Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Bad Ethics, Bad Taste in Rugs, Send Congressman Cunningham to Prison
Gainesville.com | The Gainesville Sun | Gainesville, Fla.: "The contractors allegedly gave Cunningham hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts, including a Rolls Royce, two 19th-century French commodes, four armoires, a wooden sideboard with turned wooden spindles, three nightstands, a necklace, a laser shooting simulator, and $15,000 worth of oriental carpets (described in court documents as 'one Indo Herati, one Karaja, one Indo Keshan and two Cino Kerman rugs')."
FT.com / World / Current State of Baluch From a Anti-Iranian British Bias
FT.com / World / Middle East & Africa - Sunni group regrets Tehran jobs 'bias': "Sunni group regrets Tehran jobs 'bias'
By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: November 30 2005 02:00 | Last updated: November 30 2005 02:00
Zahedan Mohammad-Reza Bakhshi-Mohebbi has twice climbed mount Taftan, at 4,042m the highest peak in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province. "Taftan is volcanic - like much of this region - but it emits only steam," says the geology professor. "We can say it's half active."
The same can be said for politics in a province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sistan-Baluchestan is known for lawlessness, born partly of smuggling of drugs (in) and petrol (out).
But more important for Iran's Shia Islamic regime is that Baluchis, like the Kurds of western Iran, are among the Sunni Muslims who make up 10 to 15 per cent of the country's 68m, overwhelmingly Shia, population. In Zahedan, the provincial capital of 600,000, men wearing shalwar kameez readily assert the identity of the Baluchi, a people divided between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. "The Baluchis, who are mainly Sunni, speak a language close to ancient Persian," says Mohsen Dianat, dean of Zahedan's Payam-e Nour University. "To the north are the mainly Shia Sistanis, who speak a dialect of modern Persian rich in nouns."
In June's presidential election, over half the province's electors voted for Mostafa Moein - candidate of Mosharekat, the main reformist party - who came fourth across Iran.
Dr Moein's appeal in Sistan-Baluchestan was based on a stress on rights for Iran's ethnic minorities - half its population - and its Sunnis. But it resulted also from Sunni voters heeding a call to back him from Mullah Abdul-Hamid, the province's senior cleric and Iran's most prominent Sunni. For unlike in Kurdistan, religious identity seems stronger in this area than ethnic identity.
Abdul-Hamid Esmaeel-Zehi, 58, weighs his words in articulating Sunni grievances with Iran's Shia regime. Sitting at his home near the large seminary he heads in Zahedan, he says: "We support the Islamic republic and are active politically. Baluchis love Iran, there is no separatist movement."
The problem facing Sunni, he says, is job discrimination in Iran's state-run economy. "We welcomed Dr Moein's promise of Sunnis in the cabinet, although of course Mr [Mohammad] Khatami [the former president] made the same commitment." Abdul-Hamid attributes Mr Khatami's failure to appoint Sunni to senior positions to "some ulema [clerics] in Qom who influence the government from prejudice and bias".
Another gripe is the lack of a Sunni mosque in Tehran, a capital with churches, synagogues and Zoroastrian temples.
In Zahedan, Baluchis complain of poverty, unemployment and a lack of government factories. In the countryside, seven years of drought ended last year after devastating cattle-rearing and cutting the supply of sheep's wool for carpet weaving. Proximity to Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Sunni preponderance have raised concern over militant jihadis.
In July, the al-Arabiyya satellite television was sent a video from militants claiming to show the beheading of an Iranian official in Baluchestan, and two weeks ago in Pakistan a Baluchi group claimed responsibility for a Karachi bombing that killed three people in a KFC restaurant. Abdul-Hamid insists Baluchis from Iran who went to fight the Russians in Afghanistan subsequently returned to a quiet life.
"People come and go from Pakistan, but there is no spill-over of militancy," he says. "Some Taliban passed through after the [US-led] war in Afghanistan, but Iran's system was against them and the ulema spoke out. We said there was no justification to bring war here, and we explained terrorism is against Islam."
Mr Bakhshi-Mohebbi says fear of jihadis is exaggerated by officials in Tehran arguing people here are Wahabis, the militant Islamic tradition that originated in Saudi Arabia.
He says: "No one can say there is no inclination to Talibanism or Wahabism among Sunnis. But the Taliban way of thinking is also found among Shia, Christians and Jews. This is no excuse for discrimination against Sunnis.""
By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: November 30 2005 02:00 | Last updated: November 30 2005 02:00
Zahedan Mohammad-Reza Bakhshi-Mohebbi has twice climbed mount Taftan, at 4,042m the highest peak in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province. "Taftan is volcanic - like much of this region - but it emits only steam," says the geology professor. "We can say it's half active."
The same can be said for politics in a province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sistan-Baluchestan is known for lawlessness, born partly of smuggling of drugs (in) and petrol (out).
But more important for Iran's Shia Islamic regime is that Baluchis, like the Kurds of western Iran, are among the Sunni Muslims who make up 10 to 15 per cent of the country's 68m, overwhelmingly Shia, population. In Zahedan, the provincial capital of 600,000, men wearing shalwar kameez readily assert the identity of the Baluchi, a people divided between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. "The Baluchis, who are mainly Sunni, speak a language close to ancient Persian," says Mohsen Dianat, dean of Zahedan's Payam-e Nour University. "To the north are the mainly Shia Sistanis, who speak a dialect of modern Persian rich in nouns."
In June's presidential election, over half the province's electors voted for Mostafa Moein - candidate of Mosharekat, the main reformist party - who came fourth across Iran.
Dr Moein's appeal in Sistan-Baluchestan was based on a stress on rights for Iran's ethnic minorities - half its population - and its Sunnis. But it resulted also from Sunni voters heeding a call to back him from Mullah Abdul-Hamid, the province's senior cleric and Iran's most prominent Sunni. For unlike in Kurdistan, religious identity seems stronger in this area than ethnic identity.
Abdul-Hamid Esmaeel-Zehi, 58, weighs his words in articulating Sunni grievances with Iran's Shia regime. Sitting at his home near the large seminary he heads in Zahedan, he says: "We support the Islamic republic and are active politically. Baluchis love Iran, there is no separatist movement."
The problem facing Sunni, he says, is job discrimination in Iran's state-run economy. "We welcomed Dr Moein's promise of Sunnis in the cabinet, although of course Mr [Mohammad] Khatami [the former president] made the same commitment." Abdul-Hamid attributes Mr Khatami's failure to appoint Sunni to senior positions to "some ulema [clerics] in Qom who influence the government from prejudice and bias".
Another gripe is the lack of a Sunni mosque in Tehran, a capital with churches, synagogues and Zoroastrian temples.
In Zahedan, Baluchis complain of poverty, unemployment and a lack of government factories. In the countryside, seven years of drought ended last year after devastating cattle-rearing and cutting the supply of sheep's wool for carpet weaving. Proximity to Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Sunni preponderance have raised concern over militant jihadis.
In July, the al-Arabiyya satellite television was sent a video from militants claiming to show the beheading of an Iranian official in Baluchestan, and two weeks ago in Pakistan a Baluchi group claimed responsibility for a Karachi bombing that killed three people in a KFC restaurant. Abdul-Hamid insists Baluchis from Iran who went to fight the Russians in Afghanistan subsequently returned to a quiet life.
"People come and go from Pakistan, but there is no spill-over of militancy," he says. "Some Taliban passed through after the [US-led] war in Afghanistan, but Iran's system was against them and the ulema spoke out. We said there was no justification to bring war here, and we explained terrorism is against Islam."
Mr Bakhshi-Mohebbi says fear of jihadis is exaggerated by officials in Tehran arguing people here are Wahabis, the militant Islamic tradition that originated in Saudi Arabia.
He says: "No one can say there is no inclination to Talibanism or Wahabism among Sunnis. But the Taliban way of thinking is also found among Shia, Christians and Jews. This is no excuse for discrimination against Sunnis.""
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Santorum Fights to keep the Minimum Wage Low | ajc.com
Minimum wage debate, battle continue | ajc.com: "On Thursday, March 3, Kennedy introduces his amendment to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three steps over two years. Sen. Rick Santorum, a Republican running for re-election in Pennsylvania next year, says he will introduce a counterproposal for a smaller wage increase."
Antiques and the Arts Online: A Double Loss for the Art World: Vance Jordan, 60
Antiques and the Arts Online: "
Antiques and the Arts Story Archive - 2003
A Double Loss for the Art World: Vance Jordan, 60
By Carol Sims
NEW YORK CITY - American art dealer Vance Jordan passed away on October 20 at the age of 60. The cause of death was cancer. Mr Jordan was president of Vance Jordan Fine Art, 958 Madison Avenue, where the gallery has been located since 1987.
Mr Jordan was born in 1943 to Lillian and Joseph Jordan and grew up in Yonkers. After earning a degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jordan decided against a career in that field and instead taught squash at the New York Athletic Club. In the late 60s and early 70s he ran the Joe Jordan Talent Agency, a children's talent agency founded by his father.
Ulrich Hiesinger, art scholar and longtime friend of Jordan, as well as the author of many of the gallery's exhibition catalogs remembers how Jordan's passion for art was ignited in high school when the Museum of Modern Art exhibited their groundbreaking Art Nouveau show of 1960. The show proved to be a catalyst for classmates Jordan and Hiesinger and a few of their friends.
In the mid 70s Jordan partnered with his cousin Tod Volpe to launch the Jordan-Volpe Gallery on West Broadway in SoHo. Jordan-Volpe specialized in American Arts and Crafts furniture and pottery, as well as fine art by American expatriate artists Edwin Lord Weeks, H. Siddons Mowbray, Julius Stewart and Charles Caryl Coleman. Jordan believed in the talent of American potters, and felt that their work was undervalued.
Hiesinger wrote, "...when he first decided to become a dealer and needed inventory, he walked in to [Lillian] Nassau's shop one day and bought every piece of American art pottery she had - at retail prices."
When the gallery moved to Madison Avenue, the focus shifted from furniture and pottery to American paintings of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. "When I started with him in '87 he was dealing with the 1880s but even then he had a nice Marsden Hartley on the table. He was already considering good paintings in periods that he hadn't already considered," said David Dufour, director of acquisitions with the gallery since 1987.
Jordan continued to seek out work by American expatriates of the late Nineteenth Century but he also specialized in American Impressionism, Regionalists and early Modernists. This spring Vance Jordan Fine Art, Inc, exhibited 38 works by American painters from the first half of the Twentieth Century in a show entitled "Power and Whimsy: A Private Collection of American Modernism." The show later traveled to the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va., where it ran until September 27.
Hiesinger said, "Jordan was willing to listen but he also had an absolute iron underneath. He made his decisions with great confidence. He was a very studious person. He would go off on a weekend with three very weighty tomes and read them. He had a persistence and serious engagement with art history issues. He had a sense of what things were worth - not just commercially, but intellectually and artistically." According to Hiesinger, Jordan "held his own with and even pointed the way for more than one scholar of American art."
Perhaps Jordan's greatest legacy is the light he threw on unrecognized or under-appreciated American talent. "Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters" (1991) was a landmark exhibition. His monograph exhibitions for Charles Sprague Pearce (1993), Childe Hassam (1994), John La Farge (1995 and 1998), Childe Hassam (1994), Henry Roderick Newman (1996), Richard E. Miller (1997), Julius Stewart (1998), Edwin Lord Weeks (2002), sparked renewed interest in their vision and accomplishments.
In 1996 Vance Jordan Fine Art hosted and financed an exhibition of 25 American paintings from the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The benefit opening and resultant contributions solicited by Jordan raised more than $160,000 towards the publishing of a catalog of the museum's important American paintings. Terry Carbone, curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and principal author of the 1,400 page two-volume catalog (which is currently in the process of being edited) was a graduate student when she worked for Jordan in SoHo. "He was a continually supportive friend," said Carbone.
According to Dufour, Jordan was one of the first art dealers to focus on Emil Carlsen, and published the only monograph for the artist, which, unfortunately, is no longer readily available. Jordan's exhibition catalogs were published in small editions, and in hindsight Dufour wishes that he could have added 500 copies to the print run for every one of them.
"In the field of American art he really raised the bar for gallery publications and his small catalogs consistently contributed new scholarship to the field," echoed Carbone.
In July of 2002 Jordan partnered with Thomas Colville and Stuart Feld to purchase an important George Washington portrait by Charles Willson Peale at a French auction for a record price of $5 million for an American painting sold in Europe. In so doing, the three brought back to this country a historically and artistically important American painting.
Colville said, "I met him in 1976 when he was running his gallery downtown in lower Manhattan when he was a dealer in Arts and Crafts and pottery and I was already a painting dealer." In 1976 Jordan bought a picture by Charles Davis that Colville had lent to the Michael Quick exhibition of American expatriate art. Thus began a 27-year friendship between Colville and Jordan - two oft-times business partners and sometimes rivals.
Colville was impressed with "Jordan's enthusiasm and the sense of adventure and excitement in which he approached everything he did." Soon after, Jordan and Colville (who was steeped in American expatriate art from his days at Yale with Michael Quick) bought every picture from a Graham Gallery exhibition of expatriate artist Gary Melcher, an American working in Holland. Colville remembered, "I needed a retail outlet in New York for paintings that I bought and so Vance and I would buy things together and he would sell them in his gallery."
At one point the two were going to go into business together with an uptown gallery, but that never happened. Colville remained in Connecticut and Jordan in New York. Colville said, "We went our separate ways but remained friends." The camaraderie they maintained included one-upmanship, frequently bidding against each other at auction. "We would not tell each other what we were doing. I bought an Emil Carlsen at a dealer sale in London at 5 in the morning for $25,000 or something. I got the picture. Five minutes later I got a call from Vance, 'Was that you on the other phone?' That happened many times."
Vance Jordan's private collection of paintings by the Nineteenth Century Italian artist Antonio Mancini was one of his most significant pursuits. Dufour considers the Mancini collection to be one of Jordan's greatest legacies and hopes that the paintings will end up in a museum that will not only safeguard them, but also make them accessible to the public.
Hiesinger wrote, "His deep, abiding passion was in all things Italian, but being a connoisseur and student of art in the truest sense, he transferred that dedication so that in the course of business he did more to advance through scholarly publication the knowledge and understanding of American art than any individual of his generation."
Colville said, "He had a wonderful intelligence and sense of integrity in regards to doing things well with scholarship. He had humor, wit. The combination of his eye, intelligence and professionalism were what made him an outstanding dealer."
