On a recent trip to England, I visited York Minster. Despite my fascination with gothic architecture in all its forms, I found myself running around snapping photos of—of all things—the carpets. (I figured a much better photographer than I had already spent time with the stonework and the medieval stained glass.)

There was nothing strikingly rare or unique about these particular carpets; it's the fact that they were there at all. Too often, churches use godawful bordello-red synthetic broadloom. But here, at last, were carpets used appropriately, highlighting all their artistic, symbolic, and practical qualities and helping to create a feeling of transcendence.

A gorgeous antique Kurdish rug before one of the altars:

Continue reading "Oriental Carpets as God Intended" »

Posted by Tracy Davis at 03:28 PM | 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)

We visited the Prairie Archives of the Milwaukee Art Museum to do some research and to meet with museum staff about a possible collaboration in anticipation of next year's exhibition on the works of George Mann Niedecken.

Liz Flaig, the curatorial administrator of the archives, and the other staff were as cordially enthusiastic as we could wish. We were particularly interested, of course, in carpet and textile designs, so we focused on those. We looked at many original drawings and documentation for Niedecken interiors in the midwest, including several of those done in collaboration with Frank Lloyd Wright.

Continue reading "Milwaukee Art Museum Prairie Archives" »

Posted by Tracy Davis at 09:05 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)

Gratifying as our work is, we're not having enough fun with shameless promotion and tooting our own horns, so Danielle and I have decided to take over our blog. (We had a freelance friend do the writeups before.) We're also turning on the Comments feature for most posts to better enable two-way communication. We hope to hear from you, whether comments, questions, or critiques. We're always learning.

Posted by Tracy Davis at 07:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)