Today I’m excited to feature the clever + delightful Inslee Fariss of Inslee By Design. She’s an extraordinarily talented illustrator who owns her own business, works from a killer studio space and designs a line of products that any girl is bound to fall in love with. I met Inslee through my friend Taylor but had long admired her work before I actually met her in New York (and even sent one of her designs as my Christmas cards one year!)

Read on to get to know Inslee, her New York favorites, what’s next for her business and more in today’s Witty Conversation With…

I am a Virginian turned New Yorker who lives in a shoebox in Nolita with my husband, Anderson, and our miniature dachshund, Ophelia. I am a noticer of everything around me. my life is a quest to share my noticings with you through my art.

I couldn’t get a job doing anything else! Kidding… Sort of… practical answer: I launched a website in 2006 to share my art and asked friends and family to help me spread the news, because you know, back in my day, asking your moms friends to tell their garden club about my art was essentially an early form of tweeting.

Well, Ophelia and I head out to one of our various favorite Nolita haunts for a cappuccino for me and lavish adoration from the barista for Ophelia. We then spend our day in the sunny Spring Street studio I share with Roxy of Society Social. I paint bridal commissions, Roxy helps her customers decide what color velvet to upholster their sofas in and Ophelia and Roxy’s dog, Oscar wrestle one another for a solid nine hours.

You’ve done so many cool collaborations – what’s been a favorite?

I’m especially excited about the new 2016 calendar I’ve designed with Kelly of Winifred Paper. It’s launching this month and I’m so over the moon for everyone to see it!

Well, I guess the reason I love New York is that it is so vast and constantly changing that this question is borderline unanswerable. Right now, I’d say…. Patisserie Ceci-Cela for a croissant (but not for their coffee… Consider yourself warned), root & bone for a pink deviled egg, and Tacombi on Elizabeth street for guacamole and a Paloma.

Stop buying things! Seriously stop. You don’t need a juicy sweat suit. Or a metallic gold Marc Jacobs quilted hobo bag.

Insta, insta, insta! I’m not a big apper. my phone is essentially a device for taking pictures of Ophelia.

Today? Today, loafers with hilarious custom embroidery, the colors sage green and very soft lilac and deep deep blue black… Oh and foxes.

Hopefully an enormous windfall of cash and an invite to have tea with Beyoncé and the Queen. But realistically, unveiling a broader line of goods I can develop for retail, carving out time to focus more on exploring creating fine art, like my figure studies, and maybe offering some illustration classes!

 Of a walk in closet with a window in it.

Thanks so much to Inslee for partaking in this series (and girl I hear you on that walk in closet)! You can see past Witty Conversation With features here.