BRIKA.com | Daniella & Sandrine | A Well-Crafted Life

Q&A with Daniella Valerio and Sandrine Molnar

Where did your company’s name come from?

Monorail Studio was named after our cat Marley. If you've ever seen a cat lying on the ground with all legs tucked neatly under their bodies, you know what we are talking about. They sort of look like a monorail train when they do that.

Q&A with Daniella Valerio and Sandrine Molnar

Where’s your favorite place to get inspired?

Bike riding or hiking trails in and around Austin. We love enjoying the outdoors when the workplace gets too stifling and when our creative minds are hitting a wall.

Q&A with Daniella Valerio and Sandrine Molnar

Do you collect anything?

We collect all sorts of prints...our collection is small but ever growing. One of our prized possessions is an original Goya “Le prisonnier” etching that we got on our trip to Paris.

Q&A with Daniella Valerio and Sandrine Molnar

What’s your guiltiest pleasure?

We try to do a lot of cooking at home but every once in awhile we like to go out and splurge on a really nice decadent meal with some nice wine to go with it. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!

Q&A with Daniella Valerio and Sandrine Molnar

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I always wanted to be an artist — I can’t remember what caused me to decide, especially at a young age, but I just enjoyed it so much over everything else. Sandrine wanted to be a vet...when she was young at her grandmother’s farm in France she carried around an injured rooster for weeks — he’d wait for her every morning.

“We saw a need for this and wanted to bring our own touch to the marketplace.”

Daniella and Sandrine

It was a mutual passion for printmaking that first brought Daniella Valerio and Sandrine Molnar together. This creative drive, combined with a love of art, helped propel their simple idea to create handcrafted, high-quality printed goods forward.

Going from classmates (the two met in their university’s printmaking department) to business partners, they bring their own personal touch into every print that they make. From hand-cutting all of the paper to mixing all of the inks, the care they put into every piece, much like their strong bond, is one you can see, feel, and truly fall in love with.

“We like to listen to a lot of different music and keep things fresh as we work in the studio.”

Brika Recent Tweets

Follow@monorailstudio

"I love coffee and Sandrine enjoys Scotch (I don’t understand how) so the title of our biography would be Coffee & Scotch. Granted, the two drinks don’t taste great together but the names fit our personalities perfectly — we balance each other out."

“Food shopping is our favorite type of shopping.”

"I believe in doing what you love on a daily basis. We are so lucky to be able to create art for a living."

“There is something gratifying for both maker and buyer when it comes to handmade goods. Process is very important to us as printmakers...every aspect of our goods has our personal touch.”

Marley the cat

Goya’s “Le prisonnier” etching

"It all started with our love of art. Our mutual passion for printmaking in all of its forms is the driving force behind our simple idea to create handcrafted quality printed goods."