2010 Arts & Crafts Conference
This weekend was the 23rd annual Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. This is the Main Event for devotees of the Arts & Crafts Movement – antiques, reproductions, artisans, educational workshops, you name it. An eclectic bunch of people are drawn in every year by their common love of the works and philosophy of Arts & Crafts. This was the first year out of the past five that we haven’t displayed at the conference. I wish we’d been able to attend –we missed seeing our old friends, and making new ones. The conference is always fascinating and stimulating, and the venue is gorgeous. I’ve…
Design trend predictions from Natural Home magazine
Choosing a GoodWeave certified rug is not only the right thing to do, it’s a design trend for 2010, says Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Editor-in-Chief of Natural Home. Seeing the clear connection between beautifully designed, high-quality rugs and the hands that wove them, she says: Purchase chic rugs from socially responsible companies. Look for the Goodweave label to ensure your new rug wasn’t made by children. We appreciate any media attention that raises the profile of GoodWeave and highlights the importance of the issue of child labor in our industry. This means more consumers have the information they need to choose the right rugs. And with each GoodWeave rug sold, there…
Help us fight illegal child labor in the rug industry.
Here’s a four-minute video about the work of GoodWeave (formerly RugMark) in its efforts to bring about an end to illegal child labor in the carpet industry. By purchasing a GoodWeave-certified carpet, you help support the work of rehabilitation, schooling, and training of former child slaves. We’ve always been strongly committed to the GoodWeave organization and its work. It is a fabulous non-profit organization, run in a lean and effective manner by people with a passion for their cause. Learn more here. Then please come back and order a rug! 🙂
MSNBC video feature on GoodWeave
There was a web piece on MSNBC last week about the work of the GoodWeave organization. In addition to being happy every time the work of Goodweave is noted in the media, I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the piece also included some words of wisdom from an old friend, John Howe, who is well known in the collector circles of Rugdom. John was helping to explain the distinction between production of carpets on a commercial scale which may exploit children for cheap labor, and the transmission of weaving skills from mother to daughter in cultures with an ancient tradition of rug-weaving, such as Persia (Iran) and Turkey.…
Project update on Ellison-Ashley rug
We’ve been woefully lax in our blogging, and I have several project updates to do. I just added this photo of the Prairie-style design we did for a client earlier this year, based on her custom art glass window. You can read more about the origin of the design, and stained-glass artisan Theodore Ellison, on my original post.