July 10, 2009

Today was a nice dress up day for us. We went to two fabric factories and took amazing tours of their facilities. The first for Rubella Fabrics and it was fun to meet the people that work there and hear the history of the fabrics and look at their new modern lines as well as some traditional work. I found about 5 or 6 patterns that I would say I couldn’t live without and then so many others that would be great in some projects that I worked on at Hamilton Park Interiors. The cute little designer that was there, she was nice and answered all of our questions and encouraged us to wander and get lost in their patterns and fabrics. So that’s what we did. She told us that there were different patterns for different parts of Italy and I found that to be interesting just because before I came on the trip I lumped all of Italy into one category and that is Italy. But in actuality every little city has something new and fun to offer and as much for different types of art and fashion. It’s been fun to roam around Italy and not have any cares to worry about and just be able to take in all of the art that exists around us daily. But at times we don’t always take the time to realize. Rubella’s had great fabric and even a few students purchased some samples to try and make pillows or book covers out of or whatever. After that we went to another gallery and looked at their fabrics. It was really cool to see the art form in which they created their fabrics. Everything is dyed but from a distance it all looks like it’s’ woven. The people that work their used some inspired drawings that they had found from their great grandfather. They were so nice and offered us cokes and snacks. We mostly just had a question answer time for us to try and uncover and appreciate just how long a process fabric design really takes. After we looked at their showroom we went out back and looked at their gardens and they‘re stunning and very beautiful. It seems really hard to not have such divine inspiration if you lived in Venice.