Canadians don’t normally look at rugs as art, but one company wants to change that.
Weavers Art, a supplier of hand-woven carpets in Toronto, teamed up with designer Johane Lefrançois-Deignan to attract Canadian artists to the ancient craft of rug design.
Their juried competition in September attracted over 200 designs from artists ranging from graphic and interior designers to architects. The ten winning entries will be unveiled at the Interior Design Show in Toronto this weekend.
“The first thing you’re going to see going through that show is ten gorgeous 8 by 10 big-colour, big-design rugs with huge banners of a head shot of each of the artists and their story,” says Catherine Shea, director of marketing for Weavers Art.
The main objective of the competition, says Shea, was to generate an interest in rug design—popular in Nepal and Europe but little known in Canada—and tap into previously unknown Canadian talent.
“Part of our mandate at Weaver’s Art is to promote more Canadian design,” she says. “We really feel that there is a great talent base to work off of here in Canada, so we thought, ‘Well, [the competition] is a good way of finding out who those people are.’”
The Interior Design Show website is promoting the rug exhibit as a “new exciting platform for Canadian designers and artists.”
The concept of rug design is relatively new to Canada, Shea says, where most still look at rugs as part of the furniture. Weavers Art wants to change that and introduce the concept of rugs “as a piece of fine art” suitable for both the floor or as a wall hanging.
She says there’s been shift in recent years from traditional, highly decorative Persian rugs to Tibetan rugs which are more in contemporary in design. She likens the change to the evolution that has occurred in other art forms.
The weaving process is completely different for both types of rug, explains Shea.
“Tibetan allows you a lot more freedom in terms of the design that you’re doing, the randomness or the organicness of it, whereas traditional Persian designs are basically mapped out. They’re very symmetrical and known for their high detail and high knot count.”
The ten winning designs were hand woven in Nepal, and Weavers Art was responsible for incorporating the designs into rugs, an exciting process for the designers.
Weavers Art, a supplier of hand-woven carpets in Toronto, teamed up with designer Johane Lefrançois-Deignan to attract Canadian artists to the ancient craft of rug design.
Their juried competition in September attracted over 200 designs from artists ranging from graphic and interior designers to architects. The ten winning entries will be unveiled at the Interior Design Show in Toronto this weekend.
“The first thing you’re going to see going through that show is ten gorgeous 8 by 10 big-colour, big-design rugs with huge banners of a head shot of each of the artists and their story,” says Catherine Shea, director of marketing for Weavers Art.
The main objective of the competition, says Shea, was to generate an interest in rug design—popular in Nepal and Europe but little known in Canada—and tap into previously unknown Canadian talent.
“Part of our mandate at Weaver’s Art is to promote more Canadian design,” she says. “We really feel that there is a great talent base to work off of here in Canada, so we thought, ‘Well, [the competition] is a good way of finding out who those people are.’”
The Interior Design Show website is promoting the rug exhibit as a “new exciting platform for Canadian designers and artists.”
The concept of rug design is relatively new to Canada, Shea says, where most still look at rugs as part of the furniture. Weavers Art wants to change that and introduce the concept of rugs “as a piece of fine art” suitable for both the floor or as a wall hanging.
She says there’s been shift in recent years from traditional, highly decorative Persian rugs to Tibetan rugs which are more in contemporary in design. She likens the change to the evolution that has occurred in other art forms.
The weaving process is completely different for both types of rug, explains Shea.
“Tibetan allows you a lot more freedom in terms of the design that you’re doing, the randomness or the organicness of it, whereas traditional Persian designs are basically mapped out. They’re very symmetrical and known for their high detail and high knot count.”
The ten winning designs were hand woven in Nepal, and Weavers Art was responsible for incorporating the designs into rugs, an exciting process for the designers.
