the story

Billi Rakov is an artist and designer based in Los Angeles. She creates modern leather bags and one-of-a-kind quilts. By using unusual textiles, repurposed materials, and dramatic leathers, Billi plays with scale while mixing abstract and simplicity with form and function. Exaggeration of style can be found in her designs of everyday, purposeful things.

Growing up in a small Amish town in Ohio, Billi has always been fascinated by making her own things. Since small town life can be filled with utility, Billi looked for every way to add beauty and design to all of it.

After graduating from the Columbus College of Art and Design she moved to California to start her career designing packaging graphics for prominent corporations. She quickly worked her way up from designer to creative director, continuing her fine art projects while straddling the corporate crunch.

Her Biliiart (paintings of children and animals) was sold at neighborhood stores around San Francisco. Her Babyheads by Billi (custom handcut silhouetted portraits) was a collaboration with a high end maternity store on Madison Avenue in New York. All of her various artistic endeavors have been completely unique and commercially fringe in just the right way.

The small town of her youth is always influencing Billi’s projects. Quilting has a strong association with her growing up. Neighbors, great grandmothers and county fairs all involved sewing quilts, but it was not until Billi discovered the modern movement of quilting that she decided to try her hand at it. She quickly became immersed in the fresh approach to the traditional craft. After joining the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild, she turned her garage into a quilters workshop. Her hard work has paid off with a line-up of Billiquilts: distinct, one-of-a-kind contemporary quilts, made with both new and recycled fabrics taking up to 150 hours of labor each.

Billibags developed out of the simple need to tote things. Living in Los Angeles means that we carry everything in our own bags. From the market to the beach. Angelinos can be seen carrying their own bags within bags that get put into bags. Billi was inspired by her years in packaging, to created a smart parent bag as the outer shell of a playful nesting system. Cut from one piece, she folds and tucks the leather together into the shape of a carry all bucket bag. The bags have rustic charm and beauty, with an elegant sense of design that everything is in its place.

It’s easy to see the love of purpose, and beauty of design in Billi’s work. To her a quilt keeps a person warm and provides shelter that fills a need. It can also be thrilling to look at and surprising to touch. Her bags take the same approach.

both the beauty of design, but more than that- what draws her to create is the usage- she loves the purpose of a thing- the fact that a quilt keeps you warmprovides

a cover- both from the elements- or from the cold- she is into these base needs- one

needs cover and one needs to hold things-

So, here come the bags...each bag was originally designed as one piece folded and tucked

together like origami into the shape of a carry all bucket bag. Billi has not lined the bags, but

instead feels that one would use a bag in a bag method of transport a la russian nesting dollswhich

represent fertility and motherhood- and the function of a place for everything and

everything in its place. The bags have a rustic charm and beauty, with an easy practicality of

design.

After graduating from the Columbus College of Art and Design, she moved to California to design graphics for innovative packaging and design companies such as Anthem Worldwide and Leon Richman Design, working her way up from designer to creative director.

Billi grew up in a small Amish town in Ohio, and has been drawn to art and craft from a young age. “I can remember being fascinated when my neighbor, Mrs. Miller, would host quilting bees in her home. I would bumble over and play under the quilt frame as all of the busy town ladies quilted,” says Rakov. She also talks about her father’s wood shop where she would spend hours creating. “I was maybe 5 years old when I whittled a cake tester for my teacher. Ha, think about that. I basically carved a toothpick. It was a beautiful, hand-carved toothpick. I was using a pocket knife and I was a girl!”

She later graduated from Columbus College of Art and Design and went on to have a career in designing graphics for innovative packaging at companies such as Anthem Worldwide and Leon Richman Design. She worked her way up from graphic designer to art director.

She has always had some sort of side project going on. When her friend Becky Jantzen worked for Liz Lange, Billi offered custom cut silhouettes (babyheads by billi) for customers at the stores. She also created brightly colored paintings (billi art) of animals and characters that were sold in small neighborhood stores around San Francisco.

“I put quilting off for a long time, until finding myself in this wonderful modern quilting store in my neighborhood, owned by Lauren Hawley. I found that the new fresh approach to modern quilting lit a fire of passion in me to start stitching,” says Rakov, who went on to join the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild and soon found herself immersed in the craft.

Rakov’s work has resulted in a series of stunning, handcrafted quilts that rely heavily on recycled materials. “Much of the time it will be recycled cloth that will start the inspiration for a new piece,” she says of her process. “It’s an improvisational technique. A study in abstract and simplicity.” She usually sews one giant quilt block. Each quilt takes Rakov up to 150 hours to make, mostly from her home studio in Rancho Park. “When I’m working on a piece, I’m not following a specific pattern, but I do have a story in my mind. You set out to make a quilt and the pieces of fabric take a journey of their own.”

Billi’s bags developed from experimenting with leather in her quilts. She soon started picking up varying pieces of flat, rigid leather and imagining three dimensional structures. Her bags fold and weave themselves. They can be unfolded and made flat again. “I’m at a place now where I want to make things that have purpose. My quilts can hang on the wall as art giving a room warmth and quiet. They also can be taken down from the wall and used for wrapping yourself or somebody you love. My bags can stand on their own, hold whatever you can fit into them, and be carried, all while looking beautiful,” says Rakov. Packaging is always in her thoughts. Maybe these days it’s more imagining form and function, but you never know, she might find a way to make a commercial cereal box into a billi bag.