The gallery staff has no plans for continuing the operation of the gallery according to Kendall Scully, director of research and exhibitions. David Dufour stated that without Mr Jordan, there was little likelihood of the gallery continuing, making Mr Jordan's death a double loss for the art world.
Jordan is survived by his sister Jill Spangler and two nephews, Ian and Noel Spangler of New York City.
Antiques and the Arts Editorial Content"
Antiques and the Arts Story Archive - 2003
A Double Loss for the Art World: Vance Jordan, 60
By Carol Sims
NEW YORK CITY - American art dealer Vance Jordan passed away on October 20 at the age of 60. The cause of death was cancer. Mr Jordan was president of Vance Jordan Fine Art, 958 Madison Avenue, where the gallery has been located since 1987.
Mr Jordan was born in 1943 to Lillian and Joseph Jordan and grew up in Yonkers. After earning a degree in engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Jordan decided against a career in that field and instead taught squash at the New York Athletic Club. In the late 60s and early 70s he ran the Joe Jordan Talent Agency, a children's talent agency founded by his father.
Ulrich Hiesinger, art scholar and longtime friend of Jordan, as well as the author of many of the gallery's exhibition catalogs remembers how Jordan's passion for art was ignited in high school when the Museum of Modern Art exhibited their groundbreaking Art Nouveau show of 1960. The show proved to be a catalyst for classmates Jordan and Hiesinger and a few of their friends.
In the mid 70s Jordan partnered with his cousin Tod Volpe to launch the Jordan-Volpe Gallery on West Broadway in SoHo. Jordan-Volpe specialized in American Arts and Crafts furniture and pottery, as well as fine art by American expatriate artists Edwin Lord Weeks, H. Siddons Mowbray, Julius Stewart and Charles Caryl Coleman. Jordan believed in the talent of American potters, and felt that their work was undervalued.
Hiesinger wrote, "...when he first decided to become a dealer and needed inventory, he walked in to [Lillian] Nassau's shop one day and bought every piece of American art pottery she had - at retail prices."
When the gallery moved to Madison Avenue, the focus shifted from furniture and pottery to American paintings of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. "When I started with him in '87 he was dealing with the 1880s but even then he had a nice Marsden Hartley on the table. He was already considering good paintings in periods that he hadn't already considered," said David Dufour, director of acquisitions with the gallery since 1987.
Jordan continued to seek out work by American expatriates of the late Nineteenth Century but he also specialized in American Impressionism, Regionalists and early Modernists. This spring Vance Jordan Fine Art, Inc, exhibited 38 works by American painters from the first half of the Twentieth Century in a show entitled "Power and Whimsy: A Private Collection of American Modernism." The show later traveled to the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va., where it ran until September 27.
Hiesinger said, "Jordan was willing to listen but he also had an absolute iron underneath. He made his decisions with great confidence. He was a very studious person. He would go off on a weekend with three very weighty tomes and read them. He had a persistence and serious engagement with art history issues. He had a sense of what things were worth - not just commercially, but intellectually and artistically." According to Hiesinger, Jordan "held his own with and even pointed the way for more than one scholar of American art."
Perhaps Jordan's greatest legacy is the light he threw on unrecognized or under-appreciated American talent. "Impressionism in America: The Ten American Painters" (1991) was a landmark exhibition. His monograph exhibitions for Charles Sprague Pearce (1993), Childe Hassam (1994), John La Farge (1995 and 1998), Childe Hassam (1994), Henry Roderick Newman (1996), Richard E. Miller (1997), Julius Stewart (1998), Edwin Lord Weeks (2002), sparked renewed interest in their vision and accomplishments.
In 1996 Vance Jordan Fine Art hosted and financed an exhibition of 25 American paintings from the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The benefit opening and resultant contributions solicited by Jordan raised more than $160,000 towards the publishing of a catalog of the museum's important American paintings. Terry Carbone, curator of American art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and principal author of the 1,400 page two-volume catalog (which is currently in the process of being edited) was a graduate student when she worked for Jordan in SoHo. "He was a continually supportive friend," said Carbone.
According to Dufour, Jordan was one of the first art dealers to focus on Emil Carlsen, and published the only monograph for the artist, which, unfortunately, is no longer readily available. Jordan's exhibition catalogs were published in small editions, and in hindsight Dufour wishes that he could have added 500 copies to the print run for every one of them.
"In the field of American art he really raised the bar for gallery publications and his small catalogs consistently contributed new scholarship to the field," echoed Carbone.
In July of 2002 Jordan partnered with Thomas Colville and Stuart Feld to purchase an important George Washington portrait by Charles Willson Peale at a French auction for a record price of $5 million for an American painting sold in Europe. In so doing, the three brought back to this country a historically and artistically important American painting.
Colville said, "I met him in 1976 when he was running his gallery downtown in lower Manhattan when he was a dealer in Arts and Crafts and pottery and I was already a painting dealer." In 1976 Jordan bought a picture by Charles Davis that Colville had lent to the Michael Quick exhibition of American expatriate art. Thus began a 27-year friendship between Colville and Jordan - two oft-times business partners and sometimes rivals.
Colville was impressed with "Jordan's enthusiasm and the sense of adventure and excitement in which he approached everything he did." Soon after, Jordan and Colville (who was steeped in American expatriate art from his days at Yale with Michael Quick) bought every picture from a Graham Gallery exhibition of expatriate artist Gary Melcher, an American working in Holland. Colville remembered, "I needed a retail outlet in New York for paintings that I bought and so Vance and I would buy things together and he would sell them in his gallery."
At one point the two were going to go into business together with an uptown gallery, but that never happened. Colville remained in Connecticut and Jordan in New York. Colville said, "We went our separate ways but remained friends." The camaraderie they maintained included one-upmanship, frequently bidding against each other at auction. "We would not tell each other what we were doing. I bought an Emil Carlsen at a dealer sale in London at 5 in the morning for $25,000 or something. I got the picture. Five minutes later I got a call from Vance, 'Was that you on the other phone?' That happened many times."
Vance Jordan's private collection of paintings by the Nineteenth Century Italian artist Antonio Mancini was one of his most significant pursuits. Dufour considers the Mancini collection to be one of Jordan's greatest legacies and hopes that the paintings will end up in a museum that will not only safeguard them, but also make them accessible to the public.
Hiesinger wrote, "His deep, abiding passion was in all things Italian, but being a connoisseur and student of art in the truest sense, he transferred that dedication so that in the course of business he did more to advance through scholarly publication the knowledge and understanding of American art than any individual of his generation."
Colville said, "He had a wonderful intelligence and sense of integrity in regards to doing things well with scholarship. He had humor, wit. The combination of his eye, intelligence and professionalism were what made him an outstanding dealer."
The gallery staff has no plans for continuing the operation of the gallery according to Kendall Scully, director of research and exhibitions. David Dufour stated that without Mr Jordan, there was little likelihood of the gallery continuing, making Mr Jordan's death a double loss for the art world.
Jordan is survived by his sister Jill Spangler and two nephews, Ian and Noel Spangler of New York City.
Antiques and the Arts Editorial Content"
Vance Jordan Fine Art | Vance Jordan, President and Founder (1943 - 2003)
Vance Jordan Fine Art | Information: "Vance Jordan, President and Founder (1943 - 2003)
After graduating near the bottom of his engineering class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Vance Jordan put his extremely limited knowledge of this subject behind him in order to work as a squash instructor at the New York Athletic Club. He further prepared himself for a 24-year career as an art dealer by establishing a very successful children's talent agency. His knowledge of art came from 35 years of harassing scholars and colleagues with endless inquiries, countless hours visiting museums, galleries and auction houses in Europe and America, and approximately three times the number of art history classes required for the most stringent Ph.D. degree. The many friends and clients of Vance Jordan have to come to value over the years the truly important contributions he made to the field of American art through his discerning eye for collecting, ground-breaking scholarly exhibitions, and unique personality."
Kazak Rugs: The Vance Jordan Kazak Prayer Rug third quarter 19th century lot 4
After graduating near the bottom of his engineering class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Vance Jordan put his extremely limited knowledge of this subject behind him in order to work as a squash instructor at the New York Athletic Club. He further prepared himself for a 24-year career as an art dealer by establishing a very successful children's talent agency. His knowledge of art came from 35 years of harassing scholars and colleagues with endless inquiries, countless hours visiting museums, galleries and auction houses in Europe and America, and approximately three times the number of art history classes required for the most stringent Ph.D. degree. The many friends and clients of Vance Jordan have to come to value over the years the truly important contributions he made to the field of American art through his discerning eye for collecting, ground-breaking scholarly exhibitions, and unique personality."
Rensselaer Magazine: Spring 2004: In Memoriam Vance N. Jordan ?64
Rensselaer Magazine: Spring 2004: In Memoriam: "Vance N. Jordan ?64, a leading dealer in American art and a pioneer in promoting the American Arts and Crafts Movement; Oct. 20, 2003."
See also:
Motashem Kashan Prayer Rug circa 1900 Vance N. Jordan
and also:
Antique Kirsehir Yastik Mid 19th century ex Vance N. Jordan
See also:
Motashem Kashan Prayer Rug circa 1900 Vance N. Jordan
and also:
Antique Kirsehir Yastik Mid 19th century ex Vance N. Jordan
Alan Marcuson & Diane Hall in Bruxelles
Alan Marcuson & Diane Hall
Place Julien Dillens 1, apt. 3aSaint-Gilles
1060 Bruxelles
Belgium
http://marcusonandhall.com
t: +32 (0)2 538 7369
m: +32 (0) 473 344 715
alan@marcusonandhall.com
diane@marcusonandhall.com
Dear Friends,?
We are finally settled in Bruxelles, after a rather long hiatus finding a place, getting all our stuff here, ?getting straight and most frustratingly getting phone and internet connected. I must apologise to ?those who tried to phone on our mobile, I took the number over the phone from Diane and in doing ?so (fool that I am) added an extra 3. Anyhow the details at the top of this email are checked and correct. Our email ?addresses remain the same.?
So here we are in Bruxelles enjoying unseasonably wonderful weather for weeks on end. Bright ?sunny days without a cloud in the sky. No doubt the effects of global warming, but hey, right here, ?right now its an added treat to the other joys of being out of London and here.?
What a relief it is to find ourselves in a smaller, more manageable and gentler city. Brussels has all ?that we require and more; it?s easy and cheap to get around, we don?t need a car and most of the ?places we need to go are within a fifteen minute walk; including the Sablon, the antiques area of the ?city which after London is a delight. Loads of proper antiques and art shops of all kinds and stuff to ?buy, even a rug or two.?
During an intensive month long search for an apartment (we walked our arses off) we got to know ?the city and we like it. We fancied the idea of an apartment in an Art Nouveau town house but ?ended up in a wonderful large apartment (with guest bedroom and bathroom) in an early 90s ?building overlooking a small ?place? (not quite a square) in a lively neighbourhood, close to ?everything.?
Without extolling the delights of being in Brussels at great length, thus far, it is a welcome, positive ?and energising change for us both and Barney too. We are very much liking living here and running ?our business from here although we remain a UK based business paying our VAT & taxes there.?
If you are going to be in the area give us a call and come by. We are always buying interesting and ?beautiful things of all sorts so you never know what you may find. And Diane is a very fine cook.?
Needless to say if you have anything weird and wonderful that you think we might take a liking to ?don?t hesitate to send us a pic.?
Best wishes from both of us.?
Alan
Alan Marcuson & Diane Hall
Place Julien Dillens 1, apt 3a
Saint-Gilles
1060 Bruxelles
Belgium
tel: +32 (0)2 538 7369
m: +32 (0)473 344 715
e: alan@marcusonandhall.com
diane@marcusonandhall.com
Information - THE JEWISH MUSEUM HOSTS THE FIRST EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK OF HISTORIC IKAT COLLECTION
Information - History: "
Press contacts: Anne Scher
or Alex Wittenberg
212.423.3271
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RARE SILKS FROM
THE OASIS KINGDOMS OF CENTRAL ASIA
COME TO THE JEWISH MUSEUM
THE JEWISH MUSEUM HOSTS THE FIRST EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK OF HISTORIC IKAT COLLECTION
An ancient textile art practiced by master craftsmen in the kingdoms of Bukhara and Samarkand, along the fabled Silk Route, will be celebrated in Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection, on view at The Jewish Museum from February 7 through May 16, 1999. More than forty rare wall hangings, mounted panels and robes, each boldly and intricately patterned and strongly colored, have been drawn from the Guido Goldman Collection, the largest and finest private collection of Central Asian ikats in the world. Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection comes to The Jewish Museum from showings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; and the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. Following its New York showing, the exhibition will travel to the Art Institute of Chicago (September, 1999 - January, 2000) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Spring 2000). The exhibition is being circulated by the American Foundation for Textile Art, Inc.
Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection examines a remarkable century-long cultural revival of the art of ikat making that took place at the turn of the 19th century in Central Asia, when that area had become a forgotten backwater of the Islamic world. At a time when local crafts around the world were being overtaken by the products of European industry, hand-crafts along the Silk Route, particularly in Bukhara and Samarkand, benefitted from isolation and cultural conservatism. However, the flowering of the art of ikat lasted only a short time; by the late 1800s the introduction of synthetic dyes ended the production of such richly hued, hand-dyed textiles as those represented in the Guido Goldman Collection.
Ikat (a Malay-Indonesian word) is an intricate technique in which threads are patterned by repeated binding and dyeing before they are woven. In traditional ikat making, also called resist-dye weaving, the design is painstakingly dyed directly onto the fabric's individual threads, yielding a diffuse, richly colored pattern. This method has been practiced around the world for centuries, from Indonesia and Japan to India, Africa and the Americas. But it was in the 19th century, along the Silk Route in Bukhara, that ikat experienced its greatest growth, particularly in textiles of dazzling color and patterning.
In the Central Asian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand and in the towns of the Ferghana Valley - along the fabled Silk Route in what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - ikat production involved guild-trained craftsmen of many backgrounds. While Tadjiks specialized in the dyeing of the red and yellow colors, and Uzbeks and Iranis were the weavers, Jews controlled the dyeing and trade of indigo blue. Fabrication of ikats required a complex, communal technical process involving all of these different ethnic groups. The process was so intricate that it sometimes took as long as two months to dye and weave just one ikat wall hanging. The exhibition captures the brief moment in the 19th century when the art of ikat was in full flower.
