Hello, adventurer! My name is Basil Severe Mallett (he/they), and I’m a designer, curator, and creator with a passion for personalized, interactive, and inventive spaces. I received a BA from Columbia College Chicago in Cinema & Television Arts with a strong focus on practical production and assistant direction.
In school, I focused on the logistical, legal, and practical aspects of filmmaking, with a heavy emphasis on project management, collaboration and leadership, and problem solving. I experienced filmmaking as an exercise in creative collaboration: the process, from conception to execution to distribution, requires diligence, proactivity, and an understanding that the team is working together towards a common creative goal. I apply this principle to everything I do, from interior design to photography to Dungeons & Dragons.
Presently, I work as the Artist & Store Manager at Earthly Delights at Amy Zane, a boutique and art gallery in downtown Kalamazoo, MI that focuses on local artists, emerging talent, and small-batch luxury brands. I particularly love that my job allows me to showcase and improve upon my diverse interests: from managing and creating social media content, to redesigning the space to better display incoming work and new artists, to collaborating with up-and-coming talent in the area and helping them find their footing, style, and confidence in showcasing and selling their work.
In my spare time, I have a variety of hobbies, ranging from knitting hats for my cat, to redesigning my space with secondhand-sourced furniture and art, to writing stories, both fictional and true. I particularly love to repurpose, refinish, and rescue secondhand furniture from damage and slap-dash paint jobs: my home is full of rescued pieces that I’ve put time, passion, and hard work into restoring.