Stories
ABRASH - FLAWED COLOURFIELDS
ON FORTUITY - THE RANDOMNESS OF COLOUR CALLED ABRASH " I tend to reflect that handmade objects....give off a life force, an indefinable resonance, that mechanically produced objects cannot match" Giles Auty, in The Australian. And Jon Thomson ..." It was an education for me to witness the amazement and disbelief of an educated Persian carpet dealer, recently arrived from Persia, when he saw the price paid at auction for a kazak, a coarsely woven, crude looking village carpet with a bold pattern and strong colours. ‘They (tribal/village rugs) are so coarse and ugly, how can they pay so much money?’ he was genuinely distressed. For him the ideal of beauty and desirability was a rug with a perfectly ordered, detailed pattern, finely worked in evenly balanced colours without any mistakes." ABRASH - The Persian word has entered English because there was no existing term to explain the abrupt changes in the intensity of colour often seen in traditional rugs. It is from the root meaning silky and is most commonly caused by the weaver using wool from different dye batches or dyed at different times in the vat. Strands dyed towards the end of the process are normally lighter than those dyed at the beginning when the dye has been freshly prepared and is at full strength. This can be an indication of authenticity as it rarely occurs in mass produced rugs, for although they may still be made by hand the very nature of the cost savings of large production runs requires extensive and therefore uniform dyeing.
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The Attitude of Altitude
Two things. First, traditional handmade wool carpets are a function of altitude. Second, the value of most carpets is related to the level of feminine involvement in the weaving process. The first statement may seem self evident as higher, colder altitudes demand the warmth and insulation of wool. A point is reached with rising latitudes where the summer thaw is too short for the warm-fingered time-intensive work required. There is more than meets the eye however with the second statement. Take a look at the "carpet belt" which stretches across the world from Morocco in the west to China in the east. For instance Morocco has a traditional carpet weaving culture synonymous with the Berber and Arab tribes grazing their flocks in the mountains and high plains. Boys tend the sheep, men prepare the looms, and the women weave. Coastal weaving is of the flat-woven cotton tapestry type carried out in ateliers with flying shuttle looms manned by skilled men. An exception is modern commercial weaving where rugs are hand knotted with an eye on western markets. These are made in similar ateliers regardless of country or tradition. This scenario holds true across the "carpet belt". The modern countries of Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan, the core of the "carpet belt", are almost completely plateaux and mountains. The surrounding countries of Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, the Gulf states, India/Pakistan are mostly under 1000 metres and traditionally produce only flatweaves. The cold northern neighbours, Russia and the "Stans" are mostly at lower altitudes and preferred to make less labour intensive felt rugs. India/Pakistan has a royal carpet weaving culture as opposed to an indigenous grass roots one that stemmed from 700 years of ruling mountain Afghan dynasties. Distinctive also are materials. Cotton requires broad-acre farming which presupposes flat lowland conditions and is so intensive in it's land use it requires land ownership. Cotton fabric is less insulating and cotton weaving is logically a lowland occupation. By contrast sheep pastures are usually elevated and are mostly lands held in common. Wool production and wool weaving are elevated occupations. This appears to be the case generally but many types of traditional mountain village rugs are part cotton in that they have a cotton warp (the longitudinal base threads). The important connection here is commerce. Pure wool rug making is basically value-adding to a family's flock of sheep. All materials come from the family or are produced by someone in the wider clan. Cotton is a trade commodity that must be bought or traded by the mountain rug making people to use instead of their own wool. This implies a cash component in the making of a rug, adding a subsequent cash or trade value to the finished product. Cotton therefore is often found to equate with commercialisation of the rug making process. Look at loom technology and find the number of shafts or "sheds" inversely proportional to the geographic elevation of the loom. Traditionally, knotted pile rugs were made at altitude by family units using simple one shaft looms, while lowlanders produced flatweaves and mass produced rugs. The lowlands are the domain of the fine silk brocades, shawls and other fine clothing fabrics. It is interesting to note that religious fundamentalism seems to be a function of altitude, or lack of it, calling the lowlands and deserts home while the mountains and the high plains are home to a more conservative adherence to traditions with a more liberal outlook. Look at a map of say, the USA and find that topographically, the "Barble Belt" equates with the "green" areas. Do this with maps of relevant parts of Asia for a similar result. There are connections between the low country, mass production and religious fundamentalism, and the high country, family weaving and liberalism. Mass production involves working men with jobs outside the family whereas family weaving is done by the women of the house. Social mores also seem to follow this altitude-specific way of life. Travelling from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Mountains of Kurdistan or Karabagh one sees more women and fewer veils. Similarly from the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Persia and Afghanistan one sees increasing liberalism, even Sufism, and personal eccentricity and creativeness coming to the fore. Traditional knotted pile weaving flourished in the freedom of liberal but conservative communities driven by family, community and a complex and nourishing mysticism. Family designs, clan motifs, and talismans are all part of a rich vocabulary that evolved over long periods. Like musical harmonies these designs form colourfields in an endless interplay where rug weaving becomes a form of prayer, of connection with the universal, a humble submission to the will of God, the definition of Islam. It is this that gives the Oriental Carpet true value.
