A new 2024 product, it finds its expression through a complex design made possible by hand-tufted craftsmanship
Water has always been the muse of artists and poets. It enchants with its tranquillity, as in the case of Claude Monet’s water lilies, and amazes with its power in Hokusai’s Great Wave. To most, paying homage to water might seem easy – many poets have succeeded, from García Lorca to Baudelaire, from Gabriele D’Annunzio to Eugenio Montale – but it’s easy to lose one’s way…
And above all, it takes the sensitivity of those, like Warli, who know how to interpret the material in its purity, and of Bartoli Design, a historic Made in Italy name, who put their mark on it. Molecules of creativity that, like oxygen and hydrogen, have combined to create Waters, a series of handtufted rugs made with New Zealand wool and viscose. And such a project could only begin with a series of watercolours, where the one dictating the rules and setting the boundaries of the design is water itself.
The product development, the designers recount, took place in close collaboration with Warli and required many technical trials to fine-tune, lasting over four years, but we encountered a company determined to achieve the result. It was also an opportunity to strengthen the friendship that binds us to Paolo Zani, owner and art director of the company’.
Many were the challenges, starting with the coloured parts of the designs, which were initially too dominant and had to be softened and resized to achieve a balanced result and create rugs full of character that are still easy to place anywhere. The liquid material had to transform into something solid, but without losing the fluid and impalpable effect of water when it touches the white sand, the ochre earth, and wets the grass through sparkling rivulets.
The New Zealand wool, with its matte and uniform effect, and the viscose naturally iridescent – thus became the ‘pigments to create, in the central area of the rugs, glimmers that recalls unlight when it illuminates the surface of water. This creates a point of interest in the coloured and shaded part of the rug, while the rest is of regular colour and less bright. The Waters rugs are hand-tufted and available in circular, oval, and rectangular shapes, and in three delicate and natural colours. Hand-tufted rugs are made by twisting the fibres around the cotton weft of the support.
Using a needle tool, the artisan threads and cuts the yarn onto a base canvas on which the design to achieve is reproduced. The yarn is then fixed to the weft with a coating of natural latex, to which a heavy cotton canvas is adhered. Hand tufting allows the creation of complex designs in relatively short times compared to knotting, while also producing extremely durable rugs.
