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Hooked On Nostalgia
By Heather Gaghan
The quiet assuredness in Laura Megroz’s voice is quite a
ruse for the powerhouse of creativity that lies within the artist. Currently
residing in South Londonderry, VT with her family and two black labs, Angus and
Lottie, OJ the cat, and a pinto named Cowboy, Megroz finds inspiration for her
designs in the natural beauty that surrounds her home and in the eyes of the
beautiful animals she shares life with every day.
After graduating from Salem College in Salem, WV and working
for a year in New York City for a bank, she met her husband while skiing in
Vermont at her family’s vacation home. Megroz soon moved to Vermont and began
her all-encompassing artistic career working with leather. She made leather
belts, hats, and chaps for a small time and then moved on briefly to the
eclectic world of dioramas or miniature scenes. Megroz also designed and sold
her own jewelry at various craft fairs, but after having two children Laura
said she would “putter around looking for something outside the box, something
that not everybody else was doing.” And she found it.
Laura began to weave her way to success with her pillow and
sachet designs like the ones above.
When asked about her inspiration to use Labs she says, “I took a picture
of Angus lying on his green bed and thought why don’t you ever see Lab images
with the (dogs) lying down?” Laura
continues, saying that “Labs are so endearing and I love the way they look…” so
it was a natural and intuitive process to incorporate her favorite breed into
her designs.
While selling her new pillow and sachet designs at a local
craft fair she was approached by QVC representatives who wanted her sachets on
their world famous shopping channel. The only kink in the plan was that they
wanted 1500 sachets and she was the only person producing them. Shortly after,
she was also asked to make 250 moose pillows for Gorsuch, an upscale store and
catalog based in Vail, Colorado. It was then that Megroz rethought the idea of mass production!
At a trade show in Vermont, Laura met the man
who would change everything. She knew Henry Chandler owned a company that could
produce her pillows and sachets quicker than she ever could herself, so she
approached him at the show. As Laura recalls, “Once I hooked up with Henry
things changed...within a month he was looking at me and saying ‘you need to
make rugs.’” She remembers thinking, “I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know anything
about making rugs.” In her research on rugs she came upon a beautiful but very
labor intensive handmade design that dated back to the late 1800s- the Hook n’
Braid rug. She decided on this design because it was the perfect way to allow a
more current breed like the Labrador Retriever to appear nostalgic. “I like
nostalgia to seep into everything I do,” the artist says and her designs are
filled with it.
Henry and Laura learned how to make the rug and
brought it with them to a factory in India- the same factory that has been
producing her designs for the last six years. Megroz speaks of her yearly trips
to the factory that is nearly two hours outside of New Dehli with pure delight.
“We are treated like family. The owner picks us up from the airport and drives
us to and from the factory every day.” You can hear the excitement in her voice
as she talks about sitting on the floor of the factory amongst new materials
for her pillows and rugs. She has every reason to be excited - her designs
represent textile technology on the edge because the factory adapted a braiding
machine specifically for her products since Hook n’ Braid rugs have never been
commercially produced until now.
Now that Laura has the time to devote to the art
of her work, she has begun selling the original acrylic paintings that are used
as the creative base for her rugs and pillows. Her work can be found in many
places and was even showcased as the window display at the American Folk Art
Museum gift shop in New York City.
If you want to experience the nostalgia of Laura Megroz’s
rugs and pillows first hand, make sure to visit the annual “Christmas in the
Country” craft fair, currently run by The Mountain School in
Winhall, VT. This successful fair, which Megroz began almost a decade ago and
ran for the first nine years, features local Vermont artists and craftspeople
of the highest quality, with unique skills and unusual crafts to share. The
2004 Fair will be held in Bondville, Vermont at the Winhall Community Center/Mountain
School (Route 30) on Friday and Saturday, November 26th and 27th
from 9-5 pm. Call 802-387-4473 or 802-297-2662.
Laura’s Lab designs can be purchased in the All Labs’ Pillows,
Throws & Rugs Department.
To see her many other cozy creations, visit Chandler Four
Corners.
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