Reading Garden is a rug designed for the Children’s section of the Brooklyn Public Library Walt Whitman Branch at 240 Nassau St, Brooklyn commissioned by Cora Fisher and produced with New Zealand wool by Barbara Baran, Classic Rug Collection, Inc.

Unavoidably, it's a work inspired by Whitman's monumental “Leaves of Grass”. Shape and color exploration were the starting point to build the rug, a place of share and safety.

On the outside, a colorful range of books, flora, polarisers and abstract shapes that can be found in nature. On the inside, a Big Leaf shape holds all the outside shapes. As if they were underneath it, we can touch them but we can’t take them under the Big Leaf. The repetition of outside/inside shapes challenges curious to play a memory game. 

Who can find all the shape combinations? 

Taking or not inviting to find all the combinations, this rug is a space of learning and listening, of play and contemplation.