This is a story of serendipity, of how the universe works in mysterious ways, of how nature imitates design and vice versa.

As you can see from the image below, I live on a marina in the coastal town of League City, TX, which is about 30 minutes north of Galveston and 30 minutes southeast of downtown Houston. I took this image at sunset one late afternoon by walking out my front door, and turning to the right.

The sun’s rays were magnificent that evening and I enhanced them even more on this photo by using the DRAMA filter on the SNAPSEED app.

Nature influences everything I do, as it did the design of my AILA sink for Thompson, but my Midjourney image for AILA did not include a drain.

The design of the drain for AILA was a technological feat for Thompson to achieve as they had to design a functional drain that didn’t ruin the design aesthetic and everyone that saw that drain at KBIS commented on it.

Here’s the real AILA sink and the next image is a close up of AILA’s drain.

[ If you want to see the underside of the AILA sink, click this link to view AILA in 3D so you can turn the sink upside down on your screen ]

But this isn’t a story about tech, this is a story about serendipity, and about how design and nature echo each other.

SERENDIPITY

So, a few weeks after I got home from KBIS, I was getting off my elevator one late afternoon at sunset, and saw the sun shining through the leaves of the palm tree in front of the elevator. The way the light illuminated the shape of the center of the palm fronds was so beautiful it struck me immediately and I stopped to take a picture - the picture you see in the opening image of this post.

But what didn’t strike me until my friend, interior designer Virginia Marshall Youngblood, pointed it out to me was how much the center of that palm frond looked like my AILA sink’s drain!

I wasn’t aware of that at ALL when I took the image, but sure enough, when I juxtaposed the two, it was an almost exact match.

And not only was the center of the palm frond an almost exact match for the drain that the Thompson’s designed into AILA, but the way the light radiated through the leaves of the fronds was an almost exact duplicate of AILA’s interior.

To say I was stunned when this was pointed out to me would be a huge understatement. It gave me shivers up and down my spine.

So much has changed in one year, for me [and for many of us with the advent of AI ] but what hasn’t changed - and what will never change for me - is my love of natural beauty, my love of the handmade and the maker’s mark [ even when AI is used to generate the initial design concept as it was for AILA ] and my devotion to bringing forms into the world - or into my own life - that generate feelings of wellness, calm and peace.

Here’s a look at AILA in its raw state when the coppersmithing artisans that the Thompson’s employ were first hammering it out from a solid sheet of copper, the oldest mineral ever found in the earth, over 10,000 years ago.

It makes me so happy to think that AILA mimics nature like this, that it’s made of a material found in the earth, that the finish is not chemical but achieved through firing in the earth and that it holds water, earth’s most precious resource.

It’s a product that is completely natural, made by the hands of artisans who’ve been practicing a craft passed down to them through their families since the 16th century in Santa del Cobre, Mexico, close to the birthplace of Alejandra Ochoa de Thompson, the founder and Creative Director of Thompson who has made this chapter in the book of my life possible for me.

Alejandra, Alex, Cliff, JJ, Sammy and Cliff, Sr. thank you so much for being the loving, generous, family you are. I feel so fortunate to have had this opportunity to collaborate with you on AILA. What a blessing you have been in my life, in so many ways.

And Andrew and Bill, if you see this post: you, as well. Thank you for everything.

After contemplating the serendipity of all of this, I was reminded of all I had learned at the Science In Design Summit that I attended during last Fall’s #HPMKT about biophilia, fractals and design. A field that interests me greatly given that I am also a trained labyrinth facilitator through Dr. Lauren Artress’s program at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco — but that is a story for another day.

And so, today, one week before #HPMKT starts, I thought I would share THIS story with you.

A note: I won’t be at #HPMKT this Spring, for the first time in many years, as I will be speaking in May at the Midwest Design and Furniture Fair in Kansas City about AILA - with Andrew Holben, who will be sharing the stage with me.

It was Andrew, Thompson’s National Director of Sales, who had the idea for AILA after hearing me speak about AI for content at the inaugural Vacation Rental Designers Summit last Spring.

The story of AILA was told in the recent Spring issue of Design KC magazine, an image of which is shown below, and if you’d like to read that story, click here. Andrew was also interviewed for it.

I love the way the editors captioned my original AI generated image of the AILA sink that opens this story.

HERITAGE/FUTURE - forging soul into the world’s first AI-generated sink design.

I could not have dreamt up anything better…that explains it exactly.

As always, thank you for reading my posts. I am so appreciative and I hope [ if you are attending High Point Market ] that you have a wonderful time!

By the way, the Thompsons live in Greensboro, [with the exception of Sammy, who lives in San Antonio ] so if you see them there, and don’t know them yet, please walk up and say hello!

And if you are interested in owning AILA for yourselves, or purchasing AILA for a client?

Please contact Thompson at https://www.thompsontraders.com .

Thank you!

Leslie Carothers, Principal
Savour Partnership

IG
LI

PS: if you are reading this post on Friday, April 5th, 2024, the #AILAchallenge ends tonight, Friday, April 5th, 2024 at midnight, 12 pm EST and Thompson will be announcing the winner of their $1000.00 cash prize on Monday afternoon on their IG feed.

The #AILAchallenge is open to anyone 18 YO or older in the US or Canada and I wrote this post about How To Enter this easy, creative and fun challenge that also helps you practice your AR [ augmented reality ] skills:

https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog/what-i-wanted-to-speak-about-at-highpointmarket-but-wont-be