San Francisco, CA, July 15--An emerging set of female rug designers is creating vivid, painterly prints -- turning what's underfoot into unexpected art galleries, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Rosemary Hallgarten, Angela Adams, Vicki Simon and the women of Elson & Company, among others, are fast gaining an international reputation for taking centuries-old weaving materials and infusing them with a modern, chic aesthetic. Their cues are drawn as much from the masters -- Picasso, Giacometti, Kandinski and the like -- as they are from celebrated architects, furniture designers and the world of haute couture. Along the way, they're helping a new generation imagine their once-neglected floors as blank canvases.
"You need a starting point for inspiration" in the interior design process, says Vasilios Kiniris, owner of the Zinc Details showrooms in San Francisco and Berkeley. "Sometimes it's a painting, other times it's a vase. Why not a beautiful rug?"
San Francisco's Hallgarten last year began working with artisans in Peru to create a collection of rich floor coverings, sumptuous embroidered pillows and throws made from alpaca. Her "Pathways" line (in reference to the designer's world travels and yet-to-be-taken avenues of artistic expression) debuted in May at the prestigious International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, and includes hand-tufted as well as hand-knotted designs.
Alpacas, which are bred largely in the Andes, once were considered the ultimate measure of wealth by the Incas. Cousins to camels and llamas, the animals today are increasingly prized for their lustrous coats, which are as soft and warm as cashmere, and as durable as wool.
"The excitement is twofold," says the British-born Hallgarten, who began her career as a jewelry designer and is the daughter of noted rug designer Gloria Finn. Alpaca's "texture is extraordinarily soft and bouncy, with a silky smooth finish. And the colors, because (the wool is)hand-spun and dyed by knowledgeable artisans, retain their vibrancy and irregular patterning even after being knotted."
Included in the collection is "Mosaic" -- a 5-by-7-foot carpet stained in white, sunflower and black hues -- inspired by relics of Roman mosaics that the designer collected on the beaches of Beirut when she lived there as a child. Her twin "Stone Forest" rugs, meantime, suggest boulders of molten lava high above the Peruvian plains. In the fall, the designer plans to debut a line of pillows, throws, bedspreads and other textiles made from Suri or longhaired alpaca, in similar stone, white and yellow hues.
"I often describe it as painting with wool," Hallgarten says of her mats, runners and carpets, which can take up to 14 weeks to make, and cost $65 to $95 per square foot retail. Custom-made floor coverings "are not just something you step on -- they're pieces of art, each designed in their own (imaginary) frame."
From her studio in Maine, Adams too is building a name for her high-end rugs, furniture and fashion accessories in an ever-expanding line. The designer, who grew up on North Haven (an island about a dozen miles off the coast of Maine) trained as a painter and traveled throughout the country designing custom spaces in homes and businesses. As her company grew, she began searching for an alternative medium. Rugs were a natural evolution.
What sets her designs apart from her contemporaries?
"Being so isolated up here (in Maine) allows us the focus and the room we need to grow as designers, as people, as a business," says Adams, who owns her company along with furniture designer Sherwood Hamill.
"I think we also have a very natural approach to design and to business. Since it is such a major part of our lives . . . we continue to make sure it is working with who we are and how we want our lives to evolve and progress."
The all-female company recently recruited a dozen of the world's most sought-after clothing designers and put them to work designing hand-knotted rugs.
"Fashion -- clothing fashion is really going to influence not just rugs but home design over all," says Anne-Kerr Kennedy, who started the company in San Francisco alongside Diane Elson Bankoff.