Offering striking parallels to abstract paintings of the modern era, ikat fabrics often underscored their owners' wealth and social prominence. Ikat weavings were made into robes and hangings that were frequently part of a woman's dowry and clothing that defined the wearer's social position as well as into fabrics that accompanied all life cycle rituals, covering everything from the wedding bed to the casket. For example, the "bride price" paid by a Jewish groom in 1874 was calculated in bolts of fabric, fine clothing and ikat robes. The vibrantly-colored wall hangings embellished mud-plastered walls and doors of homes, symbolically transforming them into gardens, and were used to construct outdoor pavilions for ceremonial occasions.
Highlights of the exhibition include an extraordinary Samarkand wall hanging, featuring delicate motifs based on triangular amulets and jewelry commonly worn in Central Asia, against a vibrant yellow background; a woman's robe of deep colors, including indigo, possibly part of a bride's wedding attire; and a six-panel wall hanging depicting pomegranates descending from stalks, in which the designer, to show his skill, introduced pairs of water jugs mixed among the pomegranates.
In a "Collector's Note" in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Dr. Guido Goldman explains: "My enthusiasm for Central Asian ikats stems from a lifelong love of color. I was privileged to grow up in a home filled with art, primarily a collection of French Impressionist paintings...While drawn to these canvases, my favorite galleries when visiting museums as a teenager were those filled with German expressionists... especially the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky...I feel there was a direct link between a Kandinsky painting that belonged to a close friend of my parents and my subsequent fascination with Central Asian ikats." Dr. Goldman has also remarked "I saw them as wonderfully bold, colorful, individual works of art that moved me in the same way as did a painting by Kandinsky, Morris Louis or Frankenthaler." Although Dr. Goldman did not set out to build an important collection, he noted, he was attracted to ikats as "textile paintings," and the collection he assembled and is exhibiting throughout the country has enabled him to share his enthusiasm for these beautiful textiles with a wider public.
Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection is being circulated by the American Foundation for Textile Art, Inc. established in 1996 to foster the presentation, interpretation and preservation of textiles as vital cultural artifacts. With the cooperation of the foundation, a non-profit organization based in New York, the exhibition has been coordinated at The Jewish Museum by Assistant Curator Claudia Nahson. Gail Martin, a New York-based textile expert and curator of the Goldman Collection, has been the project consultant.
The exhibition will be accompanied by two publications: an illustrated 208-page catalogue with 70 color plates, featuring text by Kate Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale and a preface by Stuart Cary Welch, available for $39.50 in the Museum's Cooper Shop; and a catalogue raisonn� containing extensive additional documentation and more than 400 color illustrations, available in the Cooper Shop for $250. Both books are published by Laurence King (London, England) with Alan Marcuson as editorial and art director.
The exhibition at The Jewish Museum is made possible in part by generous contributions from OFFITBANK and Nathalie and Charles de Gunzburg.
The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan. Museum hours are: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 11 am to 5:45 pm; Tuesday, 11 am to 8 pm; closed Friday and Saturday. Museum admission is $8 adults; $5.50 students and senior citizens; free admission for children under 12. On Tuesday evenings from 5 to 8 pm admission is free for all. For general information, the public may call 212.423.3200, or visit The Jewish Museum's Web site at www.thejewishmuseum.org. "
Press contacts: Anne Scher
or Alex Wittenberg
212.423.3271
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RARE SILKS FROM
THE OASIS KINGDOMS OF CENTRAL ASIA
COME TO THE JEWISH MUSEUM
THE JEWISH MUSEUM HOSTS THE FIRST EXHIBITION IN NEW YORK OF HISTORIC IKAT COLLECTION
An ancient textile art practiced by master craftsmen in the kingdoms of Bukhara and Samarkand, along the fabled Silk Route, will be celebrated in Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection, on view at The Jewish Museum from February 7 through May 16, 1999. More than forty rare wall hangings, mounted panels and robes, each boldly and intricately patterned and strongly colored, have been drawn from the Guido Goldman Collection, the largest and finest private collection of Central Asian ikats in the world. Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection comes to The Jewish Museum from showings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; and the Smithsonian Institution's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. Following its New York showing, the exhibition will travel to the Art Institute of Chicago (September, 1999 - January, 2000) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Spring 2000). The exhibition is being circulated by the American Foundation for Textile Art, Inc.
Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection examines a remarkable century-long cultural revival of the art of ikat making that took place at the turn of the 19th century in Central Asia, when that area had become a forgotten backwater of the Islamic world. At a time when local crafts around the world were being overtaken by the products of European industry, hand-crafts along the Silk Route, particularly in Bukhara and Samarkand, benefitted from isolation and cultural conservatism. However, the flowering of the art of ikat lasted only a short time; by the late 1800s the introduction of synthetic dyes ended the production of such richly hued, hand-dyed textiles as those represented in the Guido Goldman Collection.
Ikat (a Malay-Indonesian word) is an intricate technique in which threads are patterned by repeated binding and dyeing before they are woven. In traditional ikat making, also called resist-dye weaving, the design is painstakingly dyed directly onto the fabric's individual threads, yielding a diffuse, richly colored pattern. This method has been practiced around the world for centuries, from Indonesia and Japan to India, Africa and the Americas. But it was in the 19th century, along the Silk Route in Bukhara, that ikat experienced its greatest growth, particularly in textiles of dazzling color and patterning.
In the Central Asian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand and in the towns of the Ferghana Valley - along the fabled Silk Route in what is now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan - ikat production involved guild-trained craftsmen of many backgrounds. While Tadjiks specialized in the dyeing of the red and yellow colors, and Uzbeks and Iranis were the weavers, Jews controlled the dyeing and trade of indigo blue. Fabrication of ikats required a complex, communal technical process involving all of these different ethnic groups. The process was so intricate that it sometimes took as long as two months to dye and weave just one ikat wall hanging. The exhibition captures the brief moment in the 19th century when the art of ikat was in full flower.
Offering striking parallels to abstract paintings of the modern era, ikat fabrics often underscored their owners' wealth and social prominence. Ikat weavings were made into robes and hangings that were frequently part of a woman's dowry and clothing that defined the wearer's social position as well as into fabrics that accompanied all life cycle rituals, covering everything from the wedding bed to the casket. For example, the "bride price" paid by a Jewish groom in 1874 was calculated in bolts of fabric, fine clothing and ikat robes. The vibrantly-colored wall hangings embellished mud-plastered walls and doors of homes, symbolically transforming them into gardens, and were used to construct outdoor pavilions for ceremonial occasions.
Highlights of the exhibition include an extraordinary Samarkand wall hanging, featuring delicate motifs based on triangular amulets and jewelry commonly worn in Central Asia, against a vibrant yellow background; a woman's robe of deep colors, including indigo, possibly part of a bride's wedding attire; and a six-panel wall hanging depicting pomegranates descending from stalks, in which the designer, to show his skill, introduced pairs of water jugs mixed among the pomegranates.
In a "Collector's Note" in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Dr. Guido Goldman explains: "My enthusiasm for Central Asian ikats stems from a lifelong love of color. I was privileged to grow up in a home filled with art, primarily a collection of French Impressionist paintings...While drawn to these canvases, my favorite galleries when visiting museums as a teenager were those filled with German expressionists... especially the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky...I feel there was a direct link between a Kandinsky painting that belonged to a close friend of my parents and my subsequent fascination with Central Asian ikats." Dr. Goldman has also remarked "I saw them as wonderfully bold, colorful, individual works of art that moved me in the same way as did a painting by Kandinsky, Morris Louis or Frankenthaler." Although Dr. Goldman did not set out to build an important collection, he noted, he was attracted to ikats as "textile paintings," and the collection he assembled and is exhibiting throughout the country has enabled him to share his enthusiasm for these beautiful textiles with a wider public.
Ikat: Splendid Silks of Central Asia from the Guido Goldman Collection is being circulated by the American Foundation for Textile Art, Inc. established in 1996 to foster the presentation, interpretation and preservation of textiles as vital cultural artifacts. With the cooperation of the foundation, a non-profit organization based in New York, the exhibition has been coordinated at The Jewish Museum by Assistant Curator Claudia Nahson. Gail Martin, a New York-based textile expert and curator of the Goldman Collection, has been the project consultant.
The exhibition will be accompanied by two publications: an illustrated 208-page catalogue with 70 color plates, featuring text by Kate Fitz Gibbon and Andrew Hale and a preface by Stuart Cary Welch, available for $39.50 in the Museum's Cooper Shop; and a catalogue raisonn� containing extensive additional documentation and more than 400 color illustrations, available in the Cooper Shop for $250. Both books are published by Laurence King (London, England) with Alan Marcuson as editorial and art director.
The exhibition at The Jewish Museum is made possible in part by generous contributions from OFFITBANK and Nathalie and Charles de Gunzburg.
The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan. Museum hours are: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 11 am to 5:45 pm; Tuesday, 11 am to 8 pm; closed Friday and Saturday. Museum admission is $8 adults; $5.50 students and senior citizens; free admission for children under 12. On Tuesday evenings from 5 to 8 pm admission is free for all. For general information, the public may call 212.423.3200, or visit The Jewish Museum's Web site at www.thejewishmuseum.org. "
RugNotes: Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
RugNotes: Friday, June 25, 2004: "Friday, June 25, 2004
RugNotes: Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
RugNotes: Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention: "Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
CHN - News 1576: 'Irans Govt. Approves Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
The Iranian government approved the bill presented by the Cultural Heritage Organization in March to adopt the new international convention to safeguard intellectual cultural heritage.
UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, voted overwhelmingly at the biennial meeting of its General Conference in Paris on October 17, 2003 for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention defined as epics, tales, music, rituals and celebrations, craftsmanship, and systems of folk knowledge about medicine, astronomy, and the natural world. The purpose is to help local cultural traditions around the world survive and even flourish in the face of globalization. Passage by UNESCO must be followed by ratification by at least 30 nations for the convention to become international law. Algeria had so far joined the convention.
Prior to the government approval of the convention, Hussein Marashi, deputy of President and head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, had went on record to say Iran had no problem with joining the new action plan. Iran is one of the richest countries in terms of intellectual heritage and adopting this convention can be a great step for Iran and the whole world to safeguard and promote their oral and intangible heritage, he said, adding. '""
RugNotes: Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
RugNotes: Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention: "Hussein Marashi backs Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
CHN - News 1576: 'Irans Govt. Approves Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention
The Iranian government approved the bill presented by the Cultural Heritage Organization in March to adopt the new international convention to safeguard intellectual cultural heritage.
UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, voted overwhelmingly at the biennial meeting of its General Conference in Paris on October 17, 2003 for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention defined as epics, tales, music, rituals and celebrations, craftsmanship, and systems of folk knowledge about medicine, astronomy, and the natural world. The purpose is to help local cultural traditions around the world survive and even flourish in the face of globalization. Passage by UNESCO must be followed by ratification by at least 30 nations for the convention to become international law. Algeria had so far joined the convention.
Prior to the government approval of the convention, Hussein Marashi, deputy of President and head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, had went on record to say Iran had no problem with joining the new action plan. Iran is one of the richest countries in terms of intellectual heritage and adopting this convention can be a great step for Iran and the whole world to safeguard and promote their oral and intangible heritage, he said, adding. '""
RugNotes: The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran - 920 Raj
RugNotes: The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran - 920 raj carpet: "Tuesday, June 28, 2005
The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran - 920 raj carpet
The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran - Persian Journal Latest Iran news & Iranian Newspaper: "The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran
Jun 28, 2005
Finest Persian Carpet in the World
Me-raaj (The ascent), a fine Persian carpet with 920 knots in each 7 centimeters of its row has been announced to be the finest carpet of the world by UNESCO authorities.
"The 42.5-gram silk carpet, which bears 720 different colors and shades in an area of 18 by 24 centimeters, is no more than 1.5 mm thick" said Ozra Yusefi, the director of carpet section in the department of libraries, museums and documents of Astan Qods.
Me-raaj is a 920 raj carpet. In the carpet industry, raj is measured by the number of knots in every 7cm and is an indicator of the carpet's fineness just like KPSI (knot per square inch).
"The carpet is designed by Master Moti-ee and has been woven by Master Hasan Nezami-Doust in four years" added Yusefi.
The former finest and the most closely woven carpet was a 450-raj Chinese one, which is now declined to the runner up as Iranian Meraj announced to be the finest one by UNESCO.
Falsafin, when handed the carpet to the museum, indicated that "I am really delighted to give the opportunity to everyone to look at this splendid artifact closely".
The carpet museum of Astan Qods includes numerous notable handmaid carpets among which some date back to Safavid era (16th century). The carpet museum is only a part of Astan Qods complex museum which is consisted of 10 other museums as its subordinates.""
The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran - 920 raj carpet
The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran - Persian Journal Latest Iran news & Iranian Newspaper: "The Finest Persian Carpet of the World in Iran
Jun 28, 2005
Finest Persian Carpet in the World
Me-raaj (The ascent), a fine Persian carpet with 920 knots in each 7 centimeters of its row has been announced to be the finest carpet of the world by UNESCO authorities.
"The 42.5-gram silk carpet, which bears 720 different colors and shades in an area of 18 by 24 centimeters, is no more than 1.5 mm thick" said Ozra Yusefi, the director of carpet section in the department of libraries, museums and documents of Astan Qods.
Me-raaj is a 920 raj carpet. In the carpet industry, raj is measured by the number of knots in every 7cm and is an indicator of the carpet's fineness just like KPSI (knot per square inch).
"The carpet is designed by Master Moti-ee and has been woven by Master Hasan Nezami-Doust in four years" added Yusefi.
The former finest and the most closely woven carpet was a 450-raj Chinese one, which is now declined to the runner up as Iranian Meraj announced to be the finest one by UNESCO.
Falsafin, when handed the carpet to the museum, indicated that "I am really delighted to give the opportunity to everyone to look at this splendid artifact closely".
The carpet museum of Astan Qods includes numerous notable handmaid carpets among which some date back to Safavid era (16th century). The carpet museum is only a part of Astan Qods complex museum which is consisted of 10 other museums as its subordinates.""
RugNotes: We regret to announce the sad passing of HALI's co-founder Robert Pinner
RugNotes: HALI.com: "Sunday, November 28, 2004
HALI.com
HALI.com: "Robert Pinner 1925-2004
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
We regret to announce the sad passing of HALI's co-founder Robert Pinner, a dear friend and respected colleague, who died peacefully at home in Twickenham on Saturday November 20th after a year-long battle with severe heart disease.
