Kelly Gale Amen creates furniture, textiles, and, now, delicate pashminas.
Article by Diane Cowen
Originally published in River Oaks Lifestyle
Kelly Gale Amen’s life is full of grand gestures, but his work is admired for the simplicity with which he approaches clients’ needs.
They want to keep a favorite brown sofa or have stacks of books they can’t live without. Amen will make it work. He can change the energy in a room by adding color or shifting in furniture, hanging new art and mirrors or placing a new rug or art.
The Oklahoma native who came to Houston in 1972 to work at Foley’s, quickly shifted to self-employment as an interior designer when a couple asked him to decorate their home. They were his first clients and he’s been busy ever since.
“I love the process of using things for different purposes,” said Amen, the newest inductee to the Houston Design District’s Leaders in Design. “When I interview clients, I don’t tell them what to spend. I want to flip what they already have and let the client tell me what they don’t want to keep.”
He has a generous heart and gives to many nonprofits, including AIDS Foundation Houston, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, General Stafford Space Museum, of which he was a founding member, and Cancer Below the Belt, which he founded 8 or 9 years ago. Amen is a longtime prostate cancer survivor.
He designs furniture, textiles and pillows and is launching a new line of cashmere and pashmina scarves and shawls that show off fabric patterns he has created for upholstery fabric. The first batch launches in May, and he expects the collection to grow from its initial offerings of soft woven pashminas to include some with extensive embroidery.
It’s a partnership he’s doing with Amjid Salama, the son of his longtime tailor in Kashmir, India, K. Salama & Sons, where he’s had dozens of waistcoats custom-made.
I’m here to let people embrace what life is. Who are you now? What do you need to get rid of and what do you want to keep?
