A few days ago, we got a call from Cynthia Shaw-McLaughlin, director of the Boettcher Mansion near Golden, CO. We met Cynthia a few months ago at the Arts & Crafts Conference in Asheville and have talked a few times since then.

The Mansion, which must be run by Tracy's kind of people since they have their own construction/renovation blog, is in the midst of a flurry of activity, and Cynthia contacted us about producing some large, custom-sized carpets from our GuildCraft Voysey collection. They selected Voysey's Tulip & Lily design for the Aspen Room, with the possibility of a companion carpet for the Pine Room at a later date.

Posted by Danielle Freudenthal at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We recently returned from a trip to Charleston, SC to visit our local retailer, Rivendell Woodworks. We were there for the Broad Street retailers' "Girls Night Out", and the event was a delightful occasion, with great food, excellent company, and probably too much champagne. Owner Terri Johnson brought us in to give our educational and entertaining presentation on "Oriental Carpets in Period Interiors", with emphasis on Arts & Crafts carpets.

Terri put us up at the Meeting Street Inn, and we had a gorgeous room right off the courtyard. I love the smell of jasmine in the morning. (There, Robert Duvall.) We added a couple of days to our trip so that we could meet with the Historic Charleston Foundation and I could revisit some areas familiar to me from my childhood. My mother is from the Carolina low country, and we spent a fair amount of time there each year when I was a child, but I haven't been there since about 1980.

After a fascinating and insightful visit with Historic Charleston curator Brandy Culp at the Nathaniel Russell House, Danielle, my middle daughter Madelyn, and I made like tourists. Some of the highlights included:

Continue reading "Charleston, SC Events" »

Posted by Tracy Davis at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I didn't have my tech toys primed well enough to blog from on-site as I'd hoped, but here are some choice photos from the Arts & Crafts Conference at the venerable Grove Park Inn. We brought our CAD guy, Justin, along so he could hear first-hand the rave reviews our carpets receive, and what a difference it makes to have good drawing for the artwork used to make the weaving cartoons. (Doing that in-house, with our scrupulous attention to detail, is one of the things that distinguishes our GuildCraft carpets from others in the marketplace.)

Continue reading "20th Annual Arts & Crafts Conference, Asheville, NC" »

Posted by Tracy Davis at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since Danielle is geographically challenged, at least as far as North America is concerned, I thought it would help if I created a Google Maps mashup to show the location of our retailers. (Really, I'm not a closet geek. I did this purely in self-defense, in order to avoid answering questions like, "Hey, as long as we're in Charleston, why don't we rent a car and zip over and visit our Florida retailers while we're in the area?")

Click here to see the live map.

And I'm sure if she ever gets around to blogging, Dani will get even with me.

Posted by Tracy Davis at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We heard some rather sad news - artisan and woodworker Peter Maynard of Cold River Furniture suffered a concussion and broken pelvis a couple of weeks ago. We're relieved to hear that Peter is expected to make a full recovery, but the timing of the accident couldn't have been worse, as it prevents Cold River Furniture from exhibiting at the 20th anniversary Arts & Crafts Conference in Asheville, NC this weekend. Danielle and I will be taking over their booth space this year, and letting their clientele know that they'll be back in their usual location at the next conference. We're grateful to Peter and Marcy for the opportunity to exhibit our carpets in their space, and wish Peter the speediest possible recovery. We'll be posting photos from on-site at the conference, Feb. 17-20.

Posted by Tracy Davis at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)