There is a new exhibit at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, Art by the Yard: Women Design Mid-Century Britain. This is interesting to me because these retro designs of the late 1950’s – early 70’s have come back in style as something “modern” today.* What’s that saying, “Everything Old is New Again?” comes to mind. I’m eager to see the exhibit. Number 1) I didn’t know about the Textile Museum only the Renwick and number 2) some of these designs are pretty cool, like these shown below.
Lucienne Day, one of these designers profiled, was using a popular idea, first touted by Yves Klein to take and abstract painting and produce it in any space. Voila, textile art for walls, for furniture, for just about anything. Since Day was operating in Britain, to overpower the penchant for the Victorian floral was pretty daunting. Her husband, a furniture designer, bemoaned the fact there there was nothing more modern out there. As a trained artist, she came to his aid and found a solution and others followed suit. There is even one very abstract one, called Runic, that looks like the numbers on early computer monitors but no, it’s based on Medieval symbols called runes. This type of Art Historical reference is indeed inspiring, I think. Let’s call it “smart art.”
So, what we are proposing for Casart Coverings to have our wallcoverings possibly made into textile art — not just for your home but for your purses, etc. isn’t new but not that common of a practice today. Our art is not so much abstract as it is decorative finishes that compliment your furnishings without potentially overpowering them (as some overly busy patterns might do). We also have figurative art and funky as well as traditional patterns — gotta have some florals, which I love, actually — in there.
* A couple of posts back I mentioned the Post’s Mad Men Interior Design Contest. Well, here’s the winner, featured in DC by Design. Jennifer also has a great post with Dominique Browning, the former editor of House Beautiful.
A while ago, The Washington Post Magazine mentioned wearable digital art. Here are those examples
I don’t know about you, but I like our wearable digital art versions better, but maybe I’m just biased. Let us know your opinion.
— Ashley
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