Wallpaper

Mark Mothersbaugh, screen composer and lead singer of Devo, has evolved into an accomplished visual artist. Tonight, he debuts as a rug and wallpaper designer in collaboration with L.A. porcelain firm Walteria Living ( www.walterialiving.com). "Home is where the mutants reside," Mothersbaugh says, explaining his take on decor. From a distance, his patterns might pass for William Morris prints.

On the wall of Adam Silverman's 5-year-old Atwater Pottery studio in Atwater Village--hanging beside Magic Marker drawings by his daughters and maps of Ibiza and Block Island--is a silver Mexican milagro in the shape of a hand. The talisman is just one of many hand-themed gifts from his wife, Louise Bonnet, which remind him of the importance of using his hands. "It's integral to who I am," says the potter, who also has a tattoo of Le Corbusier's "Monument of the Open Hand" on his right forearm.

JUST picture it: Your smiling face plastered on a pillow. A tabletop. Perhaps an entire wall. Thanks to new photographic reproduction technologies, you can now transfer your likeness -- or that of your spouse, child, dog, you name it -- onto nearly every surface of the home, from the welcome mat to the shower curtain. Want to sleep on your back, sit on your derriere or walk all over yourself -- literally? You're in luck.

EVERYONE knows wallpaper is back. But with all the new options, choosing the right one can seem overwhelming. Wallpaper adds texture, pattern and scale, says designer Jay Jeffers, founder and principal of Jeffers Design Group in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Whether graphic hand-blocked designs or textured grass cloth, wallpaper can set the tone for any room, be it in an urban loft or country cottage.

THE information in "Kew Palace Reopening to Public" [News, Tips, Bargains, April 23] piqued my curiosity. Reading that Mad King George was confined to the palace and was later determined to suffer from the central nervous disorder porphyria was quite interesting. When it was further stated that the Kew has now been restored and preserved with bright green wallpaper, it brought to mind a fact that I had read. By the 18th century, green wallpaper was no longer recommended for dining rooms because arsenic was used in the pigment.

THE 12-foot triptych gracing the front window of furniture gallery Emmerson Troop might look like loopy pen-and-ink doodles, but "Untitled" by 2001 San Francisco Art Institute grad Ryan Kewie Donegan is actually an innovative wall covering. Unlike traditional wallpaper -- 3 feet wide, with a pattern that repeats every 2 to 3 feet -- Donegan's design comes in 4- by 12-foot rolls and a choice of three distinctive but coordinated laser-printed patterns based on the artist's drawings.

This is the year Kevin Tietjen, a New York City native living in Connecticut, plans to introduce his 5-year-old son to a Christmas tradition from his childhood: opening presents in the glow of a crackling fire beamed into homes by television station WPIX. "You turned this thing on, they had Christmas carols playing in the background," remembers Tietjen, 38, a risk consultant in New York. "And because we didn't have a fireplace, the whole concept of the Yule Log was pretty cool."

America, get ready to unroll. Led by a number of old British design houses such as Farrow & Ball, which last year opened a retail store on Melrose Avenue, wallpaper is staging a comeback. It's no longer just paper printed with English roses, either. Thanks to 21st century ingenuity, the array of wall coverings is dizzying: hand-painted fabrics, paper-backed woven fibers known as grass cloth and scrub brush-proof vinyl that simulates quilted leather.