*Lies. All lies.
We Make Carpets most certainly does NOT make carpets. What they do make is assemblage art that resembles carpets. Here it is in the words of the three artists, Bob, Marcia, and Stijn:
“WE MAKE CARPETS does not make carpets. At least, not the kind of carpet you can walk on. Still, one of the visitors of the Dutch Design Week 2010 stepped all over Fork Carpet. The carpets are not meant to be touched either. But it sometimes happens anyway. ‘Muisjes’ Carpet suddenly had an imprint of a finger. A visitor nibbled on Candybar Carpet.
“But to glue everything down or put an art barrier around it? No. That doesn’t fit with the work. From a distance it may look like a carpet but you have to come close to see it is actually made of clothes pegs. Or some other everyday product.”
-About We Make Carpets
If you read this blog, you know I like to wax poetic about my daily thing, talk about what I like about the thing, what my research turned up, stuff like that. But they are such great storytellers, I think I’d better just let them tell you.
“Brick Carpet was [our] first paid assignment. It was a large outdoor piece of twenty by thirty meters. Two lorries full of bricks arrived. Watching them dump their load was awesome. But the six days of sorting and laying that followed, gave Marcia a severe case of tendonitis. ‘My wrists were squeaking. Literally.’
“That physical aspect is quite something. Those large pieces are heavy, but perhaps the smaller ones are even worse. It puts your whole body under strain. I was working on… a tiny carpet. We had already been at it for a few days. I can’t recall exactly what happened, I probably knocked something over. That just did it. I shouted “I can’t take it anymore”, and then my legs gave out on me.
“The carpets come about in the same way: naturally. There is no design. The material, location and size are set but other than that [we] work intuitively. Anyone can begin. In the centre. Follow long days on [our] knees or in other uncomfortable positions. Often till deep at night. It’s a bit like meditating. We work in unity, always with the three of us, hardly taking any breaks.”
-About WMC
Considering how prolific they are and their work’s complexity, innovation, and sense of humor, these three artists must be positively full of energy and ideas. I could use some of that!
You can follow WMC on their website and Instagram.
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My OBT 
April 3, 2019 at 7:36 am
Oh goodness…I think Iwould go crazy trying to do this.
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April 3, 2019 at 7:37 am
I imagine it would be a good exercise to teach patience if you could get through it.
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April 3, 2019 at 1:36 pm
Very creative. I imagine it would be a mixture of meditative and frustrating to work on such a project. It reminds me a bit of mandala painting with sand.
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April 3, 2019 at 1:58 pm
I get that. Just as ephemeral, but quirkier. I kept imagining myself blundering into finished bits and inventing new curses.
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April 3, 2019 at 3:03 pm
I’ve always thought that about myself in terms of those elaborate domino runs. No way could I be in that space as I’d somehow wreck it all.
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April 3, 2019 at 3:20 pm
Ditto. When we have our gallery, everything’s going to need to be klutz-proofed.
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April 3, 2019 at 4:02 pm
Now I am imagining our opening gala night when, in front of hundreds of people, you trip over your mermaid sequined hem and I wobble off my heels and we knock into the exhibits and it all comes crashing down. We will basically need someone to do the klutz version of babyproofing the space for us.
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April 3, 2019 at 4:37 pm
Hahahaha. Accurate.
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