Child’s play: Crafts Council teams up with rug maker Floor Story to give children’s drawings physical form
The colourful hand-knotted rugs will be used during workshops in the Crafts Council Gallery
One of the four Persian knot rugs created as part of the Floor Story and Crafts Council collection
Over the years, Shoreditch-based rug maker Floor Story has collaborated with an array of established design figures, including Zandra Rhodes, Henry Holland and Camille Walala. But to craft its newest collection, From Dot to Knot, the brand took a different tack – working alongside some youthful creatives aged between four and 12.
Sixteen local children and their guardians were invited by Crafts Council to a summer workshop, where they were asked to design rugs that could be used during creative play sessions. ‘We really wanted local children to feel that Crafts Council Gallery is for them, and that their creative ideas are as good as those by established designers,’ says Crafts Council’s participation producer Nick Kidd. ‘It might spark future ambitions of becoming a maker or designer.’
Steered by designer and researcher Halina Edwards, the workshop saw participants explore the theme of identity, touching on topics like the symbolism of flags and community subcultures. Participants realised their ideas using paper collage techniques and hole punches, then the resulting artworks were handed over to Floor Story who, together with a global team of weavers, turned the pieces into four handmade Persian knot rugs.
We chatted with the brand’s head designer, Gill Thorpe, and showroom manager Bekah Smith, to hear more about the collection.
The rug designs are based on drawings created by children and their guardians in a Crafts Council summer workshop Each rug in the collection is woven from New Zealand wool
How did you find working with children on the From Dot to Knot collection?
GT: Halina brought the artworks to us after the workshop – I selected the pieces that I thought would translate well into rugs, and then went through them all with Halina. Initially we were only going to have one artwork per rug, but there were so many ideas that we thought it would be more interesting to use them overlaid. We took sections from some to put into others, to make it more collaborative between the children and the adults' artwork; it was a mix of everything.
You combined and digitally rendered the children’s drawings before transforming them into rugs. How did that work?
GT: I scanned all the artworks and then made a rough mock-up of them on Photoshop. There was a lot of work involved in translating the artworks into files for our weavers, because to create Persian knot rugs they have to put the designs onto graph paper. This paper is then printed to the same scale as the rug, and then followed knot by knot by artisans.
“You get a sense of how the kids and parents were learning from each other, and riffing off each others' designs”
Tell us more about what the rugs are made from, where they were woven, and how you connected with the weavers?
GT: We already work with the team of weavers who created this collection. We have a factory in Nepal and another in India – this time we used the one in India. All the rugs are made out of wool from New Zealand, which is the only material that's used in them.
What are your favourite design details from the collection?
GT: I like the orange and green chequered rug because it’s made up of three artworks, and it's got an odd shape at the bottom. Its high-low pile detailing is where the holes were punched into the artwork's paper.
BS: I like the rug that has circles going all the way around it; it also has a little collage in the middle with alternating pile heights to, again, reflect the hole punches in the original artworks. I think more shapely rugs work really nicely within a space, as they go against the grain of having a typical square or rectangle
There were a lot of dots in the whole collection – you can get a sense for how the kids and parents were learning from each other, and riffing off what others were designing. Although Halina was leading the workshop, there was also a really nice element of the kids and parents teaching each other things.
What are you hoping the rugs will bring to the Crafts Council Gallery?
BS: A real sense of fun and joy, which has probably been transferred from the original workshop. When the rugs came into our showroom and we began to unpack them, everyone was smiling. I can imagine that feeling carrying on for anyone who visits the gallery. The collection is super playful, and it's not something that you'd see every day.
Why do you think it’s important for children to see their designs realised?
GT: There are some things that make an impression on you when you're young and widen the scope of what's possible in the future. We hope that doing these workshops and seeing the final results might inspire what some kids end up doing when they're older.
BS: Unfortunately, there's less and less funding in schools for art programmes. Having external projects like this is more important than ever to make sure that people from a variety of backgrounds can access something creative like rug-making from a young age.
