LIFE, LEMONS AND WHY IT HELPS TO BE CREATIVE

Like many of you, we were surprised and confused to suddenly find ourselves working from home in the middle of March. Our gorgeous new showroom abandoned; no access to our colour lab with its thousands of wool samples; finished rugs languishing in FedEx limbo; our mills on the other side of the world closed to weavers who, together with their families, rely on this work … 

Designer Madeleine Baigent showed us her work world at home.

As we settled into our home work stations, one of our first priorities was to tackle the issue of how best to support our artisan colleagues at the mills we partner with in Nepal and Afghanistan. Initially we sent money directly to the mills where our handknotted rugs are made. Later we were able to support our fair trade partner Label STEP with a program aimed at meeting the specific needs of our fair trade mills and their workers.

A Label STEP inspector distributes basic food packages in April in Afghanistan.

Back in Canada Creative Matters was grateful to be able to access a few support programs for small business from the federal government, including one that topped up the wages of our staff when we temporarily needed to reduce their working hours. “However, to our surprise and delight, we were soon able to maintain our complete staff full time. We have had continuous high quality and creative work that has kept every team member engaged,” said Vice President Ana Cunningham.

What working at home looks like for President Carol Sebert.

When asked about the projects she was managing, Vice President Ali McMurter said that during this work-from-home period she was nevertheless able to continue forward through sampling and production of floorcoverings in India, Nepal, Thailand, China and Afghanistan for guest rooms and public areas for a New York hotel; sampling and production for several residential projects; and sampling in the U.S. for another New York hotel.

Logistic Manager Julie Baldwin’s drawing of her home work setup.

An inveterate multi-tasker, Sandra – along with six others – also shared the Creative Matters Art Day concept with a video of a #stayhomeartday project for the housebound. Their wonderful how-to videos were enjoyed by young and old alike who found themselves with a yearning to “get creative.”

As an ever-growing design studio, we had projects in every stage of development when the pandemic hit. Our challenge was to ensure we could continue to meet the expectations of our clients. For projects in the design stage we initiated a process where we shipped the clients a pom box and met via video conferencing with the same pom box at our end. This enabled us to discuss the colours and make adjustments.

Creative Matters pom box - 480 carefully curated shades to bring your rug designs to life.

Fortunately for clients who had handtufted projects in the works or who needed a floorcovering urgently, our mill in Thailand had started COVID-19 screening protocols quite early and has remained open since the start of the pandemic. The handknotting artisans in Nepal and Afghanistan were mainly back at work by the end of April but few commercial flights are operating from their airports. Imagine our delight when in May samples arrived from Afghanistan for our collection rug collaboration with Métis artist Christi Belcourt.

A sample of Four Cedar Waxwings, Creative Matters' handknotted version of the work by Christi Belcourt.

In June a new Creative Matters website launched our first online store. Clients who need a rug immediately can now see for themselves which of our collection rugs are available to be shipped from Toronto for delivery just a few days later.

Creative Matters’ new online store shows all the collection rugs currently available for immediate shipping from the Toronto warehouse.

New business development must also go on, so we have a fresh webinar lunch n’ learn presentation showcasing the latest custom work and rug collections we’ve been working on and - for clients new to Creative Matters - a recap of our services and how we work. Instead of serving lunch, we plan to donate to Label STEP or a charity of their choosing. Contact Ana if you’d like to book one for your team.

Working from home by Designer Kayla Bortolotto.

As far as returning to our studio goes, we’re following government health protocols.  We hope to soon have rotating teams so that each of us is in the office about two days a week, working from home for the remainder of the time. We’re fortunate to have expanded our space last year and can now spread staff over three floors to ensure we are physically distanced from each other.

As we have all found, it is amazing what can be accomplished from a home office. By Creative Matters Designer Anna Panosyan.

“Even after my 20+ years at Creative Matters, I am stunned how our staff, our clients and our suppliers came together in ‘unprecedented times’ to maintain the creation of the finest floor and wallcoverings,” said Ana. “To ensure continued success, we recognize the importance of remaining agile in our response as the pandemic situation changes.”