When the ceramicist and designer Sunshine Thacker and her family relocated to New York’s Hudson Valley from San Antonio, the move was a breath of fresh air. The family of three found a rental home and a school for their now 12-year-old son while they looked for something more permanent. In 2022, they found the perfect property and Ms. Thacker got to work designing their house.
Though designing and building a house can test anyone’s nerves, Ms. Thacker found the upside, reveling in the time to create for herself and those she loves. “What was great about the break from doing work for other people was that I got to make work that was really meaningful for me,” she said. “It was this complete break from thinking about others to being an insular artist.”
Ms. Thacker wanted it to be the kind of house her family could live in forever. It’s all one floor, the doorways are wide, and the bathrooms are tile murals of sketches by her son, Ace.
“I imagine being in this house when I’m 80 and still loving that I get to be surrounded by something Ace did,” Ms. Thacker said. “And that he let me make it a big part of our home.”
The project started with Ms. Thacker’s love of a sketch her son drew on the chipboard backing of a notebook in third grade. The detail of the characters and the world caught her eye. He had drawn a collection of creatures of different shapes and sizes, some free-floating, some speaking a language of question marks and exclamation marks, sketched in deeply shaded pencil.
