I’ve always been curious about other creatives... their practices, daily rituals, what makes them tick, and how they chart their path. This series is a space to slow down and go below the surface. So pour a cup of tea (or coffee) and enjoy a little slow conversation with our guest, Ann Edgerton of Austin, TX.


What is one ritual that anchors your day, no matter how busy it gets?
After I wake up and before I interact with anyone or look at a screen, I stretch in the dark. 

What does “productive” mean to you now compared to earlier in your life? 
When I was a teenager, a mentor told me, “Wherever you are, be all there.” When I think about the word productive, I think about being ‘all there’. At the beginning of my design career, life was a lot simpler. No kids, one business to manage, and social media and technology in general were not a huge part of my life. The ability to focus and find clarity was not so hard. I had more freedom to dream, and not be inundated with 1000s of voices telling me to do this or that. Now I have to work really hard to tune out so much stuff. I remind myself to do one thing at a time. Do not answer your emails while in line at the grocery store, do not listen to a podcast while trying to connect with nature, do not scroll Instagram while on a Zoom call. A productive day for me is a day I never let myself feel frazzled and overwhelmed, and I give my full heart and attention to the people and projects around me, a day I am “all there.”  

Are there materials, textures, or objects that make you feel more grounded?
My family recently sold our river house on the Llano River in Texas. A place that was a respite and a source of inspiration for a large part of my life. I was married there under a large oak tree, and both my kids learned to swim in the river. Before it was sold, I took rocks out of the bottom of the river and cleaned them up. For a while, they were stacked along my bathroom vanity, and now they sit in the front window sill of our new home in Austin. Seeing and touching these rocks is a reminder of the feel and sound of the river, an instant way to bring myself back down to earth.  

Fabrics and rugs are a way I mess around with the atmosphere in a room for myself and in my projects. I like the way a shaggy rug changes the sound in a room, so when you walk in, you instantly think, ok now it is time for bed, or now it is time to sit and read.  

Living with natural materials around me has become an integral part of the atmosphere I build. When I travel and stay in hotels or rentals, I can instantly tell if the spaces are generally made of synthetic materials. People are always hemming and hawing about the upkeep of natural stones or woods, but to me, there is no replacing them. And the beautiful patina these materials get over time is what makes a place feel comfortable. 

Are clients desiring spaces in their homes that invite daily rituals-- tea, conversation, pause?
Yes, for sure.  I haven't spoken with a client in the past few years who didn't mention the word ‘warm’ as their main word of inspiration. Warm is a broad word, but it captures a sense of a calm, rooted atmosphere that people desire. Numerous projects we have in the works incorporate reading nooks, away from the main living spaces.  When we first begin working with our clients, we ask them about their daily routines and what spaces we can design for them that will enhance or even allow them to fully embrace their rituals.  

Burnout is a real thing in our industry. What helps you return to yourself when life feels rushed? Are there any activities/hobbies you pursue to keep you grounded and fresh in the game?
The more I stick to my motto of doing only one thing at a time, the more likely I am to stay grounded. So that is my helpful preventative practice, which I am not always doing my best at.  But of course, some things cannot be prevented, and I find myself overwhelmed often. When this happens, my first instinct is to take a very long, very hot bath with pinon incense. This helps clear my mind all the way out. For the past few years, life has felt full, building a team, growing two businesses, raising two children, and we have moved a few times. This year, after we moved back to Austin from the Hill Country, I knew I needed to make time in my life for something that didn't check one of my productivity boxes. I decided to take up tennis lessons. I was never an athlete, so starting a new sport later in life has been humbling. Learning something new and connecting with my body is teaching me more lessons than I expected.  

Is tea part of your life? Is there a favorite tea?
I drink coffee in the mornings, and occasionally I have tea before bed, but only when I am feeling sick. I was raised in the 90s in West Texas by a mother who taught me Advil can solve most problems, so tea wasn’t really in our ‘culture’, and I have yet to adopt it fully.  

Describe your ideal "slow down space."
I guess in general, I feel safe and grounded enough to slow down in spaces that have an abundant amount of natural light and are built and filled with natural materials.  I enjoy balance and spaces that have a lot of negative space. When getting more particular, rooms with fireplaces and books are places I feel most comfortable. The sound and smell of a wood-burning fire instantly calms me on a cellular level. Rooms where books play a large role represent an attitude towards life-- a desire to seek out knowledge, and a curiosity towards the world around you and the world that has come before. If there is a book nearby, it is one more reason not to grab your phone and get lost in the endless scroll. There is a very old wooden cabin at Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado that they turned into a library. On the center back wall of the two story room room is a fireplace, and all other walls are bookcases. When I walked in, I thought, this is the perfect room. Two stories of books, a fireplace, and perfect cozy armchairs scattered throughout. 