Firm arrangements are yet to be made, but it is likely that a small private funeral will be followed by a memorial service at a later date. We will keep Robert's many friends informed of memorial arrangements through this website.""
HALI.com
HALI.com: "Robert Pinner 1925-2004
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
We regret to announce the sad passing of HALI's co-founder Robert Pinner, a dear friend and respected colleague, who died peacefully at home in Twickenham on Saturday November 20th after a year-long battle with severe heart disease.
Firm arrangements are yet to be made, but it is likely that a small private funeral will be followed by a memorial service at a later date. We will keep Robert's many friends informed of memorial arrangements through this website.""
RugNotes: Poldi Pezzoli Carpet and Tahmasps Shahnama
RugNotes: Thursday, April 22, 2004: "Thursday, April 22, 2004
Poldi Pezzoli Carpet and Tahmasps Shahnama
Artdaily.com - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "This is the case of an important and large Safavid knotted-pile carpet, measuring 682 x 335 cm, decorated with hunting scenes which, dated 1542-43, is currently part of the holdings of the Museum Poldi Pezzoli, where it eventually arrived in 1923. Nobody knows how the carpet reached Italy, though official records attest its presence in 1870 amongst the furnishings of the Quirinale Palace in Rome, which, until 20 years earlier, had been used by the Popes as their residence. ""
Poldi Pezzoli Carpet and Tahmasps Shahnama
Artdaily.com - The First Art Newspaper on the Net: "This is the case of an important and large Safavid knotted-pile carpet, measuring 682 x 335 cm, decorated with hunting scenes which, dated 1542-43, is currently part of the holdings of the Museum Poldi Pezzoli, where it eventually arrived in 1923. Nobody knows how the carpet reached Italy, though official records attest its presence in 1870 amongst the furnishings of the Quirinale Palace in Rome, which, until 20 years earlier, had been used by the Popes as their residence. ""
RugNotes: Alameda Times-Star Online - Emmett Eiland's Exotic world of Oriental rugs
RugNotes: Alameda Times-Star Online - Exotic world of Oriental rugs: "Saturday, November 13, 2004
Alameda Times-Star Online - Exotic world of Oriental rugs
Alameda Times-Star Online - Bay Area Living: "Exotic world of Oriental rugs
'THE technical definition of Oriental is the land mass between Turkey and Japan," says Matt Pence of Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company in Berkeley. Hundreds of years ago, Western people divided the world into two hemispheres: Western (or occidental) and Eastern (Oriental). So Oriental rugs can be those made in that half of the world.
"Oriental rugs are made in places like China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and now, Afghanistan, resurging since the Soviets left and the Taliban is gone," Pence says.
The field of Oriental rugs can be complicated. If you throw in the antique rug market, it's even more confusing.
"Rugs can get kind of esoteric pretty quickly," Pence says a bit ruefully.
The principles for what makes a good rug are fairly simple: the quality of the workmanship and materials, the quality of the colors, the beauty of the pattern, the age and its rarity. But truly delving into the market means learning what patterns, characteristics and techniques are traditional for which tribes.
Joe Bezdjian, who owns Simonian Oriental Rugs in San Mateo, says that for a novice, discerning the difference between a $10,000 rug and a $4,500 rug may be impossible. "You just have to be in the business to be able to tell," he says.
And in the antique market, the condition of the rug takes an expert eye. For example, frayed fringe and even some unraveling around the edges can be repaired. Other problems, particularly moth damage, are more serious.
Simonian shows a Kurdish rug, made in Iran, that's nearly 100 years old. The geometric pattern of bold reds, blacks, browns and royal blue is marred by a huge worn spot in the middle. Even so, he judges its value at $500. "Some people love it," he says. "I would overlook this because it's old."
Emmett Eiland's sells some antique rugs, but mostly sells rugs created in traditional ways -- hand-knotted with hand-spun wool -- using traditional patterns.
One reason that a typical higher-end new rug can cost $5,500 is how long it takes to make.
"A typical rug in our store is probably 120 knots per square inch, and each of those knots was tied to the rug by one person," he says. "A really skilled weaver will do one square yard of rug per month."
That means that a room-sized rug can take six to 10 months to make by a group of several weavers, which explains why they cost thousands of dollars.
Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company has an extremely detailed Web site that's useful for inspiration as well as shopping: www.internetrugs.com
-- Elizabeth Jardina""
Alameda Times-Star Online - Exotic world of Oriental rugs
Alameda Times-Star Online - Bay Area Living: "Exotic world of Oriental rugs
'THE technical definition of Oriental is the land mass between Turkey and Japan," says Matt Pence of Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company in Berkeley. Hundreds of years ago, Western people divided the world into two hemispheres: Western (or occidental) and Eastern (Oriental). So Oriental rugs can be those made in that half of the world.
"Oriental rugs are made in places like China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and now, Afghanistan, resurging since the Soviets left and the Taliban is gone," Pence says.
The field of Oriental rugs can be complicated. If you throw in the antique rug market, it's even more confusing.
"Rugs can get kind of esoteric pretty quickly," Pence says a bit ruefully.
The principles for what makes a good rug are fairly simple: the quality of the workmanship and materials, the quality of the colors, the beauty of the pattern, the age and its rarity. But truly delving into the market means learning what patterns, characteristics and techniques are traditional for which tribes.
Joe Bezdjian, who owns Simonian Oriental Rugs in San Mateo, says that for a novice, discerning the difference between a $10,000 rug and a $4,500 rug may be impossible. "You just have to be in the business to be able to tell," he says.
And in the antique market, the condition of the rug takes an expert eye. For example, frayed fringe and even some unraveling around the edges can be repaired. Other problems, particularly moth damage, are more serious.
Simonian shows a Kurdish rug, made in Iran, that's nearly 100 years old. The geometric pattern of bold reds, blacks, browns and royal blue is marred by a huge worn spot in the middle. Even so, he judges its value at $500. "Some people love it," he says. "I would overlook this because it's old."
Emmett Eiland's sells some antique rugs, but mostly sells rugs created in traditional ways -- hand-knotted with hand-spun wool -- using traditional patterns.
One reason that a typical higher-end new rug can cost $5,500 is how long it takes to make.
"A typical rug in our store is probably 120 knots per square inch, and each of those knots was tied to the rug by one person," he says. "A really skilled weaver will do one square yard of rug per month."
That means that a room-sized rug can take six to 10 months to make by a group of several weavers, which explains why they cost thousands of dollars.
Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company has an extremely detailed Web site that's useful for inspiration as well as shopping: www.internetrugs.com
-- Elizabeth Jardina""
Friday, November 25, 2005
RugNotes: Alameda Times-Star Online - Emmett Eiland's Exotic world of Oriental rugs
RugNotes: Alameda Times-Star Online - Exotic world of Oriental rugs: "Saturday, November 13, 2004
Alameda Times-Star Online - Exotic world of Oriental rugs
Alameda Times-Star Online - Bay Area Living: "Exotic world of Oriental rugs
'THE technical definition of Oriental is the land mass between Turkey and Japan," says Matt Pence of Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company in Berkeley. Hundreds of years ago, Western people divided the world into two hemispheres: Western (or occidental) and Eastern (Oriental). So Oriental rugs can be those made in that half of the world.
"Oriental rugs are made in places like China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and now, Afghanistan, resurging since the Soviets left and the Taliban is gone," Pence says.
The field of Oriental rugs can be complicated. If you throw in the antique Oriental rug market, it's even more confusing.
"Rugs can get kind of esoteric pretty quickly," Pence says a bit ruefully.
The principles for what makes a good rug are fairly simple: the quality of the workmanship and materials, the quality of the colors, the beauty of the pattern, the age and its rarity. But truly delving into the market means learning what patterns, characteristics and techniques are traditional for which tribes.
Joe Bezdjian, who owns Simonian Oriental Rugs in San Mateo, says that for a novice, discerning the difference between a $10,000 rug and a $4,500 rug may be impossible. "You just have to be in the business to be able to tell," he says.
And in the antique market, the condition of the rug takes an expert eye. For example, frayed fringe and even some unraveling around the edges can be repaired. Other problems, particularly moth damage, are more serious.
Simonian shows a Kurdish rug, made in Iran, that's nearly 100 years old. The geometric pattern of bold reds, blacks, browns and royal blue is marred by a huge worn spot in the middle. Even so, he judges its value at $500. "Some people love it," he says. "I would overlook this because it's old."
Emmett Eiland's sells some antique rugs, but mostly sells rugs created in traditional ways -- hand-knotted with hand-spun wool -- using traditional patterns.
One reason that a typical higher-end new rug can cost $5,500 is how long it takes to make.
"A typical rug in our store is probably 120 knots per square inch, and each of those knots was tied to the rug by one person," he says. "A really skilled weaver will do one square yard of rug per month."
That means that a room-sized rug can take six to 10 months to make by a group of several weavers, which explains why they cost thousands of dollars.
Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company has an extremely detailed Web site that's useful for inspiration as well as shopping: www.internetrugs.com
-- Elizabeth Jardina""
Alameda Times-Star Online - Exotic world of Oriental rugs
Alameda Times-Star Online - Bay Area Living: "Exotic world of Oriental rugs
'THE technical definition of Oriental is the land mass between Turkey and Japan," says Matt Pence of Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company in Berkeley. Hundreds of years ago, Western people divided the world into two hemispheres: Western (or occidental) and Eastern (Oriental). So Oriental rugs can be those made in that half of the world.
"Oriental rugs are made in places like China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and now, Afghanistan, resurging since the Soviets left and the Taliban is gone," Pence says.
The field of Oriental rugs can be complicated. If you throw in the antique Oriental rug market, it's even more confusing.
"Rugs can get kind of esoteric pretty quickly," Pence says a bit ruefully.
The principles for what makes a good rug are fairly simple: the quality of the workmanship and materials, the quality of the colors, the beauty of the pattern, the age and its rarity. But truly delving into the market means learning what patterns, characteristics and techniques are traditional for which tribes.
Joe Bezdjian, who owns Simonian Oriental Rugs in San Mateo, says that for a novice, discerning the difference between a $10,000 rug and a $4,500 rug may be impossible. "You just have to be in the business to be able to tell," he says.
And in the antique market, the condition of the rug takes an expert eye. For example, frayed fringe and even some unraveling around the edges can be repaired. Other problems, particularly moth damage, are more serious.
Simonian shows a Kurdish rug, made in Iran, that's nearly 100 years old. The geometric pattern of bold reds, blacks, browns and royal blue is marred by a huge worn spot in the middle. Even so, he judges its value at $500. "Some people love it," he says. "I would overlook this because it's old."
Emmett Eiland's sells some antique rugs, but mostly sells rugs created in traditional ways -- hand-knotted with hand-spun wool -- using traditional patterns.
One reason that a typical higher-end new rug can cost $5,500 is how long it takes to make.
"A typical rug in our store is probably 120 knots per square inch, and each of those knots was tied to the rug by one person," he says. "A really skilled weaver will do one square yard of rug per month."
That means that a room-sized rug can take six to 10 months to make by a group of several weavers, which explains why they cost thousands of dollars.
Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rug Company has an extremely detailed Web site that's useful for inspiration as well as shopping: www.internetrugs.com
-- Elizabeth Jardina""
RugNotes: Kurdish Carpet and Kelim by William Eagleton
N.B. Ambassador William "Bill" Eagleton died on January 27, 2011. He was a genuinely nice person and had an amazing intellect. I first met him at a "Rug Morning" at the Textile Museum in Washington DC. I identified a picture of a building on a rug as the Presidential palace in Kabul. I was please when a couple agreed but commented that the weaver had reversed the image. That was how I met the Eagleton's.
RugNotes: Saturday, April 30, 2005: "Saturday, April 30, 2005
Kurdish Carpet and Kelim by William Eagleton
Kurdish Carpet and Kelim: "Kurdish Carpets and Kelims
By Eagleton
The following is an introduction to Kurdish Rugs and Kelims, by William Eagleton. For the complete article see the main reference at the end.
.....
Kurdish rugs are usually woven on a relatively narrow loom of three to four feet long, and they are often twice as long as they are wide. Runners are popular, not for use in hallways but to provide sitting space along the walls in Kurdish village houses. Kurdish rugs often have only one or two borders, rather than the more standard three corders of Persian and Turkish rugs. The flat-wowen Kurdish kelims are also usually produced on narrow looms, sometimes in two matching halves that can be sewn toigether to produce a single design in a more nearly square format.
Kurdish rugs usually have two or more wefts between rows of symmetric knots, althoughh two of the best-knwn Kurdish products on the market , the Sennes and Bijars, have their own special structures. The most authentic Kurdish weave gives pile rugs a flat back on which the design is easily seen, and with each knot showing clearly as two square nodes. Kurdish rugs, whether from Anatolia or Iran, are often distinguished by their multi-cloured side selvedges. In Iran these usually form colour bands, six or more inches in length, while in anatolia different-coloured wools often alternate to form a herringbone side finish. The end finishes of Kurdish tribal and nomadic pieces are easy to distinguish since they consist of a cross braid made up of the excess warp length. From this cross braid extend round or flat plaits. Each plait groups together several inches of warp to lengthen the fringe another six inches or so. This produces the `wild, barbaric' appearance of Kurdish rugs noted in the early rug books.
DESIGN AND COLOUR
The designs of Kurdish tribal and village rugs, like those elsewhere in the Middle East, are often derived from elaborately drawn urban products, even though the connection is initially not at all obvious. It is, of course, the imagination and spontaneity of Kurdish women weavers that over years and centuries have transformed these sophisticated drawings into the crude geometric medallions and other figures found in Kurdish weavings we know today. In addition to this borrowing from the past, there are some designs that appear to be part of a non-urban tradition. On the whole, the flat-woven kelims probably display the most authentic Kurdish designs, since they have normallly been made for local use with few urban influences. For Kurdish designs in rugs, we can cite the eightpointed star and other octagonal forms as being the most typical. Besides these, there are latchhooks and geometric devices, `turtles', birds, and familiar objects such as combs and talismanic-shaped jewellery. There are laso crude animal and human forms, and along the edges reciprocal `running dog' outer borders. Kurdish women weavers like to fill empty spaces in the fields of the rugs using many small flowers and geometric shapes. This produces a cluttered and deconstructed appearance which can be attractive or not, depending on how space and colour are combined, and how they suit the eye. Older Kurdish rugs have strong natural dyes that improve with age. Red and blue are the dominant clours, the former normally coming from the madder root, while in the Malatya and Gaziantep regions in Turkey cochineal dyes from insects were used until the 1920s to produce deep reds with a bluish cast. More recently, however, Kurdish weavers, like others in the Middle East, have taken to the easily applied, cheap and inferior chemical dyes that are often resistent neither to light nor to water. Kurdish women are particularly attracted to the bright pinks and oranges, which they fortunately use in small quantities, and which sometimes fade to more pleasing hues.
