The relationships we had developed with our collaborators over the prior years is what got us through. It really is all about relationships.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

We are a boutique residential interior design firm specializing in helping our clients create spaces that are a unique expression of their personalities, spirits and lifestyles. As an artist, I also create abstract expressionist paintings that complete the spaces we design. I have always felt that all human beings are essentially creative and there are endless ways in which creativity can be expressed. I also believe that human beings are happiest when they are being creative, so as designers we are always asking ourselves how is this home encouraging and fostering these clients to become more creatively themselves. To make the home beautiful is not enough, the home most be more deeply alive and of service to those who live inside it. I think our approach to our work sets us apart and we are not finished until the spaces we help create have that deeply magical quality that says to our client’s “your home.”

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?

My grandmother was a fantastic dress maker and quilt maker. She was always sewing something and never threw away a scrap of cloth. I would watch her take a woman’s measurements and then take grocery store bags cut them open flat, tape them together, sketch a dress pattern on them and cut the pattern out with scissors. She would then cut out the pieces on cloth and sew the dress. I remember the first time I watched her do this. I was 5 or 6 years old and I was amazed. It looked like a magic trick. I was mesmerized when the ladies would came back for a fitting and the dress simply took on their shape and came alive. I am still in awe of the creative process and the magic of participating in assembling parts to create an animated whole. My grandmother did all of that magical creating on a large table in her kitchen. The intimacy of that scene still touches my soul. It’s why I love interior design. It’s all about the objects and forms people will touch. It’s all about the intimacy.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected], CoreyCaballeroArt.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/bancroftcaballero, instagram.com/coreycaballeroart