“The [artist] has the Universe in his mind and hands.”

Leonardo da Vinci adapted by E.W.

I describe my work as an interior designer as a dream interpreter, and that as I’ve said before is really awesome!

I’ve had clients coming to me looking for all kinds of items that do not exist in any catalog, so my job is to start from scratch. I have to be confident enough that we can deliver what we promise on time, with safety, functionality, quality and aesthetics.

I could design anything really beautiful on a piece of paper but I would still need skillful hands to make it a reality. That is where consummate artists or artisans come into play.

Every year I extend the number of great artists I meet and with that the number of challenges I take on, of course there is always the chance our client doesn’t like what we do, however that number is really minimum, every time we deliver a new creation, our customers are completely awed.

Today I am going to tell you about our most recent artistic challenge. I met Suzanne and Kelly last year, they came in for a color/home consultation, so I went to visit their place and they asked advice on a few things besides color, placement of art pieces, lighting and so forth.

From the beginning on I could see this couple has a great appreciation for color and above all for Mexico. We went from a white palette on the walls to a cherry red and Mexican yellow for the living space, green for the guest bedroom and cobalt blue for the master bedroom, to me they all are welcoming and happy colors.

After a few changes to the wall accessories in the house we still had the main wall in the living room empty. We wanted to bring the ocean in, sort of extending the view they have at their condo, we knew we needed a large mirror.

This specific process took weeks to take form. The husband wanted something more organic than the usual shape of rectangular mirrors, the wife wanted color. They were about to buy a couple of different mirrors, one they found at our store and another they saw back in the US, fortunately they didn’t.

One day we happened to be talking about the outside table they just had purchased from Victor Alemán and about their never accomplished project of making a tile table top for their existing table; the tile wouldn’t work for the outside environment so they were stuck with those beautiful clay tiles.

I put together these exact three elements into play: their clay tile, the artist I knew, namely, Rey David Montes, and our expertise, to suggest the making of one-of-kind organic-Mexican-themed -tiled-mirror.

By then I had already gained their trust. Their place started to look more like what they had envisioned and now they only needed the cherry on top.

I don’t really know when I first met Rey David, but he was the only one I could fully trust to take over this project. I had seen their work for a few years already, but last year he made something that really impressed me. During the signing of books by Don Guillermo Munro, I took a picture of him that became iconic for his traveling tour presenting his most recent novel “Hombres Valientes”, well a few months after I took that shot and during a ceremony in Hermosillo honoring Don Guillermo I saw Rey David had used the very same photo to a 36X36” picture composed of tiny pieces of tile, something really awesome!

Also during the Eddie’s gala in January at our store, Rey David, also donated a handsome piece representing an Aztec symbol for ‘speech’, this piece was raffled off that night amongst the attendance.

So, I called Rey David and asked him if he was up for the challenge, he was more nervous than I was about both the design and the end result. He hadn’t done anything as big as this request. He showed us a draft of what he understood I had asked for on behalf of my clients and it was really great.

He drew a climbing plant and some symbols again of the Aztec culture representing a large shell. He also incorporated the ocean and its waves giving some movement to the design. I felt the idea lack color and more Mexican flare.

I suggested bougainvilleas flowers instead of just the green plant and corn being an important ingredient of the Mexican tortillas I asked for a corn plant. The end result was absolutely amazing!

Rey David complemented the existing tile and gave life to this idea while I coordinated the work of the carpenter and our glass supplier. Another important feature of this mirror that looks like a mural is really hanging from the wall, meaning the owner could take it down and travel with it if they decided to do so in the future. Nothing easy though since the finished project weighs approximately 200 lbs. of grout and 100 lbs. for the glass mirror besides the weight wooden frame and of the thousands of pieces of tile.

At the time of writing this article our clients have only seen pictures of this colossal mirror of a little less than 10X7 feet!

When they saw the photos they immediately sent the following email:

Hello Eddie,

We can’t even begin to say how awesome that mirror looks!! It is more beautiful than we ever imagined. We can’t wait to see it in person…Please tell Rey how much we love it and that we noticed all the fabulous details (like the hummingbird drinking from the flower) he added. I’m sure we will see even more hidden treasures when we see it close up in person.

Thanks for helping us get this amazing piece into our home! We look forward to seeing you next trip.

With much appreciation,

Suzanne and Kelly

We finish our contribution this month with their note, hoping you stop by our shop to take a peek at what we have but more importantly to pick our brain to help you create what is yet to exist. It will be our pleasure!

Written by Eddie Wharez® Interior designer and owner of Diseños Casa y Jardín.

You can reach us at eddiewharez@yahoo.com US (602) 324-9328 Mx (638) 383-8633