Bedtime. Meditate on the word a little. You’re conjuring images of steamy cups of tea, feather duvets, and some god-like human tucking you in, aren’t you? As Cinderella might tell us (if we were so lucky to be one of her birdy/mousy entourage), a dream is a wish your heart makes/when you’re fast asleep. Prince Charmings aside, I’m dreaming of these beauties.

Nicole Tarasick, Toronto-based graphic designer and screen printer, has whipped up more than a King-sized mattress’s worth of unabashedly nostalgic pillows and prints. Maps, maps, maps, with a healthy dose of neat and tidy prints of the letters YYZ, the old Great Lakes, and our home and native land (…Canada).

Nicole sells her pillows online, at Stylegarage (938 Queen Street West) and will be happily placed in Studio North at the Interior Design Show (Jan 27-30, at Metro Toronto Convention Centre).

Now cozy up and read the Q&A!

She Does The City: Describe your best breakfast-in-bed experience.
Nicole: I never really eat breakfast-in-bed. I’m more inclined to share late night snacks in bed – which involves stove top popcorn with chili powder, some dark chocolate, and Mad Men.

If you could cover your walls with only one artist’s work, whose would it be?
Carly Waito’s mineral specimens, although I might say Barnett Newman if I had a big house.

Where did the idea for your pillows and prints come from?
While working at the local modern furniture store Stylegarage, we had a conversation about pillows (specifically the lack thereof). I had a keen interest and background in screen-printing and we collectively decided I should make some pillows and see what happens. The Canadiana theme came from a separate conversation about the trend of designers to look outside national borders for inspiration. I was instantly determined to draw out the idiosyncrasies of Canadian culture and create graphic interpretations. The response was pretty amazing, and the business was born from the spark of those conversations.

If you could be magically whisked away on vacation right NOW, where would you go?
Paris! Although I could use a winter-weather intermission on a beach in the Caribbean right about now.

Is there anything big and exciting happening in the artisan world for you soon?
Yes! The Interior Design Show, where I will have a booth in the Studio North section. I was very excited to be invited to this particular section of the show. I’ve attended the last few years and I’ve always found the most inspiring and innovative design in Studio North.

What’s the best thing about your pillows?
I suppose the fact that the designs are accessible to a wide range of people. They are about a shared identity, and I think all Canadians can grasp that, young and old.

If you could give a pillow or a print to anyone in the world, living or dead, known or unknown to you, who would you choose? And what, specifically, would you give them?
I would give a Canada pillow to my late Great Grandfather, Fred. He moved here from the Ukraine, and I’m pretty sure he wanted to return. He is part of the reason our family is Canadian, but he probably would have grumbled at the pillow and left it in the basement.

By Annie Webber