Designer Profile: Angie West & Alberto Vélez, Refractory

First, tell me about your company! What was the roadmap to get where you are today?

Angie: I was a maker as a young child, a scavenger, a lover of hardware and tools, and I spent a lot of time in the rugged terrain of West Texas, collecting talismans and making art. I thought I wanted to be an architect, but my passions were at a smaller scale. Pursuing the arts led me to a sliding-doors moment when I had a sudden opportunity to buy a failing artisanal foundry in 2010. Our fabrication business, West Supply, and its crew have fostered an incredible and inspiring roadmap, which led us to a real need for Refractory to be born.

Alberto: I came to Chicago to lead the Holly Hunt design studio in a mission to quickly and vastly expand their house collection portfolio. In that process I met Angie and began to collaborate with West Supply to introduce cast bronze and glass pieces into the collection. Over 10 years we had considerable success with a good number of products but most importantly became good friends, really enjoyed working together, and realized we had very similar creative sensibilities. So when the pandemic-forced pause and reflection came around it was almost an obvious consequence to do this.

Was this always a career you saw yourself in?

Angie: I was always making compositions and arrangements from a young age, playing with perspective, balance, scale, and depth. As a commercial photographer for over a decade, I could tap into these senses – of appreciating the design of the chair I was photographing, while also figuring out how to really and truly look at and see it.

Alberto: To some degree yes, but it also chose me. I was fortunate to grow up in a family with quite a few successful creative professionals in Bogota, Colombia. Aunts and uncles that were architects, designers, artists, and engineers. My mom is a photographer. So creativity was always in the air and it felt quite natural to be drawing, painting, building, and dismantling things all the time. I needed a job to get through college in the early 90s and started working with an uncle who had an interiors studio and a furniture factory and brand. So I learned those trades first and have stuck to them since.

What advice would you give to yourself at 25?

Angie: More exhaling, more letting go. Swim more. Go see your grandmother more.

Alberto: Experience more, work less. Meet more people, see more places, get out! I was a studio rat and a home hermit at the time.

Any lessons learned along the way that stand out?

Angie: As West Supply has grown from three of us to 45 over 11 years, there have been some massive hurdles and many things I wish I’d done better or differently. The lesson to let go of that and embrace the present, celebrate the 44 stars I’m surrounded by every day, is profoundly important, a mantra for every day.

Alberto: Picking your battles in this type of design work. Knowing when to let go, compromise or stand your ground. It’s a necessary dance if you want to see great ideas become great products. While I have become quite good at it, it’s never without its inherent friction.

What is something you hope to accomplish you haven’t done yet?

Angie: Put together an ensemble of leaders, thinkers, and investors to build a state-of-the-art industrial art center in Chicago, for West Supply to shepherd.

Alberto: Make sure my children find and develop their talent and make a decent, independent living from it.

Is there a person who has had profound influence on your life?

Angie: Ty Best, creative director and founder of Caste, comrade, friend, extraordinary talent with complete self-awareness, sincerity, and generosity of spirit all at once.

Alberto: Of course, quite a few. The great Colombian painter Alejandro Obregon whom I met as a child. His work and personality impacted me profoundly. His son, my uncle Diego who hired me in college, and of course Bill Sofield and Holly Hunt whom I spent decades working with. Great mentors and masters of their craft.

One person, deceased or alive, you’d like to have lunch with?

Angie: Meriwether Lewis

Alberto: Zaha Hadid