CLASSIFICATION BY REGION
Kurdish weaving can most conveniently be classified by describing characteristics within each political init. In Iran, Kurdish rug production is devided between Iranian Kurdistan in the north-west and a large enclave to the east in Khorasan neart Quchan. The women of Quchan broght their rug-weaving tradition from central Anatolia and the Caucasus in the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries and combined it with the local weaving tradition of the Turkomans and Bauch. In Western Iranian Kurdistaan, two notable rug types developed during the nineteeth century, namely the Sennes and the Bijars - two very different weaves, both of which were apparently made for an urban elite. The Sennes, woven in the town now called Sanandaj, are a fine, but light, construction, wile the Bijars only a short distance to the east are notably heavy and tightly woven. The third area in Iranian Kurdistan well known to rug scholars is Sauj Bulaq, now Mahabad. The nineteenth-century rugs attributed to Sauj Bulaq were probably woven in nearby tribal areaas. Over the years the weaving traditions in the region have changed, causing confusion regarding the proper description of these rugs as to structure and design. Those of the ninteenth century were noted for their lustrous wool and deep colours, aand fields full of every type of Kurdish device within an overall design derived from classical carpets. The Sennes also borrowed from urban designs with central medallions or overall Herati patterns.
In addition to these weel-known Iranian Kurdish rugs, there is a wide variety of other Kurdish tribal weavings, from the far north down the mountains to Kermanshah. Near Kermanshah the small pile bags of the Jaf and Sanjabi tribes dominate. Nearer Hamadan the sedentary Kolya'i tribe produced a larege volume of inexpensive rugs for the export market. Further north the tribes have produces a great variety of rugs, bags and kelims. There is obviously more work to be done in classifying Iranian tribal weavings. The Anatolian Kurdish weaving area can be devided into three geographical areas: west of Lake Van, north of Lake Van, and the area south of the lake in the Hakkari mountains. The Kurdis rugs from the west have for years been mislabelled as Yuruks even thouggh the Yuruks are a nomadic Turkish people, most of whom are located west of the Kurds. These rugs usually take the names of the principal markets such as Sivas, Malatya, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir and Cihanbeyli near Konya. In addition to the pile rugs there are many well-known kelims woven in these areas, especially Malayta, Gaziantep and Sivas.
The Anatolian Kurdish rugs of the nineteeth and early twentieth centuries from the area west of Lake Van are tightly woven by the comparison with other village and nomadic products. Their shapes and structures resemble other Anatolian rugs of the period, though their dyes tend to be darker and richer than those of their neighbours. Although Kurdish rugs normally have wefts, as well as warps and pile, made up of two strands of spun wool, the Kurdish rugs west of Lake Van usually have sigle-ply wefts.
North of Lake Van are the woven products of Erzurum, Kars and Kagizman where some design characteristics are similar to those of `Caucasian ' rugs across the border in Armenia and Georgia. At times, it is difficult to distinguish the Kurdish rugs of Kars from the Turkish Terekeme, though the latter are somewhat more even in weave and Caucasian in design. The predominace of brown sheep north of Lake Van lends asombre tone to some of the colours and produces brown end finishes which help us identify these rugs.
South of Lake Van are found the rugs and Kelims of the large Hartushi and Herki tribes. Of the kelims, the best knwn are the nearly square Van kelims, woven in two sections by the Hartushi women. At the present time many of their villages have been abondoned for security reasons, but the women are still weaving kelims for the tourist market in Van or elsewhere. Only recently have large numbers of the thick and primitive Hartushi rugs come onto the market, many of them too heavy for the international rug market given their low price. Other rugs of a smaller format are wowen by the nomadic Herki tribe which is located in Turkey, Irn and Iraq. This mountainous area south of the lake is the Kurdish heartland where some of the most authentic weaving is still being done, though unfortunately not with natural dyes.
The Kurdish rugs and kelims of Iraq are entirely of tribal origin and few of them have found their way onto the international market. The weaving areas in Iraqi Kurdistan fall into three distinct regions: the Erbil plain, with Persian influences brought over by the Dizayi aghas in the eighteenth century, the area north-east of Erbil, centered on the Herki, Surchi and Keylani tribes, and the area north of Mosoul, where Kelims predominate.
In Syria, there is minor production, mostly of kelims related to those woven by the Kurds north of the border in Turkey. The term `Aleppo Kelim' is often used for products made before Word War I, many of which were woven in areas whic are now part of Turkey, stretching as far north-west as Gaziantep.
The Kurds of Caucasus are known to have been prolific weavers. The major problem here is that, with a few exceptions, we are not certain which of the Caucasian rugs were woven by Kurds and which by Azeri Turks or Armenians. There is a tendency to assign some of the more dense, shaggy and primitive pieces to Kurdish weavers.
...........
Reference:
Eagleton, William. Kurdish Rugs and Kelims: An Introduction, in Kreyenbroek, P. and Allison, C. (eds) Kurdish Culture and Identity, Zed Books Ltd, London, 1996, pp. 156-161.
For further Information read:
Eagleton, William, An Introduction to Kurdish Rugs and other Weavings, Buckhurst Hill, 1988.
William Eagleton has been US Ambassador in Syria, and is now Deputy Commissioner General of UNWRA in Vienna, currently seving as Special Coordinator for Sarajevo. He combines an interest in the political and in the artistic aspects of the Middle East, being the author of books on modern Kurdish history and on carpets (from the original source).""
Oriental Rug Cleaning in the State College and Williamsport Pa
RugNotes: Saturday, April 30, 2005: "Saturday, April 30, 2005
Kurdish Carpet and Kelim by William Eagleton
Kurdish Carpet and Kelim: "Kurdish Carpets and Kelims
By Eagleton
The following is an introduction to Kurdish Rugs and Kelims, by William Eagleton. For the complete article see the main reference at the end.
.....
Kurdish rugs are usually woven on a relatively narrow loom of three to four feet long, and they are often twice as long as they are wide. Runners are popular, not for use in hallways but to provide sitting space along the walls in Kurdish village houses. Kurdish rugs often have only one or two borders, rather than the more standard three corders of Persian and Turkish rugs. The flat-wowen Kurdish kelims are also usually produced on narrow looms, sometimes in two matching halves that can be sewn toigether to produce a single design in a more nearly square format.
Kurdish rugs usually have two or more wefts between rows of symmetric knots, althoughh two of the best-knwn Kurdish products on the market , the Sennes and Bijars, have their own special structures. The most authentic Kurdish weave gives pile rugs a flat back on which the design is easily seen, and with each knot showing clearly as two square nodes. Kurdish rugs, whether from Anatolia or Iran, are often distinguished by their multi-cloured side selvedges. In Iran these usually form colour bands, six or more inches in length, while in anatolia different-coloured wools often alternate to form a herringbone side finish. The end finishes of Kurdish tribal and nomadic pieces are easy to distinguish since they consist of a cross braid made up of the excess warp length. From this cross braid extend round or flat plaits. Each plait groups together several inches of warp to lengthen the fringe another six inches or so. This produces the `wild, barbaric' appearance of Kurdish rugs noted in the early rug books.
DESIGN AND COLOUR
The designs of Kurdish tribal and village rugs, like those elsewhere in the Middle East, are often derived from elaborately drawn urban products, even though the connection is initially not at all obvious. It is, of course, the imagination and spontaneity of Kurdish women weavers that over years and centuries have transformed these sophisticated drawings into the crude geometric medallions and other figures found in Kurdish weavings we know today. In addition to this borrowing from the past, there are some designs that appear to be part of a non-urban tradition. On the whole, the flat-woven kelims probably display the most authentic Kurdish designs, since they have normallly been made for local use with few urban influences. For Kurdish designs in rugs, we can cite the eightpointed star and other octagonal forms as being the most typical. Besides these, there are latchhooks and geometric devices, `turtles', birds, and familiar objects such as combs and talismanic-shaped jewellery. There are laso crude animal and human forms, and along the edges reciprocal `running dog' outer borders. Kurdish women weavers like to fill empty spaces in the fields of the rugs using many small flowers and geometric shapes. This produces a cluttered and deconstructed appearance which can be attractive or not, depending on how space and colour are combined, and how they suit the eye. Older Kurdish rugs have strong natural dyes that improve with age. Red and blue are the dominant clours, the former normally coming from the madder root, while in the Malatya and Gaziantep regions in Turkey cochineal dyes from insects were used until the 1920s to produce deep reds with a bluish cast. More recently, however, Kurdish weavers, like others in the Middle East, have taken to the easily applied, cheap and inferior chemical dyes that are often resistent neither to light nor to water. Kurdish women are particularly attracted to the bright pinks and oranges, which they fortunately use in small quantities, and which sometimes fade to more pleasing hues.
CLASSIFICATION BY REGION
Kurdish weaving can most conveniently be classified by describing characteristics within each political init. In Iran, Kurdish rug production is devided between Iranian Kurdistan in the north-west and a large enclave to the east in Khorasan neart Quchan. The women of Quchan broght their rug-weaving tradition from central Anatolia and the Caucasus in the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries and combined it with the local weaving tradition of the Turkomans and Bauch. In Western Iranian Kurdistaan, two notable rug types developed during the nineteeth century, namely the Sennes and the Bijars - two very different weaves, both of which were apparently made for an urban elite. The Sennes, woven in the town now called Sanandaj, are a fine, but light, construction, wile the Bijars only a short distance to the east are notably heavy and tightly woven. The third area in Iranian Kurdistan well known to rug scholars is Sauj Bulaq, now Mahabad. The nineteenth-century rugs attributed to Sauj Bulaq were probably woven in nearby tribal areaas. Over the years the weaving traditions in the region have changed, causing confusion regarding the proper description of these rugs as to structure and design. Those of the ninteenth century were noted for their lustrous wool and deep colours, aand fields full of every type of Kurdish device within an overall design derived from classical carpets. The Sennes also borrowed from urban designs with central medallions or overall Herati patterns.
In addition to these weel-known Iranian Kurdish rugs, there is a wide variety of other Kurdish tribal weavings, from the far north down the mountains to Kermanshah. Near Kermanshah the small pile bags of the Jaf and Sanjabi tribes dominate. Nearer Hamadan the sedentary Kolya'i tribe produced a larege volume of inexpensive rugs for the export market. Further north the tribes have produces a great variety of rugs, bags and kelims. There is obviously more work to be done in classifying Iranian tribal weavings. The Anatolian Kurdish weaving area can be devided into three geographical areas: west of Lake Van, north of Lake Van, and the area south of the lake in the Hakkari mountains. The Kurdis rugs from the west have for years been mislabelled as Yuruks even thouggh the Yuruks are a nomadic Turkish people, most of whom are located west of the Kurds. These rugs usually take the names of the principal markets such as Sivas, Malatya, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Diyarbakir and Cihanbeyli near Konya. In addition to the pile rugs there are many well-known kelims woven in these areas, especially Malayta, Gaziantep and Sivas.
The Anatolian Kurdish rugs of the nineteeth and early twentieth centuries from the area west of Lake Van are tightly woven by the comparison with other village and nomadic products. Their shapes and structures resemble other Anatolian rugs of the period, though their dyes tend to be darker and richer than those of their neighbours. Although Kurdish rugs normally have wefts, as well as warps and pile, made up of two strands of spun wool, the Kurdish rugs west of Lake Van usually have sigle-ply wefts.
North of Lake Van are the woven products of Erzurum, Kars and Kagizman where some design characteristics are similar to those of `Caucasian ' rugs across the border in Armenia and Georgia. At times, it is difficult to distinguish the Kurdish rugs of Kars from the Turkish Terekeme, though the latter are somewhat more even in weave and Caucasian in design. The predominace of brown sheep north of Lake Van lends asombre tone to some of the colours and produces brown end finishes which help us identify these rugs.
South of Lake Van are found the rugs and Kelims of the large Hartushi and Herki tribes. Of the kelims, the best knwn are the nearly square Van kelims, woven in two sections by the Hartushi women. At the present time many of their villages have been abondoned for security reasons, but the women are still weaving kelims for the tourist market in Van or elsewhere. Only recently have large numbers of the thick and primitive Hartushi rugs come onto the market, many of them too heavy for the international rug market given their low price. Other rugs of a smaller format are wowen by the nomadic Herki tribe which is located in Turkey, Irn and Iraq. This mountainous area south of the lake is the Kurdish heartland where some of the most authentic weaving is still being done, though unfortunately not with natural dyes.
The Kurdish rugs and kelims of Iraq are entirely of tribal origin and few of them have found their way onto the international market. The weaving areas in Iraqi Kurdistan fall into three distinct regions: the Erbil plain, with Persian influences brought over by the Dizayi aghas in the eighteenth century, the area north-east of Erbil, centered on the Herki, Surchi and Keylani tribes, and the area north of Mosoul, where Kelims predominate.
In Syria, there is minor production, mostly of kelims related to those woven by the Kurds north of the border in Turkey. The term `Aleppo Kelim' is often used for products made before Word War I, many of which were woven in areas whic are now part of Turkey, stretching as far north-west as Gaziantep.
The Kurds of Caucasus are known to have been prolific weavers. The major problem here is that, with a few exceptions, we are not certain which of the Caucasian rugs were woven by Kurds and which by Azeri Turks or Armenians. There is a tendency to assign some of the more dense, shaggy and primitive pieces to Kurdish weavers.
...........
Reference:
Eagleton, William. Kurdish Rugs and Kelims: An Introduction, in Kreyenbroek, P. and Allison, C. (eds) Kurdish Culture and Identity, Zed Books Ltd, London, 1996, pp. 156-161.
For further Information read:
Eagleton, William, An Introduction to Kurdish Rugs and other Weavings, Buckhurst Hill, 1988.
William Eagleton has been US Ambassador in Syria, and is now Deputy Commissioner General of UNWRA in Vienna, currently seving as Special Coordinator for Sarajevo. He combines an interest in the political and in the artistic aspects of the Middle East, being the author of books on modern Kurdish history and on carpets (from the original source).""
