Showing posts with label Modern Weave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Modern Weave. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

A New Year, A New Collection!

It seems like it was just last week that the CMI team stepped off the plane from Hannover where they presented our newest collection Terra, and we’re already immersed in developing another new line of hand-knotted carpets for a new collection. Our team is ever expanding and this year we decided to take a fresh approach to creating a collection by creating 2 series’ of hand-painted and hand-drawn markings as inspiration for our new pieces.



In a field where we can easily utilize the computer and Wacom tablet as our tool of choice, we made the decision to “return to our roots” so to speak, and pick up a paintbrush. We chose to flex our artistic muscles with a series of “art days” where the entire team (office managers and accountant included) participated in intensive 3-hour sessions of painting, drawing and general mark making. And the results were fabulous!



We worked with different grounds like mulberry paper (wet and dry), watercolour paper and news print and covered them in India ink, charcoal,wax and paint. It was messy and brilliant and resulted in over 230 paintings and drawings. From there we collectively created 168 working concepts and were able to whittle these down to a collection of 7.



Now we’re on to the sampling process and with eager anticipation await their arrival! Creative Matters hopes to launch our still unnamed collection at the New York International Carpet Show and then at Domotex 2012. Times are changing and interesting things are happening at our little studio on Annette Street. Stay tuned!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Good-bye summer...

Dear Friends,


It’s been a busy Spring/Summer season at Creative Matters. The month of April saw our fearless leaders trek back to Nepal for almost 2 weeks to visit our mills, weavers, spinners and washers. Quality control is of the utmost importance to CMI and this is how we ensure beautiful carpets and samples. This brief chance to speak with the mill owners and weavers is best opportunity to mesh our visions and instructions, maintaining this strong partnership and that produces our custom carpets and our Aerial Collection.


After all of the work is done, on those long Nepalese days, Carol and Donna manage to find some spare moments to decompress. This comes back to us in the form of their beautiful photography that tells us at the studio in Toronto, a million stories.


May, June and July have provided busy days filled with artworks and colour-matching, samples and carpet installations. One of the most exciting events was the installation of the beautiful lobby carpet at the Soho Grand Hotel in New York.

The sleek new design lends itself beautifully to the chic, luxurious vibe that the Soho seems to float on. And working with Studio Sofield is always a pleasure (especially when the results are this beautiful!)



Now our water-logged summer seems to be in her home stretch as we look forward with anticipation and excitement to our next steps for 2009. Samples of the new additions to the Aerial Collection are trickling in and the buzz is starting to build as we look forward to Domotex 2010. Granted, the big day for Germany is in January, but we at Creative Matters know how fast time flies. This year the team will truly be taking pieces of Canada with them overseas – but that’s all that I’m going to give away.


If you want to see what I’m talking about, you’ll have to meet Creative Matters in Hanover for the launch...




Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Creative Matters Immersed in “Contemporary Culture”


Last night the Creative Matters team was delighted attend the celebration of the newly renovated 3rd location of Weavers Art in Toronto. Michael Pourvakil and his team launched Weavers Art – Contemporary Culture last night at 162 Bedford Rd., in Designers Walk Building 3.

Contemporary Culture is showcasing hand-knotted, silk and wool luxury carpets by a handful of international designers such as Emma Gardner, Lapchi and New Moon, and perhaps, most excitingly, yours truly - Creative Matters. Pause for applause. – Thank-you.

The beautiful open-concept showroom exudes luxury with it’s high ceiling, cream wall colour and seductive lighting. I must say, we felt right at home...and so do our rugs!

If you get the chance, go and have a look - you'll be floored. ;)

Cheers,
Erin

Monday, March 23, 2009

There's something in the air...

Spring has sprung in the Creative Matters studio, the sun is shining and thankfully, there is no more snow on the ground in Toronto (knock on wood). We’ve all been super-busy with various new projects and we can hardly believe that it’s almost the end of March! It seems that we have a million things on the go - ok, maybe just a hundred - but the there’s a buzz in the air and we like it.

The design team has been working hard on new additions to the Aerial Collection (some are in the sampling stages) and we’ve been toying with the idea of adding a second collection to our Creative Matters line of carpets, with a completely different look and feel. That’s under lock and key at the moment so, stay tuned to see what we come up with! Trust me, it’s going to be great.

We’re also excited to be in the throws of planning an event in April with the lovely people at Modern Weave to celebrate our successful collaboration and creative merging of the minds, if you will. Modern Weave, along with their sister store Weavers Art, carry our entire Aerial Collection of wool and silk carpets in various sizes and colourways. They are continually supportive of what we do and they have a breath-taking showroom so if you haven’t seen our carpets in the flesh (or fibre) head to King Street East for a peek. For those of you in the trade, visit one of 3 Weavers Art locations in Designers Walk or on Davenport Road or Bedford Road all in Toronto (see the website for details).

I know it’s short but hopefully this post piques your interest. Before you know it, the season of bare feet will be upon us – what better time for a wool and silk carpet, hmmm? The carpet above has some nice Spring appeal - nothing like a bright, cheerful botanical to freshen things up. (You can check out this one in the December 2008 The World of Interiors, December 2008 article "Made for Manhattan" with Studio Sofield)

Talk soon,
Erin.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Extra, extra, read all about it!

It’s been a busy summer, thus far, here at Creative Matters. We’re not sure where these precious days have gone but, here we are on this hazy July morning, working hard on the new additions to our Aerial Collection and on our November gallery show. Did she just say November??? Yes she did! Did I mention that we’re still working on our regular custom design projects? And starting to cultivate ideas for the Domotex show in Hanover….and so it goes.

So, what better day for a little bit of summer excitement than today, to see Creative Matters splashed over a full page (L3 to be exact) of the Living section in the Toronto Star. It’s a great article called "Rug Designers at Top of Pile" by Star columnist Barbara Turnbull, who graced our office in early June to speak to Carol and Donna about just what it is that we do. Barbara chats with the ladies about design, colour, what we’re up to now and about Creative Matters’ impressive 20-year mark. It's a great read and a great photo (thanks to Keith Beaty at the Toronto Star).

http://www.thestar.com/living/Shopping/article/461414#Comments

Stay tuned for more updates on Hariti – we hope to show off some photos soon, after the ladies return from their trek to Nepal in August.

Enjoy the sun!

(and buy more carpets!)

Erin