The exact rug I bought for my Vehicle, made in the West Bank village of Samoa'. I bought it from the Middle East Children's Alliance, who write: "MECA crossed nine road blocks, seven illegal Israeli settlements, and ten sniper towers in order to get to Samoa’. As Israeli restrictions on anything coming in or out of Gaza tighten, it has become nearly impossible for these artisans to sell their products abroad. When our shipment was stalled for months, we carried these rugs in suitcases through Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt and brought them back to the United States.
Colors have a huge impact on living spaces--they affect temperature, light, mood, perception of space, and express personality and culture. My aesthetic has always been a blend of the cool, clean lines of Japanese interiors and the wild exuberance of tropical foliage. I love rich embroidery and textiles, grids and trellises, calm neutral solids splashed with intense color and small patches of dense pattern. I fell in love with Japanese houses when I was eight or nine, living in a Puerto Rican rainforest, reading Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumer Godden My mother helped me build a Japanese doll house in a kind of two part alcove formed by built in bookshelves. We made tiny tatami mats and scrolls, futons and kimonos and even a miniature rock garden. But I also share my mother's love of tropical plants, basketry, textiles from around the world, and bright, small objects.
I love mud cloth from Mali and the brilliant cottons of Guatemala, Japanese indigo and white ikat, and the rich sheen of dupioni silks. Like my mother, I collect seashells and mortars and pestles, the ones made from ausubo wood, gold brown with dark streaks. For my home to be both soothing and alive, I need the combination of white shoji screens and Palestinian red embroidered pillows, carefully fitted hardwood shelves and my rainbow beaded Guatemalan jaguar mask.
My home needs to express my love of books, and of messy art-making, with buckets of dye, scattered sewing pins, and all my tools. I need neat edges and borders, and postcards and quotes impaled on push pins. I love matching jars filled with un-matching nuts, seeds, beans. I love brilliant fabrics in baskets, and neat little toolbox trays full of pens and Exacto knives.
Gorgeous cushions, hand dyed wool felt wall coverings, my own artwork, and my mother's fabric art will add richness to my tiny environment.
I love mud cloth from Mali and the brilliant cottons of Guatemala, Japanese indigo and white ikat, and the rich sheen of dupioni silks. Like my mother, I collect seashells and mortars and pestles, the ones made from ausubo wood, gold brown with dark streaks. For my home to be both soothing and alive, I need the combination of white shoji screens and Palestinian red embroidered pillows, carefully fitted hardwood shelves and my rainbow beaded Guatemalan jaguar mask.
My home needs to express my love of books, and of messy art-making, with buckets of dye, scattered sewing pins, and all my tools. I need neat edges and borders, and postcards and quotes impaled on push pins. I love matching jars filled with un-matching nuts, seeds, beans. I love brilliant fabrics in baskets, and neat little toolbox trays full of pens and Exacto knives.
Gorgeous cushions, hand dyed wool felt wall coverings, my own artwork, and my mother's fabric art will add richness to my tiny environment.