Hello again dear friends from beautiful and sunny Antigua Guatemala! Today I wanted to share a little story about inspiration and the creative process. Recently here at Loom Tree we have acquired a shade of yellow that we haven't used in a really long time, and the results are fabulous! While I don't usually praise my own work (always better to let others do that), I do feel it is warranted this time given the backstory. It started in my most recent trip to Morocco where my eyes were treated to the truly wonderful color palates of Marrakesh. I cannot express how important it is for a designer to refresh their eyes every now and again with new colors and motifs, and on this trip I was particularly hungry for new inspirations. So, one day, while I was walking in a souk (market) in Marrakesh, surrounded by spices and all their intoxicating fragrances, I saw a mountain of saffron. Immediately my mind jumped back fifteen years to a day in my old shop. We had just received a new shipment of a mustard yellow cotton from which we had made some really elegant pieces. Over time I forgot about that hue, and we have not used it since.
That evening back at my hotel I got on the phone with my team in Antigua. We pulled out our old sample books which contained all the past color swatches we have used. For a good while we debated on what exact hue of yellow we needed. Despite being on the other side of the globe, and seeing the color samples on a little screen, I insisted it was one swatch while my team insisted it was another. Unable to agree on which specific yellow we needed, we ordered cotton in both hues to see who was right. In the end I nailed it exactly! Once I was back in Antigua I saw the cotton in person, and indeed it was the same color I had used all those years ago. One of my weavers, with whom I have been working for nearly twenty-five years, said to me that even after all this time my ability to identify colors still astounds him.
Using this mustard yellow cotton we made our signature "peludo" (fluffy) fabric. This technique requires three different looms to do, and is very difficult to get right. Luckily the talent of my amazing weavers is unmatched! Last month we got the rolls of this fabric back from the weavers, and we have since been working with it in our workshop. I am really happy with the results, especially paired with these dark gray pieces. Yellow is a difficult color to work with in a home. If not done correctly yellow can be overpowering, and only certain colors go well with it. However, this particular hue of yellow has the richness you want from yellow, but also contains enough earthy-tones to make it work well with a lot of other colors. I'm happy to say that my time in Marrakesh was truly well-spent!
So, dear friends of Loom Tree, I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into our process. I finish today with this: In a world quickly being transformed by technology, the creative process of human beings making things with their hands will never be matched. Only a human being can put so much soul into what they make, and no machine, AI, or otherwise will ever be able to match it.
Be well dear friends,
Sincerely,
Carmen