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Islamic Timeline
The Timeline dates below are the Gregorian Calander, CE. 570 Birth of Prophet Muhammad, Makkah 610 Muhammad's first revelation 622 Muhammad & Muslims emigrate to Madinah; Year one of the Muslim Calender 630 Muslims return to Makkah 632 Death of Muhammad. Beginnings of Shia, the supporters of Ali bin Abi Taleb, Muhammad's son-in-law, and one of the first Muslims. The Sunni supported Abu Bakr, Muhammad's close associate. 656 Ali becomes caliph 661 Ali murdered by the Syrian Muawiyah. Shia sect developed. Umayyad caliphate established at Damascus by Sunnis with Muawiyah caliph. 680 Ali's son Hossein killed at Battle of Karbala. Shia formation completed. 691 Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem 711 Muslims enter Spain from Morocco 750 Abbasid caliphate established, Iraq 794 State- owned paper mills established in Baghdad 800 Harun al-Rashid embassy to Charlemagne 825 Kwarizmi writes concept of zero in maths 850 Early treatises on the astrolabe 900 Tales of 1001 Nights 1010 Firdowsi presents The Shahnama at Afghan Ghaznavid court, Persia 1258 Mongols sack Baghdad 1325 Ibn Battuta leaves Tangier for China 1370 Tamerlane rebuilds Samarkand 1429 Ulugh Beg completes observatory at Samarkand 1453 Ottomans take Constantinople, becomes Istanbul 1498 Vasco da Gama and his Arab navigator set sail from Portugal 1502 Persian Safavid dynasty established with Shia the state religion 1526 Mughal dynasty established in India 1722 Afghans defeat Persians. 1732 End of Safavid dynasty 1747 Afghanistan founded by Ahmad Shah Durani 1869 Suez Canal 1922 Ottomans end. Modern Turkey begins. 1932 Saudi Arabia founded 1967 Aga Khan foundation established 1970 Hasan Fathy's "Architecture for the Poor" 1978 Islamic Revolution in Persia, world's first theocracy 1979 Abdul Salam Nobel Prize for Physics 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan 1983 Muhammad Yunus founds Grameen Bank, Bangaladesh 1988 Naquid Mafouz Nobel Prize for Literature 1998 Petronas Towers, world's tallest building, Kuala Lumpur 1999 Ahmed H. Zewail Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2001 Ahmad Shah Massoud assassinated 2001 World Trade Centre known as 9/11. 2011 Tarwakel Karman Nobel Peace Prize O mankind! We created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other, not that ye may despise each other. Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is here most righteous. The Quran, Chapter 49 Verse 13.
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History and this Berber Rug
The history of weaving is like this rug. In the beginning there was Neolithic Cave-stylised animals followed by millennia of design development. The sophisticated Persian Rug we see today has been perfected for over two millennia, with ethnic and commercial additions becoming part of the rich history. Here we see the Neolithic animals in the border and geometric shapes carrying their own ciphers of meaning in the field and inner borders.
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How long does it take?
