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Quest for the perfect Martini
January 28, 2011
I love celebrations of all kinds and having a good times is always inspiring. I don’t drink but on occasions I’d sip on a good wine poured into a beautiful glass. A favorite is martini glass. Even when empty. It stands tall and the up-side-down triangular form is just so impressive. I bought two.
I was at a family event, a wedding, and there I saw a gorgeous display of empty martini glasses standing on top of each other, forming a giant triangle illuminated by halogen lights shooting from above. It looked like a piece of ice art. That was some display.
No I didn’t take a picture at the time (I’m pinching myself right now for not doing it). I was too busy admiring (who knew).
I had a good time but when I returned home I went straight to work.
Sketches after sketches and all I got was a busy pattern with simple large triangles that didn’t talk to me (yes I should have kept them. I’m bad).
Frustration of sketch/erase and sketch/erase made me put down the pencil and keep the idea in a drawer. Don’t know for how long but it was there for a while.
Many months later my husband looked through my files trying to find something… he found my tini “Martini” design there… “I want it” he told me, “make the rug”…
PHASE II
A fresh and clean illustration sketch helped me get the shapes and scale right where I wanted. Original idea of color palette, tone-on-tone, was the right choice if I wanted to achieve what I looked for: a repeat with movement in subtle variation of texture and tone that will work anywhere anytime.
My Martini design was finally submitted for production.
And so this week RUG ART, us, got our shipment of new rugs and among them is my little happy brand new “Martini” rug.
I’ve experimented with my camera and took some shots before the rug hits the showrooms. Take a look:
We are excited about this rug. It’s fun, modern, young. It works in many room interiors. Tone-on-tone coloration offers the opportunity to splurge on any color around it without losing the atmosphere this design suggests.
On the other hand, for color lovers, this rug can be totally customized to your most desirable shade.
Martini rug beautifully lays on the floor accompanied by our “Noche” custom silk decorative pillow in black taupe.
What a duo.
CHEERS!
Carpet design show at DOMOTEX, Germany
January 19, 2011
It was a last minute decision (when is it not in my household?) so my husband and I took off last Friday and landed in Germany, on the way to visit DOMOTEX carpet and floor covering exhibition.
Oh lucky me, I thought, I could take lots of picture, walk around, explore and discover, get inspired and do lots of things. I forgot that half of the time takes to get there. We only had four days.
Everything was in a rush that we got a hotel room for a single person with a single bed. All sold out. We were so tired we didn’t care if we sleep in the hallway. Just show me the pillow.
The hotel in Hannover. Breakfast at six AM I saw this guy drinking about a foot tall glass of bear. I rubbed my tired eyes. Yup, it’s Germany.
Back to work – the show was very vivid. It was for curious eyes, like mine. Its washed by all the colors of the rainbow, textures and lots of shine. I’ve never seen so many rugs under one roof. Rugs and wood flooring from all over the world, with any design, material and color imaginable, in any size, and piles of piles of them.
Some booths (and I’m talking super-size here) were busier than others (maybe because they had more snacks to offer? we were hungry 
). The wood flooring gigantic section was such a change to watch, it was like entering a wild jungle with smooth and exotic feel right under, you could walk barefoot.
It felt like walking among paths of my own passion.
As the owners and designers of our company I couldn’t imagine not going. At the exhibition (no badges on visitors so you never know who’s), surprisingly people approached us and asked if we are from RUG ART. They shook our hands and opened a conversation. How nice is that. I didn’t even know half of them (my husband knows everybody).
Some things I manage to take shots of at the show:
I love how the little red flower in the center stands out among all the others in this little area rug. How cute is that in a girl’s room.
This focal point caught my eye. Maybe because my daughter plays guitar and I have a thing for instruments.
A rug company from India makes this fun piece. Its all acrylic, shaggy and combined with beads and sequins border.
I wasn’t the only one who stared at this piece.
I forgot the company’s name (sorry, but if any one knows please email me), but they make this cool rug. Tiny beads of lights were inserted, following the pattern on the field and filling up the couple’s silhouette with blinking lights. Well, I think it needed some background music don’t you think? You can hang it or walk on it or… whatever you wish.
I know it’s not rug talk but..
Driving from Hannover to Frankfurt my husband asked me to take a picture of this car. “You remember this?” he asked with a hopeful smile. I’m like “no”.
From Frankfurt to Hannover on both sides of the Autobahn these gigantic wind-power didn’t cease to amaze me.
Has nothing to do with rugs but there was a sense of order everywhere we looked
..even in architecture
The bad thing: they drive way too fast, a bit of humor can help and no, I didn’t have bear.