Oriental Rug Cleaning in the State College and Williamsport Pa
RugNotes: HALI.com - Marilyn Rothman Wolf in Transylvania
RugNotes: HALI.com - Marilyn Rothman Wolf in Transylvania: "Friday, May 07, 2004
HALI.com - Marilyn Rothman Wolf in Transylvania
HALI.com:
Hmmm! Marilyn Rothman Wolf, I wonder if that is the same as Marilyn Wolf who was in the New York Hajji Baba Club. Rug collecting is a small enough group it may well be. But then the question becomes did she always use Rothman and I just never noticed or is this something new. What do you think one Marilyn or two? JBOC
"Marilyn Rothman Wolf writes: Nearly 200 classic Turkish rugs over eight days, now that's nirvana for any rug enthusiast! Organised by the well known Florentine scholar and dealer Alberto Boralevi, a group of some 25 Italians, Austrians and Americans travelled to Transylvania (in modern Romania) where they were introduced to the inexhaustible Stefano Ionescu, publisher, editor and author of the forthcoming definitive book on Transylvanian rugs, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania.""
HALI.com - Marilyn Rothman Wolf in Transylvania
HALI.com:
Hmmm! Marilyn Rothman Wolf, I wonder if that is the same as Marilyn Wolf who was in the New York Hajji Baba Club. Rug collecting is a small enough group it may well be. But then the question becomes did she always use Rothman and I just never noticed or is this something new. What do you think one Marilyn or two? JBOC
"Marilyn Rothman Wolf writes: Nearly 200 classic Turkish rugs over eight days, now that's nirvana for any rug enthusiast! Organised by the well known Florentine scholar and dealer Alberto Boralevi, a group of some 25 Italians, Austrians and Americans travelled to Transylvania (in modern Romania) where they were introduced to the inexhaustible Stefano Ionescu, publisher, editor and author of the forthcoming definitive book on Transylvanian rugs, Antique Ottoman Rugs in Transylvania.""
Woolley & Wallis has closed their rug and carpet department
Woolley & Wallis has closed their rug and carpet department: "Woolley & Wallis has closed the rug department
28 May 2004
Woolley & Wallis Salisbury has closed their specialist department for Oriental rugs, carpets and textiles.
The auction in February 2004 was the last specialist carpet and textile sale. According to Woolley & Wallis they will still sell some carpets in their antique furniture auctions.
Rugs and carpets from Woolley & Wallis former specialist rug and carpet sales were catalogued by June Barrett and Ian Bennett, former Hali editor and author of a long list of important rug books. Their online auction catalogues included the best rug photos seen on any auction site on the web.
28 May 2004, Ivan Soenderholm"
28 May 2004
Woolley & Wallis Salisbury has closed their specialist department for Oriental rugs, carpets and textiles.
The auction in February 2004 was the last specialist carpet and textile sale. According to Woolley & Wallis they will still sell some carpets in their antique furniture auctions.
Rugs and carpets from Woolley & Wallis former specialist rug and carpet sales were catalogued by June Barrett and Ian Bennett, former Hali editor and author of a long list of important rug books. Their online auction catalogues included the best rug photos seen on any auction site on the web.
28 May 2004, Ivan Soenderholm"
RugNotes: The Reporter - Indian, Persian and Turkish Drawings," from the Stuart Cary Welch
RugNotes: The Reporter - Indian, Persian and Turkish Drawings," from the Stuart Cary Welch: "Friday, September 24, 2004
The Reporter - Indian, Persian and Turkish Drawings," from the Stuart Cary Welch
The Reporter - Datebook: "ASIAN ART MUSEUM - The Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., San Francisco, presents "Fakes, Copies, and Question Marks: Forensic Investigations of Asian Art," Saturday through March 27. "From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Indian, Persian and Turkish Drawings," from the Stuart Cary Welch collection, today through Nov. 28. "Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile" closes Sunday. "In a New Light: The Asian Art Museum Collection," ongoing. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is $6-$12. Call (415) 581-3500 or visit www.asianart.org.""
The Reporter - Indian, Persian and Turkish Drawings," from the Stuart Cary Welch
The Reporter - Datebook: "ASIAN ART MUSEUM - The Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., San Francisco, presents "Fakes, Copies, and Question Marks: Forensic Investigations of Asian Art," Saturday through March 27. "From Mind, Heart, and Hand: Indian, Persian and Turkish Drawings," from the Stuart Cary Welch collection, today through Nov. 28. "Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile" closes Sunday. "In a New Light: The Asian Art Museum Collection," ongoing. Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is $6-$12. Call (415) 581-3500 or visit www.asianart.org.""
RugNotes: Star Tribune: Yayla Tribal Rugs, a Massachusetts-based company Supports Some Child Labor
RugNotes: "Monday, June 27, 2005
Peace Corps Online | March 26, 2003 - Star Tribune: Yayla Tribal Rugs, a Massachusetts-based company Supports Some Child Labor
Peace Corps Online | March 26, 2003 - Star Tribune: Fiji RPCV Stephanie Odegard helps keep child labor from being swept under the rug: "Read and comment on this story from the Star Tribune on how Fiji RPCV Stephanie Odegard is helping keep child labor from being swept under the rug. Odegard is hailed in the design world for her style and use of environmentally sustainable materials and dyes. She is one of the largest importers of Tibetan carpets and is known for her rejection of child labor and advocacy of children's education and rights in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, where many kids are little more than slave laborers.
The rug trade long has been dogged by the fact that many beautiful "Oriental" rugs often are made by kids toiling in loom houses, damaging their young eyes and fingers, for a few cents per day. Odegard is a founder and director of the Rugmark Foundation, which puts its stamp only on goods made by adults. She invests hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in Rugmark and directly in schools in the villages where her rugs are produced in Nepal and India. Read the story at:
Keeping child labor from being swept under the rug*
* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keeping child labor from being swept under the rug
Neal St. Anthony
Published March 26, 2003
NEAL26
Stephanie Odegard has been making her mark at the confluence of commerce and human rights since she quit an up-and-coming career as a dress buyer at the former Dayton's Department Stores in 1974 at the age of 26.
"I thought for a while that this was my career and that maybe I'd have three kids and live in Minneapolis," said Odegard, a Washburn High School and University of Minnesota grad. "I decided that wasn't what I really wanted."
Odegard and her then-husband joined the Peace Corps. They were assigned to Fiji in the South Pacific, where they worked with local artists to produce crafts attractive to Western buyers.
Odegard's commitment to the development of indigenous crafts in India and Nepal has lasted for three decades.
After her two years in the Peace Corps, Odegard spent a decade as a consultant to the World Bank and United Nations. She struck out on her own in 1987 to prove that she could use the power of business to connect producers and consumers in a way that betters lives.
Today, Odegard, 55, is the owner of the 50-employee Odegard Inc. and its Odegard Rare and Custom Carpets that decorate the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Restaurant Daniel in New York City and thousands of homes and offices of people who pay $4,000 to $20,000 at retail for 9-by 12-foot rugs.
Odegard is hailed in the design world for her style and use of environmentally sustainable materials and dyes. She is one of the largest importers of Tibetan carpets and is known for her rejection of child labor and advocacy of children's education and rights in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, where many kids are little more than slave laborers.
"Little hands do not make the best carpets," she told an audience last week at International Market Square, where her rugs are on display at the Weskuske studio. "That's a myth.
"Weavers who've been at it for 20 or 30 years make the best carpets. And children deserve a childhood and a chance for an education. Know who you are dealing with when you buy a carpet."
The rug trade long has been dogged by the fact that many beautiful "Oriental" rugs often are made by kids toiling in loom houses, damaging their young eyes and fingers, for a few cents per day.
Odegard is a founder and director of the Rugmark Foundation, which puts its stamp only on goods made by adults. She invests hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in Rugmark and directly in schools in the villages where her rugs are produced in Nepal and India.
To some, Odegard is a bit naive. After all, Americans like a pretty rug at the best price.
An executive of Yayla Tribal Rugs, a Massachusetts-based company that supports six schools for children of weavers in Pakistan and India, told the Washington Post last year that rug weaving is a family-based enterprise that "is not child labor in the sense of working outside the home in factories or enterprises. It is multigenerational work for kids who work beside their mothers and grandmothers."
Graham Head, president of ABC Carpet in New York City, called Rugmark's standards "impossible to enforce.
"The work is done in compounds," he said. "Can an inspector just walk in when there is a guard with an automatic weapon?"
Odegard and Nina Smith, executive director of Rugmark, said they do not oppose traditional "child work" in home-based enterprises. They try to prevent the still-widespread child labor in factories.
Such forced labor is illegal in the three countries where Rugmark operates programs -- Nepal, India and Pakistan.
Rugmark-licensed carpetmakers agree to let inspectors make unannounced visits, and the group funds schools and rehabilitation centers for children displaced by the inspections. The work is funded by licensed importers, including Odegard, who pay 1.75 percent of a rug's price for permission to display the Rugmark label.
Odegard, Rugmark's largest single supporter, said her business proves that commerce can provide a better life for skilled artisans and more opportunity for their kids.
"People may say, 'If kids don't have a job, they don't make money and it's worse,' " she said. "I've seen kids who have been kidnapped, enslaved. They sleep in front of the machine, chained. Well, nobody should be robbed of a childhood and some education. In my industry, there's no need to accept poor labor practices unless you want to make something cheaply.
"The carpet industry is a wealthy industry with wealthy people. They can educate consumers about the issue. They can join Rugmark. . . . The prices are a little more, but most people who buy hand-knotted carpets have money anyway."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More about Rugmark and what they are doing to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry
Read more about Rugmark and what they are doing to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry at:
RUGMARK is a global nonprofit organization working to end child labor and offer educational opportunities for children in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
RUGMARK is a global nonprofit organization working to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry and offer educational opportunities to children in India, Nepal, and Pakistan. It does this through loom and factory monitoring, consumer labeling, and running schools for former child workers.
RUGMARK recruits carpet producers and importers to make and sell carpets that are free of illegal child labor. By agreeing to adhere to RUGMARK's strict no child labor guidelines, and by permitting random inspections of carpet looms, manufacturers receive the right to put the RUGMARK label on their carpets. The label provides the best possible assurance that children were not employed in the making of a rug. It also verifies that a portion of the carpet price is contributed to the rehabilitation and education of former child weavers.
RUGMARK is a global program under the umbrella of RUGMARK International, which has registered the RUGMARK name and logo as a trademark. India, Nepal, and Pakistan are the three carpet-producing countries currently participating in the RUGMARK program. RUGMARK carpets are sold in Europe and North America and are promoted through offices in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
To be certified by RUGMARK, carpet-manufacturers sign a legally binding contract to:
produce carpets without illegal child labor;
register all looms with the RUGMARK Foundation;
allow access to looms for unannounced inspections.
Carpet looms are monitored regularly. Inspectors are trained and supervised by RUGMARK. Each labeled carpet is individually numbered enabling its origin to be traced back to the loom on which is was produced. This also protects against counterfeit labels. In addition, nonprofit child welfare organizations not affiliated with RUGMARK have access to RUGMARK certified looms and factories as a double assurance that no children are employed.
In the U.S., only licensed RUGMARK importers are legally permitted to sell carpets carrying the RUGMARK label.
RUGMARK’s rehabilitation and education program is integral to its overall effort to end child labor. Since 1995, RUGMARK schools in India, Nepal, and Pakistan have offered educational opportunities to more than 2,300 former child weavers and children and adults from weaving communities.
RUGMARK places a priority on community-based rehabilitation. This means that every effort is made to reunite the children with their families, so they do not become alienated from their communities. Children who return to their families are given four levels of support, depending upon need:
support for school fees
support for books
support for uniforms
support for other materials
Children over 14 years are encouraged to join vocational training programs, which are also financed by RUGMARK.
RUGMARK schools encourage high academic standards, and every effort is made to help the chldren continue their education at least through high school. Children are also encouraged to attend vocational training courses. This way, they will be able to support themselves when the program assistance ends.
The educational programs are designed so that children first go through an intensive literacy and numeracy training, which prepares them for a formal education. A child, along with his/her parents, decides whether to enroll in a RUGMARK boarding school or to move home and attend a public or private school with RUGMARK support.
In Nepal, the non-formal programs are designed by the government and are meant to take two years to complete. Many children finish the program within 8 months, showing that when they aren’t working and are given proper nutrition, they are able to excel as students.
Formal educational programs include English, Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, math, and science. An emphasis is also put on physical fitness and extra-curricular pursuits, such as music and art..
As of February 2000, RUGMARK India has offered adult literacy programs to carpet weavers and a Self Help program that enable mothers of child weavers to learn to generate income.
Here are the highlights of our country programs:
In India, RUGMARK has built six primary schools in collaboration with local non-governmental organizations. They also run one rehabilitation center for former bonded laborers, and a vocational training center where older children are taught how to fix autos, paint signs, do electrical repair work, sew, masonry and carpet weaving. More than 1,400 children are currently enrolled in RUGMARK India schools. Click here to learn more.
In Nepal, three RUGMARK Rehabilitation Centers offer schooling from K-10, with one offering vocational training in tailoring, textile making, and screen-printing. These facilities are managed by experienced local community organizations. More than 200 children are currently attending RUGMARK Nepal programs. In addition, Nepal RUGMARK Foundation established a day care program for the children of adult carpet weavers working in licensed factories. Click here to learn more.
In Pakistan, RUGMARK has established three schools in Narowal, Faisalabad, and Bahawalnagar Districts and works with eight affiliated schools operated by local nonprofit organizations. Nearly 800 children are receiveing an education at these schools.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Service Advocacy; Child Labor; Rugs; COS - Fiji
PCOL3773
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Peace Corps Online | March 26, 2003 - Star Tribune: Yayla Tribal Rugs, a Massachusetts-based company Supports Some Child Labor
Peace Corps Online | March 26, 2003 - Star Tribune: Fiji RPCV Stephanie Odegard helps keep child labor from being swept under the rug: "Read and comment on this story from the Star Tribune on how Fiji RPCV Stephanie Odegard is helping keep child labor from being swept under the rug. Odegard is hailed in the design world for her style and use of environmentally sustainable materials and dyes. She is one of the largest importers of Tibetan carpets and is known for her rejection of child labor and advocacy of children's education and rights in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, where many kids are little more than slave laborers.
The rug trade long has been dogged by the fact that many beautiful "Oriental" rugs often are made by kids toiling in loom houses, damaging their young eyes and fingers, for a few cents per day. Odegard is a founder and director of the Rugmark Foundation, which puts its stamp only on goods made by adults. She invests hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in Rugmark and directly in schools in the villages where her rugs are produced in Nepal and India. Read the story at:
Keeping child labor from being swept under the rug*
* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
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Keeping child labor from being swept under the rug
Neal St. Anthony
Published March 26, 2003
NEAL26
Stephanie Odegard has been making her mark at the confluence of commerce and human rights since she quit an up-and-coming career as a dress buyer at the former Dayton's Department Stores in 1974 at the age of 26.
