Business of Home: Meet the Makers - This San Francisco artist creates wallcoverings that give back to nature

By Marina Felix - January 26, 2023

Wallpaper and textile artist Kellie Menendez gives back where she takes inspiration. For the founder of San Francisco–based studio Half Full, the natural world is a wellspring that feeds her contemporary home designs.

Prior to launching Half Full, Menendez worked in marketing after studying fine art and illustration as an undergrad—the common denominator being storytelling. In 2014 Menendez was remodeling her family home in Sonoma County, a process that reinvigorated her creative streak. “I thought, you know, ‘I went to art school, I’m an illustrator,’” she tells Business of Home. “I was really motivated to do it. Looking at textile designers [like William] Morris and traditional illustrators like Audubon, I was inspired. Then I just started making art.”

Over the next month, Menendez developed nature-inspired patterns, compiling preliminary sketches and concept art by day and researching Bay Area wallpaper printers at night. By 2015, she had launched Half Full studio as a hand-drawn wallcoverings and textiles company, named to evoke a positive mindset. The studio’s website went live a year later with her first designs, including Franz, a wallpaper inspired by the wildlife found in the Franz Valley region of California.

n the fall of 2017, Menendez and her family lost their home to the North Bay Fires that ravaged greater Sonoma County...

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