Tina Frey took an unlikely path to arrive where she is today. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, she has been creative since she was young. Whether it was drawing, sewing or sculpting, she grew up making things with her hands but never thought it could be a job. “Because that was always such a joy and so much fun, it was something that never felt like work to me. It’s just a pleasure—I didn’t think that was a career choice,” Frey tells Business of Home. Instead, she studied biology and chemistry, and obtained a business degree before working as an accountant at various San Francisco companies for 13 years. “I realized it’s not my passion. Sometimes when something is not completely fulfilling your soul, [it’s] not the thing that you were meant to do,” she says. “I decided if I don’t pursue this [creative] path, I don’t want to look back years later in my life and regret it.”
By then, Frey had already amassed a wide collection of books on making things, specifically with resin. She turned that inspiration into her starting point. “Resin was a good first foray to home in on a materiality that I knew I would have a lot of depth and breadth of ability to create things that I wouldn’t run out of ideas for,” she says. She took sculpture classes, creating from both intuition and trial and error. “Sometimes you just kind of have to wing it and make what you feel, [working toward] what you want that end result [to be] by getting creative on how to do it,” she explains. “I learned [through] a lot of self-taught experimentation.”
Eighteen years later, TF Design has grown to encompass a team of 12 employees. “In many respects, it’s much harder working for yourself than working for anyone else,” says Frey. “When it’s your own reputation, your company, your name and the quality of your product, you find a more long-term vested interest in what [you are] putting out into the world.”
Today, her work draws inspiration from all aspects of life—but she finds there’s one practice in particular that helps translate her visions into reality. “Everything visually feeds my soul—travel, being in nature, seeing people, cultures, design, architecture,” she says. “Seeing all of that makes me feel alive, but I need quiet time for it to distill itself more clearly, so I meditate.” From there, Frey dives into clay, sculpting freely before landing on and casting the final prototype, either in resin or materials like brass or stainless steel. Some of her most recent works were also cast in bronze, including a new collection of furniture pieces that will debut in December at Design Miami.
One of Frey’s favorite collections is Pedestal, a functional yet sculptural set that ranges from small bowls and egg cups to cake stands and champagne buckets. “The designs are so versatile—multifunctional, multipurpose, yet sculptural,” she says. She also favors the more abstract Landscape pieces, which evoke mountains and clouds and can act as bookends or small decorative items. “I love the translucency of the resin [pieces] against each other, because the light passes through,” she says. “It can look like sea glass, it can look like porcelain, it can look like stone.” Her next collection, Orbit, will debut this month at 3 Days of Design in Copenhagen. “It’s never-ending. There’s always something brewing that’s exciting,” she says.
On June 25, Mason Lane Art Advisory founder Katharine Earnhardt—who works on projects across North America and the United Kingdom—shares her expertise on sourcing and selling art. Click here to learn more and remember, workshops are free for BOH Insiders
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Frey hopes customers can feel the joy imbued in every design. “If I’ve created an object that brings love, happiness, joy to people, that is success,” she says. “It’s beautiful just passing on the energy.”
To learn more about Tina Frey, check out her website and Instagram.
