Ebony Bolt

A successful textile designer, Ebony Bolt captures the teeming, messy nature of modern urban life and wrestles it into an elegantly sinuous organic form. Deeply influenced by the scrolling decorative prints of the nineteenth-century British designer William Morris (1834–1896), Bolt creates unique designs in varied mediums that mix ornamental elaboration with detailed observation of her everyday surroundings.

Bolt has a profoundly sympathetic view of human nature and finds beauty in people from all walks of life. She is an inveterate sketcher of the subway-riding public and says, “I am taking a trip around the world each time I step into a train car.” With this unending supply of varied inspiration, she stealthily fills countless sketch pads of weary commuters, often shown with heads hung from a long day’s work or staring off blankly into the distance.

Bolt collaborated with the Education Department to create Family Studio: Art projects for each month: Visualizing The Human Identity (February), Designing Within (March), and Stitching Your Own Story (May). In addition, she designed special workshops for teens and adults: Make Art Inspired by Joshua Johnson (February), Print Hunt & Discovery (March), In-Person Family Portrait Study (April), and Reimagine Yourself in the Neo-Victorian Era (May).

Ebony Bolt received her Associate’s Degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology for Fashion Illustration, followed by her Bachelor’s degree in Entrepreneurship. She has worked as a digital textile illustrator for Tom Cody, a CAD designer at Li & Fung, and has collaborated with Teen Vogue, Bucketfeet, Shop Vida, Artbridge, and Community Solutions. Bolt was a featured artist in the special exhibition, The Neo-Victorians: Contemporary Artists Revive Gilded-Age Glamour.