Germ Floor Fare

Obsessive-compulsives are already acutely aware that most floors teem with nasty microorganisms. But for the rest of us, Bev Hisey makes the point conspicuously clear in her Dirty Dishes series. Originally created as submissions for Radiant Dark 2009, a Toronto design exhibition organized around the theme of Elegant Corruptions, each 40-inch-diameter rug serves as a supersized Petri dish full of magnified bacteria and viruses. It's hard, however, to resist microbes this colorful, even with alarming titles such as SARS, Acinobactor, E. coli, Botulism, Cholera, Influenza, HIV, Streptococcus, and Anthrax. The nine patterns are rendered in New Zealand wool on cotton canvas, using hand-tufted, cut-and-loop constructions with varying pile heights that allow the germs to grow into full dimensionality—no microscope required. 416-703-3418; bevhisey.com. circle 603