"I thought for a while that this was my career and that maybe I'd have three kids and live in Minneapolis," said Odegard, a Washburn High School and University of Minnesota grad. "I decided that wasn't what I really wanted."
Odegard and her then-husband joined the Peace Corps. They were assigned to Fiji in the South Pacific, where they worked with local artists to produce crafts attractive to Western buyers.
Odegard's commitment to the development of indigenous crafts in India and Nepal has lasted for three decades.
After her two years in the Peace Corps, Odegard spent a decade as a consultant to the World Bank and United Nations. She struck out on her own in 1987 to prove that she could use the power of business to connect producers and consumers in a way that betters lives.
Today, Odegard, 55, is the owner of the 50-employee Odegard Inc. and its Odegard Rare and Custom Carpets that decorate the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Restaurant Daniel in New York City and thousands of homes and offices of people who pay $4,000 to $20,000 at retail for 9-by 12-foot rugs.
Odegard is hailed in the design world for her style and use of environmentally sustainable materials and dyes. She is one of the largest importers of Tibetan carpets and is known for her rejection of child labor and advocacy of children's education and rights in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, where many kids are little more than slave laborers.
"Little hands do not make the best carpets," she told an audience last week at International Market Square, where her rugs are on display at the Weskuske studio. "That's a myth.
"Weavers who've been at it for 20 or 30 years make the best carpets. And children deserve a childhood and a chance for an education. Know who you are dealing with when you buy a carpet."
The rug trade long has been dogged by the fact that many beautiful "Oriental" rugs often are made by kids toiling in loom houses, damaging their young eyes and fingers, for a few cents per day.
Odegard is a founder and director of the Rugmark Foundation, which puts its stamp only on goods made by adults. She invests hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in Rugmark and directly in schools in the villages where her rugs are produced in Nepal and India.
To some, Odegard is a bit naive. After all, Americans like a pretty rug at the best price.
An executive of Yayla Tribal Rugs, a Massachusetts-based company that supports six schools for children of weavers in Pakistan and India, told the Washington Post last year that rug weaving is a family-based enterprise that "is not child labor in the sense of working outside the home in factories or enterprises. It is multigenerational work for kids who work beside their mothers and grandmothers."
Graham Head, president of ABC Carpet in New York City, called Rugmark's standards "impossible to enforce.
"The work is done in compounds," he said. "Can an inspector just walk in when there is a guard with an automatic weapon?"
Odegard and Nina Smith, executive director of Rugmark, said they do not oppose traditional "child work" in home-based enterprises. They try to prevent the still-widespread child labor in factories.
Such forced labor is illegal in the three countries where Rugmark operates programs -- Nepal, India and Pakistan.
Rugmark-licensed carpetmakers agree to let inspectors make unannounced visits, and the group funds schools and rehabilitation centers for children displaced by the inspections. The work is funded by licensed importers, including Odegard, who pay 1.75 percent of a rug's price for permission to display the Rugmark label.
Odegard, Rugmark's largest single supporter, said her business proves that commerce can provide a better life for skilled artisans and more opportunity for their kids.
"People may say, 'If kids don't have a job, they don't make money and it's worse,' " she said. "I've seen kids who have been kidnapped, enslaved. They sleep in front of the machine, chained. Well, nobody should be robbed of a childhood and some education. In my industry, there's no need to accept poor labor practices unless you want to make something cheaply.
"The carpet industry is a wealthy industry with wealthy people. They can educate consumers about the issue. They can join Rugmark. . . . The prices are a little more, but most people who buy hand-knotted carpets have money anyway."
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More about Rugmark and what they are doing to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry
Read more about Rugmark and what they are doing to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry at:
RUGMARK is a global nonprofit organization working to end child labor and offer educational opportunities for children in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
RUGMARK is a global nonprofit organization working to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry and offer educational opportunities to children in India, Nepal, and Pakistan. It does this through loom and factory monitoring, consumer labeling, and running schools for former child workers.
RUGMARK recruits carpet producers and importers to make and sell carpets that are free of illegal child labor. By agreeing to adhere to RUGMARK's strict no child labor guidelines, and by permitting random inspections of carpet looms, manufacturers receive the right to put the RUGMARK label on their carpets. The label provides the best possible assurance that children were not employed in the making of a rug. It also verifies that a portion of the carpet price is contributed to the rehabilitation and education of former child weavers.
RUGMARK is a global program under the umbrella of RUGMARK International, which has registered the RUGMARK name and logo as a trademark. India, Nepal, and Pakistan are the three carpet-producing countries currently participating in the RUGMARK program. RUGMARK carpets are sold in Europe and North America and are promoted through offices in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
To be certified by RUGMARK, carpet-manufacturers sign a legally binding contract to:
produce carpets without illegal child labor;
register all looms with the RUGMARK Foundation;
allow access to looms for unannounced inspections.
Carpet looms are monitored regularly. Inspectors are trained and supervised by RUGMARK. Each labeled carpet is individually numbered enabling its origin to be traced back to the loom on which is was produced. This also protects against counterfeit labels. In addition, nonprofit child welfare organizations not affiliated with RUGMARK have access to RUGMARK certified looms and factories as a double assurance that no children are employed.
In the U.S., only licensed RUGMARK importers are legally permitted to sell carpets carrying the RUGMARK label.
RUGMARK’s rehabilitation and education program is integral to its overall effort to end child labor. Since 1995, RUGMARK schools in India, Nepal, and Pakistan have offered educational opportunities to more than 2,300 former child weavers and children and adults from weaving communities.
RUGMARK places a priority on community-based rehabilitation. This means that every effort is made to reunite the children with their families, so they do not become alienated from their communities. Children who return to their families are given four levels of support, depending upon need:
support for school fees
support for books
support for uniforms
support for other materials
Children over 14 years are encouraged to join vocational training programs, which are also financed by RUGMARK.
RUGMARK schools encourage high academic standards, and every effort is made to help the chldren continue their education at least through high school. Children are also encouraged to attend vocational training courses. This way, they will be able to support themselves when the program assistance ends.
The educational programs are designed so that children first go through an intensive literacy and numeracy training, which prepares them for a formal education. A child, along with his/her parents, decides whether to enroll in a RUGMARK boarding school or to move home and attend a public or private school with RUGMARK support.
In Nepal, the non-formal programs are designed by the government and are meant to take two years to complete. Many children finish the program within 8 months, showing that when they aren’t working and are given proper nutrition, they are able to excel as students.
Formal educational programs include English, Hindi, Nepali, Urdu, math, and science. An emphasis is also put on physical fitness and extra-curricular pursuits, such as music and art..
As of February 2000, RUGMARK India has offered adult literacy programs to carpet weavers and a Self Help program that enable mothers of child weavers to learn to generate income.
Here are the highlights of our country programs:
In India, RUGMARK has built six primary schools in collaboration with local non-governmental organizations. They also run one rehabilitation center for former bonded laborers, and a vocational training center where older children are taught how to fix autos, paint signs, do electrical repair work, sew, masonry and carpet weaving. More than 1,400 children are currently enrolled in RUGMARK India schools. Click here to learn more.
In Nepal, three RUGMARK Rehabilitation Centers offer schooling from K-10, with one offering vocational training in tailoring, textile making, and screen-printing. These facilities are managed by experienced local community organizations. More than 200 children are currently attending RUGMARK Nepal programs. In addition, Nepal RUGMARK Foundation established a day care program for the children of adult carpet weavers working in licensed factories. Click here to learn more.
In Pakistan, RUGMARK has established three schools in Narowal, Faisalabad, and Bahawalnagar Districts and works with eight affiliated schools operated by local nonprofit organizations. Nearly 800 children are receiveing an education at these schools.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Service Advocacy; Child Labor; Rugs; COS - Fiji
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RugNotes: RUGMARK Imaginative Way to End Slavery
RugNotes: .:: Response Source :: ::.: "Thursday, January 27, 2005
.:: Response Source :: ::.
.:: Response Source :: ::.: "RUGMARK Imaginative Way to End Slavery
Submitter: Rugmark UK [View Response Source PR Company Listings]
Release Date: 27-01-2005
RUGMARK is imaginative way to end slavery says former Tory leader
William Hague speaking on Radio 4's Today programme (25 January 2005), following his inaugural Abraham Lincoln Lecture, specifically praised market based schemes such as RUGMARK as an imaginative way to tackle on-going slavery. RUGMARK UK welcomed the recognition of its work here in the UK and India and Hague's contribution to raising awareness of how businesses and consumers can easily make a difference.
Hague told Radio 4 listeners: "We have slavery on a scale today which we've never seen in the world before and there are certain things we can do..." He then went on to give examples of imaginative ways to do that such as: " Market based schemes like the RUGMARK scheme for India where people can buy a product from India on the assurance that child slave labour has not been used in making it".
RUGMARK is a non-profit initiative working to end illegal and exploited child labour through monitoring production as well as improving conditions in carpet making communities through provision of free schools and other social programmes.
In 2004 alone the UK sold over a quarter of a million of rugs bearing the RUGMARK label. RUGMARK UK aims to double those sales within the coming two years, in partnership with its importing licensees and committed retailers. The importing company pays a levy for each rug it brings into the UK. This levy helps fund the RUGMARK schools, education programmes and community welfare for the thousands of Indian and Nepalese children rescued from illegal, forced labour.
The problem of child labour is still rife and RUGMARK UK hopes that once more shoppers know to look for the RUGMARK label their consciences will influence their buying decision.
In the UK you can find the RUGMARK label on collections of rugs by: Asiatic Carpets, Gooch Oriental Carpets, Flair Flooring, Handmade Carpets, Oriental Weavers (UK), Selected Rug and Matting, Nawrozzadeh Trading Company, and Shenkin Rug Innovations. There are many retail outlets for these rugs including Co-op Department Stores, Allders, Allied Carpets, Makro, Costco The Pier, B&Q and independent retailers. For further information on where to buy RUGMARK labelled rugs visit www.rugmark.net
Editor's Additional Notes
1. RUGMARK was established in India 1994 and is now active in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Germany, the USA and the UK.
2. A levy of 1% is paid on each rug by the importing company, which funds schools, education programmes, day care centres and children's homes in India and Nepal for children rescued from child labour in the hand woven rug industry and children of carpet making communities. A smaller levy paid by the manufacturer on each rug exported is used to fund loom inspections.
3. Over 3.3m rugs from India alone have been sold worldwide with the RUGMARK label in the past decade.
4. 65% of Nepal's rug industry is now registered with RUGMARK.
5. William Hague made the inaugural Abraham Lincoln speech on Monday 24 January, organised by The Centre for Social Justice
Case Study Example
Mukesh was just nine years old when RUGMARK inspectors rescued him from the carpet loom. Far from home and family he was regularly beaten whenever he made a mistake and constantly hungry. Now 13 he lives in RUGMARK's welcoming Balashrya centre for former child weavers near Varanasi, India's holy city, and is receiving a full education to enable him to have a better future. As he says: "Here, nobody beats us. There are many things that I like about this place. But I especially like drawing. I would like to be a well-known painter one day" He recently won a district art competition so maybe his dream will come true.
Images: A large selection of JPEG images of new rugs launched in 2004 and sold with the RUGMARK logo are available on request.
Contact:
Clare Lissaman
Director, RUGMARK UK
Tel: 020-7737 2675
Fax: 020-7738 4110
www.rugmark.net
Thomas Clarkson House
The Stableyard
Broomgrove Road
London SW9 9TL" "
.:: Response Source :: ::.
.:: Response Source :: ::.: "RUGMARK Imaginative Way to End Slavery
Submitter: Rugmark UK [View Response Source PR Company Listings]
Release Date: 27-01-2005
RUGMARK is imaginative way to end slavery says former Tory leader
William Hague speaking on Radio 4's Today programme (25 January 2005), following his inaugural Abraham Lincoln Lecture, specifically praised market based schemes such as RUGMARK as an imaginative way to tackle on-going slavery. RUGMARK UK welcomed the recognition of its work here in the UK and India and Hague's contribution to raising awareness of how businesses and consumers can easily make a difference.
Hague told Radio 4 listeners: "We have slavery on a scale today which we've never seen in the world before and there are certain things we can do..." He then went on to give examples of imaginative ways to do that such as: " Market based schemes like the RUGMARK scheme for India where people can buy a product from India on the assurance that child slave labour has not been used in making it".
RUGMARK is a non-profit initiative working to end illegal and exploited child labour through monitoring production as well as improving conditions in carpet making communities through provision of free schools and other social programmes.
In 2004 alone the UK sold over a quarter of a million of rugs bearing the RUGMARK label. RUGMARK UK aims to double those sales within the coming two years, in partnership with its importing licensees and committed retailers. The importing company pays a levy for each rug it brings into the UK. This levy helps fund the RUGMARK schools, education programmes and community welfare for the thousands of Indian and Nepalese children rescued from illegal, forced labour.
The problem of child labour is still rife and RUGMARK UK hopes that once more shoppers know to look for the RUGMARK label their consciences will influence their buying decision.
In the UK you can find the RUGMARK label on collections of rugs by: Asiatic Carpets, Gooch Oriental Carpets, Flair Flooring, Handmade Carpets, Oriental Weavers (UK), Selected Rug and Matting, Nawrozzadeh Trading Company, and Shenkin Rug Innovations. There are many retail outlets for these rugs including Co-op Department Stores, Allders, Allied Carpets, Makro, Costco The Pier, B&Q and independent retailers. For further information on where to buy RUGMARK labelled rugs visit www.rugmark.net
Editor's Additional Notes
1. RUGMARK was established in India 1994 and is now active in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Germany, the USA and the UK.
2. A levy of 1% is paid on each rug by the importing company, which funds schools, education programmes, day care centres and children's homes in India and Nepal for children rescued from child labour in the hand woven rug industry and children of carpet making communities. A smaller levy paid by the manufacturer on each rug exported is used to fund loom inspections.
3. Over 3.3m rugs from India alone have been sold worldwide with the RUGMARK label in the past decade.
4. 65% of Nepal's rug industry is now registered with RUGMARK.
