Browsing Archives

How to relate? In this case, it’s about Antiques, Color, Contemporary Life…connecting the colorful dots!

Do you love antiques? Even if you are partial to Contemporary design, you have to check out this web site that is an excellent resource for all types of antiques, from lighting to furniture to architectural elements.

They have a unique—and fun—feature on the DesignerDiggs.com site: you can select a color from a rainbow band of color options and you’ll be able to see how any of those colors will look when used with the antique piece you’re looking at on their site.

How did I find out about this? Even though I’m a designer of contemporary rugs, they asked me to write a section about using antique textiles in a contemporary environment. As a color consultant, I wanted to make the connection using color as the bridge and a trip to San Francisco provided the backdrop.

Together we selected a group of four pieces, to start with: two antique rugs, and two other antique textiles.

Antique Ningxia Runner from DesignerDiggs.com

I really enjoyed creating color palettes especially for these fine antique pieces, all from two noteworthy showrooms in San Francisco. I was fortunate to be able to personally visit the Sandra Whitman Gallery and Kathleen Taylor: The Lotus Collection during a recent trip to the Bay Area. It was a great opportunity to see some of these fine antiques in a real-life setting, and the showroom owners were so generous in sharing photos and information about their collections of exquisite textiles.

When you visit DesignerDiggs.com, you’ll also see posts by other designers featured on the web site.  The palettes I created for this project are all referring to Ellen Kennon Full-Spectrum Paints but you can use any brand, including my own line “EcoHues” which is made through Ellen Kennon but which I had not yet created when I wrote the palette article for Designer Diggs.

Check out DesignerDiggs.com to read all the articles and enjoy discovering some new color combinations. And of course, using “antiques” is just another very beautiful way to implement Green design!

Register for our e-newsletter and download your FREE pdf of our white paper
“Enjoy the Process: Guidelines for Working with a Design Professional.”

Share/Save

“Tiny House Living” makes me remember.
Not that I lived in such a tiny house…well, actually it was sort of tiny, just not quite as tiny as the mini-dwellings created by Vermonter  Derek Diedricksen. I recently saw the PBS program where he appeared as a guest of Emily Rooney on Boston’s Channel 2.

Here’s just one example of a tiny getaway in Vermont. Find out more about Derek’s approach to gleaning supplies and turning them into small buildings.

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's a HickShaw! Tiny house on wheels.

How Green can it be?
Derek is the consummate Found Object Artisan. A perfect example of “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Not polished, exotic, or elusive, his tiny buildings are Fun, Functional, and easy to Fabricate.  The ultimate in coziness.

One view of the HickShaw interior, with Derek's book on the mat.

Derek’s description of his favorite childhood pastimes that led him to expressing that passion in a uniquely creative business,  just got me thinking about what I liked to do when I was young. Well, our inspirations can come from unlikely sources.

Looking back, I see the connections. Drawing with chalk on a wall-sized slate blackboard, creating “art clubs” in which my friends would come over and we would do art projects together, helping my parents pick colors for our bedrooms—I could keep going. Having plenty of art supplies of all types around, and available to use, made this easy. Later, keeping my artist father company in his studio and “helping” him with his work. It’s no surprise that I’m most comfortable surrounded by an assortment of art materials in varying stages of being used, and that I have the desire to share this with others.

It’s a simple reminder to us, to keep our minds and eyes open and pursue our inner directions!  Where does it take us? The road is bound to be interesting.

How about you?
Can you connect the dots from childhood pleasures and interests to adult activities and careers?

Please share them!

Share/Save

GoodWeave is a unique organization.
In fact, there are many individual qualities about GoodWeave.org that are unique.

The focus of GoodWeave is to end illegal child labor in the rug industry. In addition, their mission includes rescuing children from enslavement, and providing education and a better quality of life. A portion of each sale of every GoodWeave certified rug goes toward this goal.

The GoodWeave mission of freedom from slavery includes rescue, and education of the children.

Just a few the unique ways GoodWeave helps both sides of the equation

• Provides a resource destination for people who want to help others
• Provides a way for artists and designers to connect
• Provides a way for artists to showcase their rug designs, and helps with the business side of artistic rug design
• Creates an opportunity to enrich the lives of weavers and their families, while enriching the lives of rug customers.
• From the standpoint of what I like to call “The Human Connection,” Customers of GoodWeave-member rug companies can have the confidence that while enjoying a beautiful work of art for their floors, they are making a positive contribution to the lives of the people who have made the rugs they purchased.

Just last week, CNN.com aired a brief but meaningful news report on child slavery in the rug industry and GoodWeave’s significant place in working to end these conditions. I hope you take the time to view it.
The video appeared in CNN.com  World Business Today.

Share/Save