New Friends

In their day jobs, Kelly Rakowski and Alex Segreti gather inspiration images in the service of commerce: Rakowski scouts trends for Areaware while Segreti designs textiles for Urban Outfitters. But in their work together as New Friends, those visual influences take a considerably artier turn, manifested as mixed-media weavings that take hours to knot by hand, experiments with silk-screening, and now jewelry in the form of thick, hand-painted canvas bangles.