Rose Haugland lives colour, thinks colour, works colour. It’s in the brilliantly embroidered blue jeans she might wear on a weekday, part of an arty, fashion-forward wardrobe; it’s in the signature glass panels and ceramic tiles produced at Panache Ceramic Industries, her one-of-a-kind studio-factory downtown; it’s in the plans she has to make Edmonton a richer, more vibrant place.
“We absolutely need some colour in Edmonton, some big art. And we’re excited about the future locally, never mind internationally,” says Haugland, who combines a producer/director’s eye for a trend with the drive of a pioneering entrepreneur.
A longtime businesswoman whose interests have ranged over the years from franchising ice cream outlets to marketing tile and stone, she founded Panache in 1994, creating small handmade art tiles for fireplace surrounds and other typical home and commercial uses. Since then, the company has evolved into a genuine design house with a reputation for innovation both in ceramics and its large-scale, instantly recognizable glass panels (local examples can be found in Sorrentino’s, Lux, Kyoto and Lazia restaurants).
Haugland draws inspiration for large pieces of glass (which might be used as a room divider, a backlit bar or a welcoming element for a business) from design-related sources — anything from fabrics to car finishes to street art. At her capacious new studio in Capital arts Place on 107th Street, where there’s both a showroom and factory, her dream is then realized by one of the artists on her staff of 10. They’ll sculpt the bed of glass before it goes into a state-of the-art kiln at the back of the premises, then hand-glaze it and fire it again.
“It literally goes from glass to art,” says one of Haugland’s longtime clients, Chris Kourouniotis, a senior interior designer at Kasian architecture. “She also pioneered the baking of different materials into glass.” He praises her for “grabbing the residential design market, from downtown condos to Windermere Estates, and on the commercial side all the way from dental labs to fast-food sinks.”
Further afield, Panache’s tiles, vessels and architectural glass panels can be found all across North America, thanks to U.S. and Canadian distributors who know and like her work.
In this city, Haugland is known as a mentor to up-and-coming talents; she holds frequent Thursday evening salons where they can fool around and experiment. “I wouldn’t know glass-art without her,” says artist Manola Borrajo-Giner, who now creates both paintings and glass panels.
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