Christmas
After another restyling, we have our Christmas products on display and will be selling Christmas trees from 1st December. This is a good time at Barbed as our emphasis changes to fun decorations and gifts as well as our normal selection. Don't miss Barnes late night Christmas opening on the 8 th December where we'll be open till 9.00pm – come in and have a glass of wine, a warm and see how Barbed does Christmas.

Grand Designs Live – Birmingham 6-8 October 2006
We like nothing if not putting ourselves under pressure. After a great show at Grand Designs Live at EXCEL Docklands we decided to repeat the experience further north at Grand Designs Live, NEC, Birmingham. New for this show were Jethro Macey's Digital Rose concrete tiles and Outgang's Leaf Motif rubber screens.

So, we had another great show, lots of new contacts, some good business and were surprised how far people were prepared to travel to visit the show; from Scotland to the South coast, from Ireland to East Anglia. A big thanks to all those who stopped off at the Barbed stand.
Go to Grand Designs Live website

This Season | Wild Flowers and Wall Flowers
Barbed Showroom – 12 th October to 24 th November 2006
Two new collections of art work from Ruth Moilliet; each embodies her awareness of the decline of the British wild flower meadow.

One based on her current Meadowlands Exhibition but scaled for interiors, where images of flowers both real, pressed and etched, are projected onto panels and layered for depth. Each panel depicts one wild flower and replicates the profusion in which they used to be found naturally.

Henley Festival – 5-10 th July 2006
Following the theme of the summer, we kept ourselves busy continuing to promote the artwork of Ruth Moilliet. Ruth had been asked to be the featured artist at Henley Festival so off we dutifully went with 10 major works of hers for the installation. Showing there were 2 Alliums one 1.25m diameter and one 95cm diameter, three of her Seed Heads, four Dandelion Parachutes -two of which were suspended from the boughs of a Plane tree and Spanish Moss, a 3.5m long stainless steel and glass sculpture also suspended from the same tree. We even had to use a cherry picker for the installation, that was fun ("little things" and all that, I love using plant). A big thanks to Andy the cherry picker driver without whom, due to stringent Health and Safety requirements, we would have had to abandon all hope. When we finally finished the installation, ten minutes before the Festival opened, we had time to stand back and admire Ruth's sculpture in a setting it was created to be in. It all looked stunning against the backdrop of the Thames and the Henley waterfront properties. I love it when everything works out.

Grand Designs Live - Excel, London – 2-4 th June 2006
No sooner had Chelsea finished we were off to Grand Designs Live. This is the exhibition which was launched on the back of Kevin McCloud's Grand Designs TV programme. We had taken a larger stand than Chelsea and therefore the emphasis could be on furniture.   Products shown were Hello Stranger, a tri-seated bench, a range of beautiful Italian stainless steel and reinforced PVC furniture and the Merendero - a fabulous covered dining area to seat four. This was the first time Merendero had been shown in an exhibition in the UK, we thought this was a bit of a coup. We had also produced Marie- Ruth Oda's Sitable Sculpture in black and placed it alongside the white one; talk about a crowd pleaser, we had constant bums on seats all three days and in the end, contemplated charging. We are so proud of the Sitable Sculpture as it is the first product exclusive to Barbed and the interest shown and initial sales were very promising. Grand Designs Live was great for us so much so that we decided to do the one in Birmingham in early October - so if you didn't make London come up to the NEC and meet us there, where for us it'll be "all change" and we'll be showing more new stuff. Vive la revolution!

Chelsea Flower Show – 22-27 th May 2006
Barbed attendance at the 2006 RHS Chlesea Flower Show was a great way to make our debut into exhibitions. We created a more art based stand than those who know our showroom would be used to, with work by Marie-Ruth Oda - Sitable Sculpture, Kathy Dalwood's concrete baroque tiles, Lisa Pettibone's mirrored glass forms and Ralph Spence's fab concrete Herb Bench. We were proud to be the first to show Ruth Moilliet's new work, a collection of oversized wild flowers, botanically correct and to scale made from stainless steel and acrylic. This is the precursor to an exclusive exhibition of all of Ruth's Wild Flower range at the showroom later in the year - watch this space for details. Of course we also showed Ruth's Stainless Steel Allium and examples of her gorgeous flower-presses. A big thanks to all who visited the stand, if only we could have had some impact on the weather!

Fox Linton - London Design Week 2006
So the Spring season started with an installation of Ruth Moilliet's Dandelion Parachutes into Fox Linton the fabric people in Chelsea Harbour. Fox Linton's showroom has a fabulous vaulted ceiling which enabled us to hang all four Dandelion Parachutes with amazing effect. Also shown here was one of Ruth's Hydrangea Flower Presses which had been commissioned specially to complement a luxurious purple velvet covered sofa.

This season
Have a look at the collections we've been putting together at our Barnes showroom for our regular 'This Season' exhibitons.
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