It was an awesome weekend but when I returned home and saw my familiar bed I was a happy camper.
Inspired by magic
January 11, 2011
“I don’t read music. I don’t write it. So I wonder around on the guitar until something starts to present itself” James Taylor
Admiring guitar at two years of age
Most times, to me, life dictates work and I’m sure the way I think too. My daughter was two years old when she discovered her love for guitar. I remember her playing with her big sister’s guitar, twice her size, trying to wrap a little hand around the neck of the instrument, screaming babies songs while the other hand is moving and hitting those strings, making random sounds. The cutest thing in the world. The cutest.
When she was around four years I took her on a trip overseas to visit family and we also happened to be at my sister’s granddaughter birthday party. My younger one grabbed her toy guitar, a piece of junk I bought for 10 dollars which she carried with her everywhere (not shown), and played Happy Birthday song to her cousin. She was only four doing her thing and didn’t care the least who’s watching. Of course, random tunes and quirky sounds came out that made us all giggle. Someone even yelled “buy her the real one!”, but her love to the instrument was obvious. She wanted the “real deal” to play her “real” tunes.
She got her first electric guitar when she was six, after my husband spot a small ad of a guitar instructor. That person became my daughter’s teacher. Two years later he is still teaching her to play on this wonderful instrument, which she is so passionately playing on, making beautiful and absolutely not random sounds. She even makes up her own songs. It’s way more than cute. It’s her passion and it shows and we are happy to see it growing each day with each note she plays.
My daughter on her first performance dedicated to her sister’s 18th birthday, where 130 family members watched her play on stage “I’m yours” and “Hotel California”, only six months into her guitar lessons. My husband is beside her encouraging the whole time.
She was very nervous but amazing at pretending that there was no one there
She plays to anyone who’s willing to listen. I remember walking around Miami beach my daughter spot a man playing guitar on the street and a hat lay in front of him. She asked my permission to approach the man. While talking to her sister I turned my head and to our amazement my guitarist was sitting on the sidewalk playing the man’s guitar. She was only three month guitar student! She cracked me up.
My daughter’s passion to music inspired me to expand my horizon and look at the ‘musical’ side of design: to listen to the beat, to feel it, to “see” what she hears. I’ve always loved music (older siblings passion) but to live with a child who plays guitar with all her heart is a whole new lesson for me.
Watching her passion grow has taught me to love this wonderful and magical instrument, to enjoy it’s presence even without playing, and listen to its unique sound. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to use its curvaceous form as an inspiration for my new rug design “Chops”.
Hand-knotted Tibetan made entirely by hand is modern and playful. A pattern that offers a sense of beat of curvy silky “chops” moving around a tight pile of rich custom blend fibers.
A rug designed with movement like those beautiful sounds I hear every time she put her fingers on the frets.
This rug is child-labor free and certified by GoodWeave
“Calabasas” design made it on GoodWeave holiday card
January 4, 2011
We have the power to influence, knot by knot
I want to thank GoodWeave, and I think I’m speaking on behalf of many people like myself, for the good this organization is doing by helping companies like us contribute to needy communities around the world.
I also want to thank GoodWeave for choosing our rug design “Calabasas” as a festive background on the company’s promotional ‘Thank you’ holiday card.
Honestly, looking at this image of young children dancing and that’s surrounded by this rug design it brings such harmony, I wouldn’t use any other background.
To find out the inspiration behind “Calabasas” design or to purchase this rug or “Calabasas” decorative pillows, click here
May this year bring us all more cheers and flowers
More is more on 2011
January 3, 2011
Did you already kick 2010 goodbye?
via
Dear friends,
If you are like me, o.k. o.k. not like me, but if you are like most people, you probably looking back on 2010 feeling sorry or maybe disappointed that you “should have done this or that” you know, more botox here or there, or should have lost that 20 or 30 pounds, or doing those 700 crunches a day to get that “Bay watch” look (but that’s old isn’t it). But think of it, nobody is perfect, not even you dear friend and 2011 is not going to be perfect either, BUT fear not. 2011 is going to be better, bigger, funnier, crazier, creative and productive than ever, one of the best kind of year. Why? just because. And I believe it!
And while we are at it, why don’t we all give some of these. After all we all have them. All we need to do is let it out. Here are ten things, among hundreds, we all should be doing more of, this year:
more cheering for no apparent reason
more music for any time of season
more nurturing
more play time
more love before the day will end
more laughter with or without a friend
more of this
less of.. what?
more creation
and relaxation…
Yes, Twenty Eleven. Just like that.
Happy and new, to you.