As creatives, we get excited about new ideas... how do you choose which one(s) to focus on?
It takes a lot of diligence to sift through all the ideas and visual noise received on a daily basis. There are a few things that help me find my way to ideas that are genuinely my own. I once heard Rose Uniacke tell a young designer that the most important thing for them to do is look. Always be looking. When I am truly paying attention, I always see moments that influence my work, and I work to catalogue them, either with an image or a strong mental note. Then, as we are going down the path of creating a new piece of furniture or a room, these moments of inspiration come back. It is not something you can really control, but it is like having a very robust library in your brain of ideas that you can pull from. For me, being out in the real world, gathering moments is what will lead to ideas that are unique to you, rather than letting Pinterest or Instagram dictate your ideas. Another very important part of choosing ideas is the editing process. I like to put a lot of ideas on the table, and sometimes every single idea gets cut, and we have to start over. When I was in art school, one of the things they made us do was spend a lot of time on a drawing, and then crumble it up and start over. I love embracing the moment in which you realize, actually, all of this is dumb, and we now have to start from scratch. 

Tell us about MUHLY... the inkling of an idea, how it blossomed, how you met your partner for the project.
For many years, I was noodling on the idea of a furniture collection. I always wanted to create furniture that felt like building blocks for your home. Solid, handmade, beautiful things that could live with you and change with you through all your iterations of living.  During the pandemic, my husband and I decided to finally pull the trigger on our fantasy of living in a small town, close to nature. So we sold our home in Austin, fully furnished, and bought a beautiful 1930s home in the small town of Fredericksburg, TX.  This seemed like the perfect time to bring some of my furniture ideas to life. My good friend Megan, with whom I had gone to summer camp as a teenager, was a furniture maker and someone I had often collaborated with. I asked her if she wanted to fabricate some of these furniture ideas for our new home. Over the course of a few months, we got together to work out these designs, hand-drawing and discussing our thoughts on design and art. In these times, we realized we had a strong shared aesthetic and ethos. The few pieces of furniture for my home turned into a collection that we decided to name and photograph. We thought it was a practical way to test out our vision and see what might come of it.  The first seven pieces were all things I needed for my home anyway. Megan built them in her woodshop in Paige, TX, and we had our good friend photograph the collection in my new 1930s home in the country.  Since then, we have launched lighting, planters, fireplace accessories, and several new wooden pieces of furniture. Most of our production has moved up to Philly, where Megan and her wife relocated soon after we launched. A business based on a friendship and a shared creative expression is how we continue to move forward.  

Tell us about your studio 'Edgerton Studio.'
After studying studio art, I traveled and worked in restaurants, falling in love with food and atmosphere. After starting a catering business in hopes that my love of food could become my vocation, I realized my actual love and talents lie in creating the atmosphere rather than the food. I was able to convince a new restaurateur to let me design his first restaurant (he thought ‘This is great, she’ll be really cheap’), and from that moment on, I was completely obsessed. That was 15 years ago. Until three years ago, I was functioning mainly on my own. I used hand drawings and my very limited computer skills to describe my visions to clients. During the pandemic, I took time off to take care of our two young children, and because of burnout and exhaustion, I thought I would never go back to interiors. I envisioned myself as a country person, tending to a garden, living the slow life. We had also launched Muhly during this time, and I had no idea where that business was going. It wasn’t long until I realized that the slow life was actually not going to cut it for me. So I went back to work with new fervor - having gone without something, you realize what it means to you. The world I came back to was very different than the world I left. The pandemic had blown up the interiors world. There were so many new designers with so much talent. I knew I needed a team with a more diverse range of skills than I had to get done what I wanted to get done, and my Google Slides needed a little help! Having built MUHLY with Megan, I had a newfound appreciation for partnerships. So I went about renaming my studio and finding talented people with a lot of drive and innate taste that I wanted to spend my days with. We are now a group of four, and we have a studio in central Austin. I do not need to prove myself this year or the next, but rather I hope to create a body of work over a few decades that means something to the people who experience it. 

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Links & photo credits:
Edgerton Studio
Muhly
Portrait photo - Kate LeSueur
Molly Culver, Molly Culver
Bill Salans, Molly Culver