Still reliving Marrakech, our loveliest project was stenciling a large custom lace pattern on a little sweetheart’s floor. Maryam wrote a beautiful post about her daughter here, and we were lucky to get an assist from darling Skylar herself.

She was very patient, meticulous, and quite proud-as well she should be!

The lace was simply done with grey concrete paint over a white base….

…and the large pattern was completed using two different sections. The stencil is NOW available through our Royal Design Studio website here. I so enjoyed working out this lace pattern that I am anxious to do more. Imagine how inspired I feel to have come back across a website for artist Cal Lane that I archived months ago that features gorgeous lace patterns used quite unexpectedly. As in….

Wheelbarrows and shovels….

…dumpsters….

…oil drums…

…and car parts.

This work is reminiscent of that from the Designed in Dust post and Cal also plays off that idea in some of her installation work. These patterns here are all plasma-cut from steel objects with the idea of creating “desirable oppositions”. From the artist’s statement

I like to work as a visual devil’s advocate, using contradiction as a vehicle for finding my way to an empathetic image, an image of opposition that creates a balance - as well as a clash - by comparing and contrasting ideas and materials.This manifested in a series of “Industrial Doilies”, pulling together industrial and domestic life as well as relationships of strong and delicate, masculine and feminine, practical and frivolity, ornament and function. There is also a secondary relationship being explored here, of lace used in religious ceremonies as in weddings, christenings and funerals.

This work truly blows me away. Let there be lace!

Updated 2/27/09
Skylar’s Lace is an international sensation (thanks to Maryam’s gorgeous photos and insane popularity). How cool that is it featured on Design*Sponge, de (coeur) acao, ZSOFI berendez!, Wide Open Spaces and More Ways to Waste Time. I don’t even know what language some of these are in but I’m grateful!