I watch a scene completely surreal in appearance, but firmly rooted in practical science. Bejewelled, unveiled and kohl-eyed tribeswomen chatter in surroundings as modern as tomorrow: Men with white coats and hairnets move about behind the glass, checking temperature gauges on metre-diameter stainless steel vats. The haughty women exude a brash confidence, mistresses of their universe, relaxed and cavalier in their approach: The men by comparison look like overworked tea ladies. These large rooms, each with a dozen or so vats deliver a quality of dyed wool for which the region has been famous since other locals dyed the colours in the famous Pazyryk Carpet 2400 years ago. The women deliver their undyed spun wools and collect their previous deliveries custom-coloured to their specifications. They will use this wool, in beautiful naturally dyed shades, in their homes, weaving, they believe, the lives of their families into existence. In modern economic parlance they are sheep graziers value-adding to their primary production. Their work is not travail, it is kismet, destiny, and is destined for far away Australia via my own established carpet business. I feel a deep sense of belonging as I continue to play my part in these age-old traditions. Certainly these people afford me that love and respect. I am the merchant and the Prophet was a merchant. The French colossus Henri Matisse came from a family of weavers and I feel deeply honoured to be in such company. These days we Australians and Europeans know enough about hand-knotted carpets that we are prepared to pay for recognisable quality. The general public is quite au fait, and no longer chauvinistic. The Mysterious East is no longer mysterious; real people live there and their lives are as fascinating as people anywhere. Young tribal women and men can now actively consider a future in their own traditions rather than joining the urban factory poor. Like our original Australians, whose aesthetic abilities and determination to tell their tales has resulted in artworks that command the highest international respect, the tribes of Persia are similarly telling their tales. The primary difference in this comparison is that the carpet is a family affair, no one signature can be put to a carpet. It cannot be signed by one person, only the family or clan name can be the signature. Why? The sons who herd the sheep and help with selective breeding, and their fathers who know when to move to new pastures on the migration routes, when to shear, and how to separate the fleece into its different uses are the ancient fundamental beginning. Then there are the jobs of washing and carding the fleece, spinning the fibres and plying the yarn, done by all the family, and the girls who collect the dye plants, the grandmothers who teach the weaving traditions, the loom makers and their sons who warp the loom, all are a necessary and equal part of the final artwork: the carpet. The actual weavers, mostly sisters, who squat together, happily chatting and knotting the same carpet, are just one of many stages in the process. Finally there are the all-important finishing jobs, the carpet washers, stretchers, and repairers-of-mistakes. This is truly a family affair. The dyeing and sometimes the loom making are the only jobs done outside the family. No money changes hands, nobody is paid, and all have equal gain. Traditional leaders, akin to English Dukes and Earls, wear the same clothes and eat with their families and share the tasks. Quite often I am asked how long it takes to make a carpet and the question is really unanswerable because this traditional weaving does not fit a western economic time and motion study, but belongs in a completely different paradigm. Certainly we can say that an accomplished weaver of this type of carpet may do up to three or four thousand knots a day with a facility equal to my own grandmother’s knitting. If there were say, 9 people available domestically, probably 3 weavers would work on the carpet at any one time. If ten thousand knots were tied in a day, at an average of 8 knots per square centimetre, an average room size carpet measuring 3x2m would be completed every 48 days during the season. This assumes of course that all the other tasks have been completed, and the next spare loom has been warped and is waiting in a different tent, a rare occurrence. Most often a party is required to start weaving a carpet. It could take up to a week to prepare for such an event. A carpet party may be held to celebrate or commemorate a birth or a marriage and is a great opportunity for married sisters to get back together.
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Modern Kelim Weaving
On the roofs and in the yards of family homes all around the village area of Lahore, Pakistan, Kelims are being woven in various modern stripe patterns with the most vibrant vegetable colours. Looms are simply made from local wood or bamboo and secured to the ground with large tent pegs. A very basic setup, purely traditional, and with tarps shading from the sun, it is a cool, airy and comfortable place to weave.
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Persian Flora
PERSIAN FLORA Have you ever been asked if you have a favourite period or epoch you’d like to return to by Time Machine? Well I like Timurid Herat, 15th century for its balanced intellect. Horticulture was just as important as astronomy and mathematics. Try to imagine the English cottage garden without hollyhocks. Viewing the paintings of the Herat School one sees a profusion of these flowers. In fact, early European travellers remarked on the seemingly infinite profusion of wildflowers that had been domesticated. Alexander the Great’s Macedonians introduced the lemon and the peach to Europe from Persia. The Mediterranean knew the seville and the citron but imagine Mediterranean food without the humble lemon. The saffron crocus also came west, and to this day the Persia are proud it is their own, even suggesting like their carpets, that all others are fakes or imitations at best. Other than her carpets nothing is more Persian than the rose. I have seen the original single petal Dog Rose Growing semi-wild around Shiraz in southern Persia. This area, the Persian heartland for 2500 years, is considered the home of the rose, with communities of rose oil distillers boasting a similar lineage. The unusual Frittilaria Lily appeared in Vienna in 1576, causing a similar stir to the Tulip. Although the Tulip was first introduced into Europe from Istanbul by Dutch merchants it is considered to originate in the fertile high valleys of east Persia and came to Istanbul with the Turkic migrations of circa 1300. Persia is gardens with flowers made perennial in rugs and carpets. We humbly introduce you to this exquisite garden at The Bangalow Rug Shop.
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Pure Cognition
We look at an old carpet made under the original conditions and we see a complexity of design. Symbols of flora and fauna and spirits dense with subjectivity. The eye recognises the presence of colour. Perceptions change and the attentive consciousness shifts from the measurable world to the immeasurable as the design is seen to become less and less important, a simple construct, a value judgement, even meaningless xenophobic bigotry, and, finally a vehicle for colour alone. Only colour has a life of it’s own and only colour can speak directly - the designs are merely the script. The arrangement of colour then allows the carpet to release it’s inner self. This is the point at which we can feel what it is to actually be human, elevated to our essential humanity, in contact with the carpet’s makers and the archaic heart at the bottom of us all. This is pure cognition - seeing with the heart!
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