Meet the Team
1. The Designer
“I’ve loved design since I was a little girl, and it became my passion.”
Those are the words of Connie Richardson, the principal behind California Motifs who is a seasoned interior design professional with over 30 years of successful design and business experience. “I was first inspired by working with John and Nancy Lusk of Orange County, California.” Their company was Serengeti Designs and was known as highly acclaimed home builders and designers throughout Southern California. While working alongside them, she furthered her design education by attending the LA Art Institute. Fortune took her to Portland, Oregon where she teamed up with renowned designer Russell Emmert. They shared projects focusing on Asian design, the ultra-contemporary, the ubiquitous craftsman style, and the comfort of using antique pine in the resort homes of central Oregon.
Several years later she relocated to St. Louis because of her husband’s business. Here, she joined Robert Lococo Designs where they excelled in commercial applications and of course fitting the elegant, stately homes in old St. Louis. When she and her husband relocated back to California, she was able to open her own business featuring fine European antiques bringing eclectic and curated styles blending elements from different periods, textures and trends to create cohesive personalized spaces. Not only in San Francisco and the Lake Tahoe area, but also the desert communities of Southern California where she once again took on the challenge of blending European personalization with the more contemporary palette of the desert. “it worked.”
Connie now brings her vast wealth of design experience and success by launching California Motifs, where she can reach a multitude of clients through both her virtual and in-home design network. Her passion can now be shared throughout Southern California and beyond.
2. The Artist and Tech Consultant
Maarten De Jong has multiple roles in designing and maintaining the Company’s website, acting as the primary IT consultant, and most important, the creator of the artwork portfolio that compliments all of the Company’s design projects. To add credibility, Maarten has had a long-standing business relationship with Ms. Richardson in both art distribution and technology endeavors.
Born and raised in the Netherlands, Maarten grew up surrounded by craftsmanship, art, and creativity. With a father who was both a master carpenter and a passionate lover of art, where museums and galleries became part of everyday life early on. Influenced by Dutch masters such as Vincent van Gogh, Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Hieronymus Bosch, Carel Willink, and Piet Mondriaan, his fascination with visual storytelling began at a young age, occasionally expressed on the family walls before it ever reached a canvas. After traveling extensively through Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Martin eventually settled in Southern California, where the atmosphere, people, architecture, and music culture became deeply woven into his work. His art reflects a mixture of world experience and personal passion: city life, cinema, classic rock, pop culture, and the layered textures of human experience all find their way into his work. Rather than confining himself to a single style or medium, Maarten approaches art as an evolving process of experimentation and expression. His work combines traditional and modern techniques, including oil paint, ink, watercolor, charcoal, airbrush, palette knife work, and digital painting technologies. Nowadays he is focused on digital painting, exploring the world of AI to blend in with his artistic vision. Often these disciplines blend together naturally, creating pieces that feel both handcrafted and cinematic. Alongside commissioned work tailored to clients’ visions, Maarten also creates personal collections that explore mood, atmosphere, and storytelling through a wide range of visual styles. His philosophy is simple: different techniques, different strokes, different stories.
3. The Back Office
The Company’s back office is managed by William Richardson, the Agent of record for the LLC, and a seasoned executive with 30+ years of diverse experience as a CEO and senior corporate executive. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations and attending to and overseeing all legal, regulatory, financial, and technology aspects of the Company.