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:

Once upon a time, there was an architect in New York who saw one of our luscious mohair samples, and decided that it would be perfect for one of their projects. The client required a distinctive hand-knotted carpet for a rather stately room with some challenging architectural constraints.

After intensive consultation and discussion, the architect contracted with us to produce the carpet. Although we have the capacity to do design work in-house, we asked our Irish partner, Donegal Carpets, to graph the design for weaving. The client had selected one of Donegal's oldest documented designs, generally referred to as the Fintona, and he liked the idea that the artwork would be produced by the venerable company. While Colm drafted and graphed the design in Ireland, we worked on the wool and color specifications in our Minnesota studio.

After the design work was done and the colors approved, we were ready to purchase the wool and begin the dyeing and weaving. Mohair is a specialty fiber, the fleece of the Angora goat, and most commercially available mohair comes from South Africa, with minor production in Australia and Texas. However, during the interim when the design work and coloring was being done, an Italian textile company had bought up both the currently available mohair clip and mohair futures, which caused the market price of mohair to double.

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.

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: ]]> http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2007/05/historic_charleston.html http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2007/05/historic_charleston.html Arts&Crafts | GuildCraft Thu, 10 May 2007 22:06:00 -0600 Our carpet project for the Pabst Mansion's Regency Room is proceeding.... slowly. We're still in the drafting stage, recreating the design point by point.

The only documentation we have of the original carpet is the visual reference provided by black & white photographs from 1902. The photos were originally taken with a wide-angle lens, and some areas of the photographs are overexposed. This makes it quite a challenge to determine the scale, size, and shape of some of the design elements as we try to replicate the original carpet.

Part of the reason for our trip to Milwaukee was to inspect the architectural detail of the Regency Room, particularly the mantel and the recently restored ceiling. This really paid off, and provided us with a plethora of ideas to present to the Mansion's architectural historial, John Eastberg, and historic interiors expert Gail Winkler, who is consulting on the project.

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.

Click here to see the live map.

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

Davis Freud made two whirwind trips to Manhattan in July, characterized by 12 hours of back-to-back meetings, excellent food, visiting old friends and making some new ones. They had breakfast inside Richard Rogers' stunning Hearst Tower with Georgia Fleming, Hearst Publications editor for luxury products at Veranda magazine (shown in front); met with several architects and designers to discuss projects; and consulted with ABC Carpet & Home regarding representation of the GuildCraft line.

A highlight of the second trip was meeting with Alan Wanzenberg to discuss projects and to request feedback on product ideas and samples. Alan and his late partner, Jed Johnson, together developed an aesthetic known for its expression of opulent restraint. Alan himself owns an original Donegal carpet, the design known today as the "Fintona", in a luscious sorbet palette of greens, golds, and soft corals. ]]> http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2006/07/breakfast_at_hearst_publicatio.html http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2006/07/breakfast_at_hearst_publicatio.html People Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:37:43 -0600 The collaboration between Davis Freud and Michael FitzSimmons, which last year produced the very successful GuildCraft Collection of C.F.A. Voysey designs, is active again on a new collection to be introduced later this year. Inspired by the collaboration between Frank Lloyd Wright and George Mann Niedecken in the first decade of the 20th century, an example of which is shown here, the collection will be authentic enough to satisfy the most demanding purist, while having broad market appeal. ]]> http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2006/07/new_prairie_collection_under_d.html http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2006/07/new_prairie_collection_under_d.html Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:53:17 -0600 Cardiff Castle and found a c.1910 Donegal carpet in Lord Bute's bedroom, shown below. A larger carpet with the same design was auctioned at Sotheby's in October 2004.

]]> http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2006/06/antique_donegal_discovered_in.html http://blog.davisfreud.com/archives/2006/06/antique_donegal_discovered_in.html Donegal Carpets Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:45:00 -0600