ART TO WALK ON

It would be safe to say that if something can be handcrafted I want to own it and use it!  I'm always in search of new ways to bring original art into my home and my daily life.  There is great energy in something that has been made by human hands, designed by human ingenuity...it holds so much of the soul of the artist that I have everything to gain by its presence in my environment.

So you can imagine how excited I got when I met Alicia Keshishian.  Alicia was teaching a weeklong course I took at Penland School of Craft on color.  Titled "Chromolicious" it was designed for anyone engaged in making color choices and she did a wonderful job getting us all to rethink our color knowledge.  But this is only one of many of Alicia's gigs; she also designs rugs.  Yes, rugs!  All shapes, all sizes...need I say all colors??  Check out her website by clicking on her link above.  Its an explosion of great design...and there is a wonderful slide show about how her designs are translated by weavers in Nepal into amazing wool or silk rugs.

I lusted after such a collaborative endeavor until my husband caught the fever and we contacted Alicia for a commission.  What a marvelous experience.  Did I mention she resides in California?  No problemo.  We began our work by choosing four or five of our favorite rug designs on her website and articulating what it was we liked about it.  Yes, hubs and I had some differing opinions so that was part of the process.  We also took photos of where the rug would be, the size desired and other parts of the house for style images.  We fed her color preferences....it was quite a bit ofamazing input we sent her way.

Next Alicia brewed and stewed and sketched and imagined.  We set up a teleconference (thank you ZOOM) and reviewed about 10 preliminary designs.  We got it down to our favorite 4, then to three.  More talk about each....Alicia asked questions.  Then we nervously waited until our next consult.

When Alicia showed us the original design "Meander" we knew it was everything we had hoped it would be.  We didn't even bother to see the other two iterations because we were hooked.  She had tweaked her original design to exactly what we were trying to say...it was, without her knowing, so visually symbolic of our life right now that we fell in love.

A consumate professional Alicia offered to send us wool samples of the colors but we were already hooked so we sent the "go for it" money.  As this 16' runner will be hand tied, hand cut and shipped from Nepal it will not be the instant gratification we have become numb to via Amazon.  We will be waiting as human hands touch and craft our heirloom piece.  What a joy.

Here's a few snaps of the designs we settled on:

our color palate

middle left column will be the background color

this is the top third of the copyrighted design above

here is the middle portion

this is the bottom part of the rug...swoon

No doubt your taste differs from ours...thats fantastic!  You do not have to like my rug...you can walk on it though!  And I guarantee this piece of art is not only original but it will outlast my husband and I in lifespan.  (I made sure the heirs knew it did not come from Homegoods!!)

So, where are you going to add new art to your environment today?

Cindy Michaud

questions: art@cindymichaud.com

www.cindymichaud.com