View from the Fringe Newsletter of the New England Rug Society
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View from the Fringe Newsletter of the New England Rug Society Vol. XIV, No. 3 February 2007 www.ne-rugsociety.org February Meeting: John Collins on Persian Rugs Plus Silent Auction to Benefit Josephine Powell Center At our next meeting, John Collins will provide a broad overview of Persian carpets, from tribal to city February Meeting Details production. The meeting will be held at John’s Date: Friday, February 16 Watertown gallery. Time: 7:30PM When John last addressed an NERS meeting on Place: Collins Gallery, 694 Mount Auburn 9/21/03, we had the following (with some modifications) Street, Watertown to say about him: “Like many dealers, John started out as a collector. Eventually, his growing inventory and Directions: shifting tastes induced him to start selling, and he opened From Harvard Square take Mount Auburn street his first gallery in Newburyport in 1979. Since then, he west 1.5 miles. The Collins Gallery will be on your has held many exhibitions and published a number of right, just before a sign saying “Celebrity Pizza.” If catalogs, mostly relating to South Persian tribal and vil- you get to the Arlington street intersection you’ve lage weavings. Since 2005 his gallery has been located gone a little too far. in Watertown. He has published articles in HALI and From Watertown Square take Mount Auburn street Oriental Rug Review, and has addressed many rug so- (Rte. 16) east for 1.6 miles. The Collins Gallery will cieties and conferences, including several ACOR ses- be on the left, just beyond the ”Celebrity Pizza” sign, sions.” a little after you cross the major Arlington street A big rug book and Hali sale will take place at intersection. the meeting. Here is your chance to take home some You can also get there by taking the MBTA bus great rug literature at bargain basement prices…..and line 71 from Harvard or Watertown Square. know that your dollars are going to a most worthy rug- Parking: Parking lot in back of gallery (driveway is world charity! between the gallery and the pizzeria), and on street. See pages 5 and 8 for sale details! See March meeting details on page 6 March Meeting: Fred Ingham to lead Good Rug/Great Rug Session Good Rug/Great Rug, a show that was origi- you just bought would have fared under the panel’s scru- nated by Mark Hopkins, is coming back home on March tiny. This program is fun and engaging, and promises to 23 (details on page 6) with a new master of ceremo- give you new tools for appreciating rugs and textile art. nies—Fred Ingham. This program focuses on making Fred Ingham has wide-ranging interests in textile aesthetic judgments—what separates a good rug from a art. He is the co-founder and head of the Seattle Textile great one? What are the characteristics that can make and Rug Society. He is also a member of the Board of one rug sell for six figures, while another can’t sell at any Directors of The American Conference on Oriental Rugs price? The format of the program combines connois- (ACOR) and served as Co-Chair of the 2004 ACOR seurship with insightful commentary, as a panel of ex- conference in Seattle, WA. He has been a trustee of perts rates and comments on images of rugs not previ- The Textile Museum in Washington, DC, since 2005, ously known to them. Come and find out if your tastes where he had previously spent two terms on the Advi- are contrarian or conventional; gain an insight into what sory Council. He and his wife Susan’s rug and textile distinguishes good from great; and imagine how that rug collecting interests span five continents. Page 2 View from the Fringe December Meeting: Fred Mushkat on “Warp-Faced Bands from Tribal Iran” Reviewed by Jim Adelson On December 1, Fred Mushkat spoke to the alternating floating wefts (used less frequently because NERS about his collecting focus: warp-faced Persian it’s not as strong); warp-faced reciprocal warp weave, bands. Fred is one of the very few collectors of this and warp twining. Some pieces combine several struc- material; he speculated that one major reason is that the tures—in particular, warp twining was used for edges of bands are so hard to display. He also noted that, with bands where the main body utilized a different structure. these weavings, it’s easy for Western eyes to see things The bands were universally woven on a ground that aren’t really there—to wax romantic, and to inter- loom. It was difficult for nomads to lug around the larger pret the iconography very subjectively. vertical looms. Also, some of the bands were too long Fred