THE ART DAY PROJECT (AND WE'RE 25!) PART 2
As exciting and glamorous as our Art Day Project launch and gala event were, we thought we would add an exciting little twist into the mix in the form of a rug giveaway! That's right, a GIVEAWAY and if that weren't cool enough we also asked for you, loyal CMI fans, to help us design it. As we mentioned in the previous post, visitors and press were invited to participate in the real-deal Art Day process, getting down and dirty and making their mark in celebration of our 25th. We cannot tell a lie, it was FANTASTIC. Watching journalists, men in suits and art school pre-grads rub elbows around our work table was downright inspiring. It showed us here at CMI, again, that this process is so amazing and universal and encourages such creativity in everyone.
The deal was, visitors create some beautiful marks and patterns and our crew works them into lovely finished designs, created for the sole purpose being voted on and for one lucky little artwork to be woven into a luxurious handmade rug. During the event we encouraged our creative friends to take a minute to chat with Label-Step's Reto Aschwanden and make a donation in support of their (and our) mission towards fair, safe and healthy working and living conditions for weavers. In total our team produced upwards of 60 designs from the marks made at those workshops and of those, 6 were chosen as semi-finalists.
A month of voting produced the winner - a sassy number titled, quite simply, #58. The #58 artwork made the 17 hour trek to Nepal at the end of January (and is probably just getting over her jet-lag) with Reto and was handed over to our Nepalese partners to begin production. #58 will make the transformation from 2D to 3D and a winner will be drawn by Label-Step, in the Spring.
Meanwhile, somewhere between the Art Day exhibition and the first day of Spring, Carol was lucky enough to speak with Katie Loux from UK carpet and textiles magazine Cover, about our big event, creativity, future Art Days and what to expect from us next. It was so lovely to see us in print (we're not gonna lie) and especially flattering since we've been swooning over every issue of Cover, and her sister publication Hali, for as long as we can remember.
Speaking of future Art Day workshops, a few weeks ago we participated in POSSIBLY the most exciting one yet. It was so great and we can't wait to tell you all about it.