Mary Lake-Thompson Ltd.

Mary Lake-Thomp­son Ltd. fea­tures spe­cial out­let prices on pop­u­lar Mary Lake-Thomp­son home goods that are only avail­able to pur­chase in-per­son at the Down­town Oroville store.

About Mary Lake-Thompson

Mary’s vision dri­ves every Mary Lake-Thomp­son Ltd. design, guid­ing every­thing from ini­tial con­cept to each fin­ished product.

Mary start­ed draw­ing and paint­ing from the time she was a young child and nev­er looked back. She attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado as an art stu­dent, before set­ting out for Cal­i­for­nia and San Francisco’s vibrant art scene in 1970. It was there that she attend­ed the San Fran­cis­co Art Insti­tute, and also where she met her hus­band and future busi­ness part­ner Richard Thomp­son. After she grad­u­at­ed with a degree in pho­tog­ra­phy, Mary and Richard moved to the sleepy foothills town of Oroville, locat­ed about 45 min­utes north of Sacramento.

It was in Oroville that Mary real­ly start­ed devel­op­ing as a com­mer­cial artist. Her daugh­ters Sara and Abby served as inspi­ra­tion in her first paint­ings, along with the wildlife and land­scapes of rur­al Cal­i­for­nia. In the ear­ly 80’s, Mary land­ed an art show at The Nut Tree in Vacav­ille, where she sold 60 paint­ings. After that, she began sell­ing prints to local gal­leries, as well as door to door through­out Cal­i­for­nia, work­ing out of the trunk of her car.

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of her prints, she launched a greet­ing card com­pa­ny, using her own art­work on the cards.

She and Richard attend­ed the New York Sta­tion­ary show where she picked up licens­ing con­tracts, includ­ing one for C.R. Gib­son, for which she designed baby books, address books, diaries and paper nap­kins. Eddie Bauer then placed an order for gift bas­kets, soaps and lotion, which gave Mary the idea to design gift items and pack­ages fea­tur­ing her orig­i­nal art­work. Since then, Mary Lake-Thomp­son, Ltd. has designed and pro­duced soaps, aprons, bath prod­ucts, draw­er lin­ers, sachets, nap­kins, hats and of course, its sig­na­ture flour sack tow­els. Mary has been able to use her own unique designs on all of these prod­ucts, as well as repro­duc­tions of hand­picked vin­tage art.

Mary Lake-Thomp­son, Ltd. is now a large small com­pa­ny, employ­ing up to 50 peo­ple. All off Mary Lake-Thomp­son Ltd.‘s prod­ucts are designed, print­ed, pack­aged and shipped in the USA.