said that he had originally started collecting to lend themselves easily to vertical looms. The weav- other things and got interested in these bands about 20 ing activity could apparently be very social around the years ago. He was drawn to their ethnographic nature— ground loom, as Fred displayed in a picture of a sizable there was no commercial aspect to these weavings. They group of Bakhtiari women, only a few directly partici- also had a unique design vocabulary not shared with pating in the weaving, the others talking and looking on. rugs and other weavings, due to the structural require- The basic structure of warp-faced bands dictates ments of the form. two colors in the vertical direction. Color was some- Fred described the many uses of the bands. Most times added through woven-in tufts. One of Fred’s fa- often, they were used to secure baggage onto animals, vorite examples, demonstrating the weaver’s humor, had such as donkeys and camels. Sometimes the “animals” a blue tuft serving as hair on a woman’s head (see pic- were humans—Fred showed a picture where a woman ture on p. 9). He remarked that for him this was another was using a short band, called a takel, to carry a baby. charming facet of these weavings—in some ways they Warp-faced tent bands were also common, and often are freer and more emotive than normal rugs. had tassels on both ends, in contrast to the animal bands The buckles represented an art form in their own with a buckle for fastening. Bands were used as head- right (see picture on p. 3). The designs were stamped dresses, embellished with beads or shells. And like so or carved. Sometimes the buckles had been separated many other weavings, they also had secondary uses— and collected on their own, and in other cases they may Fred showed a picture of Bakhtiari children who had have been removed to reduce weight when the weavings fashioned a swing from a warp-faced band. were shipped. In their normal use, the buckles outlived Fred spent some time outlining the structures used the bands and got reused. The ethnographer Peter for warp-faced bands. He contrasted bands with more Andrews found that the bands only lasted about 10 years common weft-faced structures, such as the slit-tapestry in the field, while some buckles were quite old—per- weave of a Qashqa’i kilim. For weavings like kilims, haps as much as a couple of hundreds of years, although the exposed wefts provide the design, whereas in the it’s very hard to tell. bands, the warps create the design. Bands have an extensive iconography. Human Persians use five variations of warp-faced struc- forms were used frequently. Some of the human depic- tures. The first is one-weft double cloth, where two tions have an apparent sexual aspect, with discernible layers of weaving share a single, common weft. With genitalia or babies in utero. In other cases, the human this technique, even though the design is visible on both forms emphasize other features, such as an example of a sides, the dark background is generally seen on the ob- shepherd with a rifle. Other domestic items, such as verse or front side, and the light background on the re- jewelry, were featured. Weavers depicted several types verse or back side. The other four types are warp- of animals, both real (birds) and mythical (dragons). Flo- faced plain weave with warp substitution; warp face with Continued on page 3 Page View from the Fringe 3 December Meeting Continued from page 2 warp-faced substitution technique. There were also ral and other vegetal forms were used as well. In all Baluch bands from Afghanistan. cases, the depiction typically relied on alternation of color, Fred followed his slides and remarks with an ex- since that provided much greater structural strength than tensive showing of pieces that he had brought from his a solid block of color. collection. There were many examples, with just a few Fred went on to outline the distinguishing charac- cited here. One of Fred’s favorites was a large frag- teristics of the different tribal groups. The Qashqa’i wove ment of a Qashqa’i band with cotton whites that almost primarily pack bands; their goat-hair tents didn’t require seemed to be a family portrait, showing a father with tent bands. They used one-weft double cloth, and rarely two sons, a mother and two daughters, and a number alternating float weave. Qashqa’i bands typically had of animals. He presented another Qashqa’i piece that field colors of indigo and ivory, main borders with alter- was one of the few with known provenance: it had nating “S” or “Z” shapes, and outer borders with brown been owned by a tribal chieftain.