Collaboration Collection: A series of serendipitous encounters resulted in a new, unexpected line of rugs from Sarah Gayle Carter. A friend with an impressive tribal arts collection suggested that Sarah create a series using African art as inspiration. Best known for her classically inspired custom rugs, Sarah was interested but felt tribal designs might not be suited to her normal, hand-tufted and hand-knotted constructions.

A few weeks later, Sarah met a representative from the Rural Poverty Alleviation Program at a conference. She was fascinated by her stories of unemployed weavers in Peru who worked in their homes and were in serious need of commissions. The rep was going to Peru in only a few weeks. Was Sarah interested and could she prepare designs so quickly? Sarah was hooked. "It's one thing to find a great production source, but quite another to actually be able to provide employment for people who've worked hard to preserve ancient skills and who count on those skills for survival. I felt honored to be in the right time and place to be part of this."

The completed designs arrived just hours before the rep left for Peru. Samples were done immediately and Sarah made needed changes. The weavers embraced long hours with enthusiasm. The new collection, in 100% Peruvian wool, debuted at the October market in High Point. The combination of tribal arts inspirations, filtered through Sarah's Anglo-Saxon brain, and then interpreted by Peruvian weavers, is hard to resist.

Sarah's signature wit and style carry through from design to titles such as "Bamboozled", and "Back to Back, Belly to Belly". These rugs are Sarah's tribute to a variety of cultures and a construction that has been handed down for centuries, expertly bridging the gap between one of the world's oldest forms of artistic expressions and one of that tradition's most innovative and whimsical designers.