Gallerist-turned-designer Krysta Eder on raising a daughter among contemporary art — and why the best rooms are never finished.
For more than a decade, Krysta Eder worked at the center of the contemporary art world — directing galleries across Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Paris, placing works into institutions like the Walker Art Center and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and keeping pace with as many as twenty international art fairs a year.
Trained at Christie's Education in London and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she came up in a world where the relationship between an object and its space was never accidental. As Global Director at Over The Influence and later Interim Director at The Hole LA, she built the kind of discernment that only comes from years of watching how art moves people — commercially, emotionally, and spatially.
Today, through her studio EDER, she channels that expertise into something more intimate: site-specific tile and wallpaper made in collaboration with contemporary artists, designed for the spaces we actually live in. And with a one-year-old named Olive at home, the question of how we surround ourselves — and our children — has taken on a whole new dimension.
01 / The Shift
Before Olive arrived, you were placing art in some of the most carefully considered spaces imaginable. How has becoming a mother changed the way you think about a room?
My career in galleries and art fairs trained me to think about placement, scale, materiality, and atmosphere — how a sculpture anchors a room, how color alters perception, how people physically move through space. I experienced rooms primarily through aesthetics, emotional resonance, and the relationships between objects.
Since Olive, those considerations have shifted dramatically. Every object now carries a new layer of meaning and responsibility that can supersede all the others. I still care deeply about beauty, but now I also think constantly about safety, softness, durability, and how a space actually functions day to day with a small child moving through it.
Impastoed paintings and undulating sculptures suddenly feel less precious — and more like irresistible invitations to touch, climb on, or even taste.
In many ways, that shift reinforced why I started EDER in the first place. I've always been drawn to the intersection of art and design — to functional art that can truly live with you rather than simply be observed. Tile and wallpaper become part of daily life. They hold memory, withstand wear, and change alongside a family.
02 / Curated vs. Lived-In
There's often a tension between a space feeling curated and feeling lived-in — especially with a child. How do you navigate that at home?
Working with tile and wallpaper changed how I think about permanence. Unlike a painting you can move from room to room, these materials become embedded in the architecture of daily life — you walk across them barefoot, pass them every morning, watch the light shift over them through the day. That makes me think less about trends and more about emotional longevity: spaces that keep revealing themselves over time.
When I founded the studio during the pandemic, I was thinking about touch, intimacy, and how people were newly experiencing their homes. Collaborating with artists became a way to fold contemporary art into everyday rituals — not as something precious or distant, but as something lived with.
A child may not remember every object. But they remember atmosphere — warmth, color, light, softness, calm, curiosity.
The best homes aren't static showcases. They're spaces that support growth, gathering, rest, and imagination — where beauty and utility coexist naturally.
03 / Where to Begin
For parents intimidated by the idea of introducing art into a child's room, where would you tell them to start?
Start with something you genuinely love and want to live with.
People are sometimes intimidated because the art world can feel exclusive, but there are so many accessible ways in — local art fairs, studio visits, community shows, craft markets, even Instagram. Many artists make small works on paper, ceramics, prints, or textiles at approachable prices, and supporting living artists creates a far more personal connection to what's in your home.
Children's spaces don't have to be limited to stereotypical "kid decor," either. There's room for whimsy, of course, but children are incredibly perceptive. In Olive's room there are contemporary paintings that are abstract, gestural, and layered — as she grows, she'll keep finding new things inside them: shapes, figures, colors, stories.
What matters isn't whether something is trendy or valuable, but whether it makes you feel something. And don't be afraid of evolving tastes — nothing has to be permanent. Rooms can change as children grow.
04 / For Olive
What do you hope Olive grows up understanding about the spaces she inhabits?
That spaces are alive — that they shape how we feel, think, gather, rest, and relate to one another.
I want her to know a home doesn't have to look one specific way to be beautiful. Spaces can evolve alongside you; they can hold memory, experimentation, and change. I hope she develops confidence in her own visual instincts — that she trusts color, intuition, and emotional response rather than rules or trends. Some of the most meaningful environments are the ones that feel deeply personal and imperfect.
More than anything, I want her to understand that the spaces we create reflect how we care for ourselves and for others. And I hope she grows up unafraid to change things. Move things around. Paint the walls. Keep what brings meaning, and let go of what no longer serves you. The world — and the home within it — should always leave room for discovery.
"The world is your oyster, baby."
About
Krysta Eder
Krysta Eder is the founder of EDER, a studio producing site-specific tile and wallpaper in collaboration with contemporary artists. She spent over a decade directing galleries and art fairs internationally before turning her attention to functional art for the home. She lives and works in Los Angeles with her daughter, Olive.
