Deirdre Dyson: Contemporary Handmade [Mosaic] Carpets

Deirdre Dyson is a handmade custom carpet designing company based in London, England. Like Artaic, customization is a key component to Deirdre Dyson’s workings. They craft handmade carpets using the hand knotting or hand tufting technique with quality fibers such as silk and pure Tibetan wool. A special collection line is created each year, and this year’s 2011 theme featured a beautiful mosaic collection applying mosaic designs into their rugs. Contrastingly in past Artaic catalogs, we devised rug designs into mosaics (Lasting Rugs Collection). Our array of tesserae is their array of New Zealand, Nepalese and Tibetan threads.

It is always intriguing to see a different perspective on interpreting mosaics. When meandering through their main website, you get a chance to see the mosaic carpets up close. The variable soft fibers give back that organic aesthetic of mosaics. Inspiration for the collection came from the ancient mosaics of Pompeii and the ornate sidewalks of Portugal.

Moverover, the founder and designer Deirdre Dyson herself is an active artist in painting. She went to London’s Byam Shaw Art School where she met her spouse James Dyson, the well-known industrial designer and founder of the British technology and appliance design company Dyson. Her carpet company came about through her struggling adventure of finding the right rug design she wanted; when she couldn’t find it, she made her own. She describes how she finds inspiration:

I just sit down with a blank piece of paper and draw… It’s the same for my paintings, I prefer to just sit and paint what I like.

She brings her artist techniques into her client interaction as well.

I’ll do an initial sketch, then a hand-painted artwork featuring the proposed colours. This is then transferred into a computer, and once the client is happy, I send the design to the Nepalese or UK producer.

Pictures and Information from: Deirdre Dyson,The Bath Magazine, Society of British Interior Design, Jigsaw Overseas, How To Spend It