5. William Hague made the inaugural Abraham Lincoln speech on Monday 24 January, organised by The Centre for Social Justice
Case Study Example
Mukesh was just nine years old when RUGMARK inspectors rescued him from the carpet loom. Far from home and family he was regularly beaten whenever he made a mistake and constantly hungry. Now 13 he lives in RUGMARK's welcoming Balashrya centre for former child weavers near Varanasi, India's holy city, and is receiving a full education to enable him to have a better future. As he says: "Here, nobody beats us. There are many things that I like about this place. But I especially like drawing. I would like to be a well-known painter one day" He recently won a district art competition so maybe his dream will come true.
Images: A large selection of JPEG images of new rugs launched in 2004 and sold with the RUGMARK logo are available on request.
Contact:
Clare Lissaman
Director, RUGMARK UK
Tel: 020-7737 2675
Fax: 020-7738 4110
www.rugmark.net
Thomas Clarkson House
The Stableyard
Broomgrove Road
London SW9 9TL" "
RugNotes: Clinton's knotty affair : HindustanTimes.com
RugNotes: Clinton's knotty affair : HindustanTimes.com: "Clinton's knotty affair : HindustanTimes.com
Clinton's knotty affair : HindustanTimes.com: "Clinton learnt carpet knots and crosses in India
Hindol Sengupta (Indo-Asian News Service)
New Delhi, May 26, 2005
He is a former US president, great statesman and brilliant politician, but did you know that Bill Clinton knows a thing or two about carpet making?
Clinton, who owns several carpets from a particular New Delhi shop, has been taught a few things about the intricacies of carpet making by Saboor and Manzoor Wangnoo - the owners of the NCE range of stores that deal in oriental rugs and shawls.
Clinton, along with wife and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, have bought many a carpet from the NCE shop in the shopping arcade of the former president's favourite New Delhi Hotel Maurya Sheraton.
"The first time he came, he spent a lot of time at our shop," said Manzoor Wangnoo, who with his partner Saboor joined dozens of people on Wednesday to greet Bill Clinton as he began a three-day visit to oversee tsunami relief work in India.
This is Clinton's fourth visit in five years to the country. Hillary Clinton has visited India thrice.
"We explained to the (former) president how a carpet is made and what the relevance of all the different knots is. We told him how to tell which is a good carpet," Saboor told IANS.
"That's how he learnt to differentiate between carpets and their house has many of our carpets. The Clintons are like friends to us."
NCE shops are at various luxury hotels like the Hyatt Regency, Le Meridien, Park Royal-Inter-Continental in New Delhi and the WelcomHeritage Gurkha Houseboats in the Kashmir Valley.
"The Clintons have a true love for fine rugs," said Wangnoo.
"And we are happy to say that we helped them recognize the importance and intricacies of rugs from our country. It is a great honour to have friends and customers like them."" "
Clinton's knotty affair : HindustanTimes.com: "Clinton learnt carpet knots and crosses in India
Hindol Sengupta (Indo-Asian News Service)
New Delhi, May 26, 2005
He is a former US president, great statesman and brilliant politician, but did you know that Bill Clinton knows a thing or two about carpet making?
Clinton, who owns several carpets from a particular New Delhi shop, has been taught a few things about the intricacies of carpet making by Saboor and Manzoor Wangnoo - the owners of the NCE range of stores that deal in oriental rugs and shawls.
Clinton, along with wife and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, have bought many a carpet from the NCE shop in the shopping arcade of the former president's favourite New Delhi Hotel Maurya Sheraton.
"The first time he came, he spent a lot of time at our shop," said Manzoor Wangnoo, who with his partner Saboor joined dozens of people on Wednesday to greet Bill Clinton as he began a three-day visit to oversee tsunami relief work in India.
This is Clinton's fourth visit in five years to the country. Hillary Clinton has visited India thrice.
"We explained to the (former) president how a carpet is made and what the relevance of all the different knots is. We told him how to tell which is a good carpet," Saboor told IANS.
"That's how he learnt to differentiate between carpets and their house has many of our carpets. The Clintons are like friends to us."
NCE shops are at various luxury hotels like the Hyatt Regency, Le Meridien, Park Royal-Inter-Continental in New Delhi and the WelcomHeritage Gurkha Houseboats in the Kashmir Valley.
"The Clintons have a true love for fine rugs," said Wangnoo.
"And we are happy to say that we helped them recognize the importance and intricacies of rugs from our country. It is a great honour to have friends and customers like them."" "
RugNotes: Jim Hanna, Oriental rug dealer, dies at 73 Friday, September 24, 2004
RugNotes: Friday, September 24, 2004: "heraldsun.com: Jim Hanna, Oriental rug dealer, dies at 73
heraldsun.com: Jim Hanna, Oriental rug dealer, die...: "Jim Hanna, Oriental rug dealer, dies at 73
By Jim Wise : The Herald-Sun
jwise@heraldsun.com
Sep 23, 2004 : 8:34 pm ET
DURHAM -- Customers found the doors closed Thursday at the Fargo-Hanna Oriental Rug Gallery and signs that said the venerable business was closed due to a death in the family.
The store's owner, James H. Hanna Jr., died Wednesday night at his home in northern Durham. He was 73.
"He was a quiet, unassuming man who had an extraordinary wealth of knowledge," said Susan Copeland, president of the North Durham Rotary Club, of which Mr. Hanna was a member.
Since 1970, Mr. Hanna had run the Oriental Rug Gallery, taking over a business founded in 1919 by his father, James H. Hanna Sr., and another man, Abraham Joseph Fargo. It was the first and, for many years, the only firm in Durham dealing in Oriental rugs.
"I never considered doing anything else," Mr. Hanna told The Herald-Sun in 2000. "It was ingrained in me."
Mr. Hanna also passed on the family tradition, with his children Michael and Barbara becoming part of the Hanna rug business, which has branches in Raleigh and Blowing Rock, as well as the store on Chapel Hill Boulevard in Durham.
Mr. Hanna was born in Charlotte and grew up in Sarasota, Fla. He attended N.C. State University and earned a bachelor's degree in textile engineering from the University of Florida at Gainesville. He also served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In addition to the Rotary Club, he was a member of the Masons, the Shriners and the Sales and Marketing Executives of Durham.
"Jim Hanna was a wonderful man," Ms. Copeland said. "He will be sorely missed by the North Durham Rotary Club, as well as everyone else who knew him."
Surviving are his wife, Layla Tappouni Hanna; son, Michael James Hanna and his wife, Dena, of Durham; daughter, Barbara Ammons of Durham; mother, Jane K. Hanna, of Sarasota, Fla.; brother, Dr. John E. Hanna, of Sarasota, Fla.; sisters, Margaret H. Lanigan and Rosalie H. Shmalo, both of Sarasota, Fla.; and five grandchildren.
A brother, George Hanna, preceded Mr. Hanna in death.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Interment will follow in Maplewood Cemetery.
Memorials may be made to Immaculate Conception Catholic Church or to the charity of the donor's choice.
The family will receive friends from 6 to 9 Friday evening at Howerton & Bryan Funeral Home, 1005 W. Main St., Durham." "
heraldsun.com: Jim Hanna, Oriental rug dealer, die...: "Jim Hanna, Oriental rug dealer, dies at 73
By Jim Wise : The Herald-Sun
jwise@heraldsun.com
Sep 23, 2004 : 8:34 pm ET
DURHAM -- Customers found the doors closed Thursday at the Fargo-Hanna Oriental Rug Gallery and signs that said the venerable business was closed due to a death in the family.
The store's owner, James H. Hanna Jr., died Wednesday night at his home in northern Durham. He was 73.
"He was a quiet, unassuming man who had an extraordinary wealth of knowledge," said Susan Copeland, president of the North Durham Rotary Club, of which Mr. Hanna was a member.
Since 1970, Mr. Hanna had run the Oriental Rug Gallery, taking over a business founded in 1919 by his father, James H. Hanna Sr., and another man, Abraham Joseph Fargo. It was the first and, for many years, the only firm in Durham dealing in Oriental rugs.
"I never considered doing anything else," Mr. Hanna told The Herald-Sun in 2000. "It was ingrained in me."
Mr. Hanna also passed on the family tradition, with his children Michael and Barbara becoming part of the Hanna rug business, which has branches in Raleigh and Blowing Rock, as well as the store on Chapel Hill Boulevard in Durham.
Mr. Hanna was born in Charlotte and grew up in Sarasota, Fla. He attended N.C. State University and earned a bachelor's degree in textile engineering from the University of Florida at Gainesville. He also served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. In addition to the Rotary Club, he was a member of the Masons, the Shriners and the Sales and Marketing Executives of Durham.
"Jim Hanna was a wonderful man," Ms. Copeland said. "He will be sorely missed by the North Durham Rotary Club, as well as everyone else who knew him."
Surviving are his wife, Layla Tappouni Hanna; son, Michael James Hanna and his wife, Dena, of Durham; daughter, Barbara Ammons of Durham; mother, Jane K. Hanna, of Sarasota, Fla.; brother, Dr. John E. Hanna, of Sarasota, Fla.; sisters, Margaret H. Lanigan and Rosalie H. Shmalo, both of Sarasota, Fla.; and five grandchildren.
A brother, George Hanna, preceded Mr. Hanna in death.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Interment will follow in Maplewood Cemetery.
Memorials may be made to Immaculate Conception Catholic Church or to the charity of the donor's choice.
The family will receive friends from 6 to 9 Friday evening at Howerton & Bryan Funeral Home, 1005 W. Main St., Durham." "
Iran News - Damab carpet workshop filed on Nat'l Heritage
Iran News - Damab carpet workshop filed on Nat'l Heritage: "Damab carpet workshop filed on Nat'l Heritage
Thursday, June 23, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com
LONDON, June 23 (IranMania) - The Damab carpet workshop was recently registered on Iran?s National Heritage List by the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO).
The workshop, in which the world?s largest carpet was woven, is located in Damab village, northwest of Isfahan.
The 42 x 31 meter carpet was woven by 40 weavers over the course of four years, and it was completed in 1987. Valiollah Shahri designed the carpet.
The carpet was originally purchased by a Swedish dealer. Iranian experts believe that the carpet was later sold to a Kuwaiti industrialist and was probably partly damaged and burnt during the Iraq-Kuwait war. The fate of the carpet is still unknown.
Two other sites in the village of Damab, the house of village headman Mohammad-Taqi, which dates back to the Qajar era, and a 200-year-old Hosseinieh (site for religious ceremonies), were also registered on the National Heritage List."
Thursday, June 23, 2005 - ©2005 IranMania.com
LONDON, June 23 (IranMania) - The Damab carpet workshop was recently registered on Iran?s National Heritage List by the Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO).
The workshop, in which the world?s largest carpet was woven, is located in Damab village, northwest of Isfahan.
The 42 x 31 meter carpet was woven by 40 weavers over the course of four years, and it was completed in 1987. Valiollah Shahri designed the carpet.
The carpet was originally purchased by a Swedish dealer. Iranian experts believe that the carpet was later sold to a Kuwaiti industrialist and was probably partly damaged and burnt during the Iraq-Kuwait war. The fate of the carpet is still unknown.
Two other sites in the village of Damab, the house of village headman Mohammad-Taqi, which dates back to the Qajar era, and a 200-year-old Hosseinieh (site for religious ceremonies), were also registered on the National Heritage List."
RugNotes: Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet? by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997
RugNotes: "Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet? by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997
Articles written by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997 "FROM THE ARCHIVES: June 30, 1997
Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet?
By DANIEL PEARL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BEN, Iran -- This is a small town in search of a really big floor.
It should be a bare floor, big enough to accommodate about 6,000 people, with no columns breaking up the space. And it should be crying out for the subtle decorative touch of the world's largest hand-woven carpet, with a third of an acre of beige, brown and blue swirls and flowers.
Working in two shifts in a converted fire station at the top of a hill, 84 women have spent two years on the carpet so far, and it is only half finished. The asking price, yet to be arrived at, could be as high as $1 million. There is nary a buyer in sight.
"I would like to see it in a great exhibition hall -- a big room, where anyone who walked in would say, 'Vuy!' ('Wow!')" says 21-year-old Mehrandokht Aghaie, sitting on a 100-foot-long bench at a huge loom, tying knots with woolen yarn around hanging silk threads and then swiping the excess with a razor blade.
Perhaps a European soccer stadium could put it on display when there isn't a game being played, says Farhad Shams, a sponsor of the project.
It's crazy to make such a big carpet on speculation, says Karim Mirzamani, a Tehran exporter. The market is so bad that for six months he hasn't even been able to get foreign orders for carpets of any size. The U.S., once the biggest market for Persian rugs, is off-limits now because of trade sanctions. Iran's taxes and currency regulations -- and low-wage competition from India, Pakistan and China -- have hurt the rug trade. Persian-carpet exports dropped nearly 35% last year, to $602 million.
Still, Iranians can't stop making carpets. By some estimates, the industry occupies one of every seven Iranians. "People in the villages don't have anything better to do," says Nasrollah Arvarian, 31, a weaver in the village of Sefid-Dasht, down the road from Ben (population 8,000). He has invested his life savings (about $21,000) in two living-room-size rugs that he and his family are weaving at home. His wife, Nargess, who sometimes works through the night, is bug-eyed from staring at tiny knots. "The doctors say I have to stop, but this is my job," she says.
Record Breaker
And certain Iranians can't stop making big carpets. That's the weakness of Elyas Abdi, 47, the designer behind Ben's megarug. He was raised in the rug-trading center of Isfahan. He says the 500 people in his family tree all have been in the carpet trade. His business card reads: "producers of the biggest carpets in the world." He says, "Every time I come up with a big carpet, I have to start another one to break the record." Mr. Abdi says he sold a 6,451-square-foot carpet to a buyer in Dubai. But for two decades his dream has been to weave the ultimate carpet: 50 meters long and 30 meters wide. That is an area of more than 16,000 square feet.
Mr. Abdi says he copyrighted the design, which includes a record-breaking six main flowers. But for years, he couldn't find a carpet trader willing to bankroll the project.
Then he found the Behezisti Foundation. Financed by the government and private-donation boxes, the foundation is a sort of workfare project, Iranian style. It helps get jobs for widows, orphans, and girls who have "gone astray," to keep them on the moral track, according to Siavosh Ahmadi, Behezisti general manager in the city of Shahrekord in western Iran. Actually, he says, "We do not find jobs for them, we create jobs for them." In his region, which includes Ben, that means supporting about 400 carpet-weaving projects. Most girls, and some boys, in Iranian villages know how to weave carpets by the time they reach their teens.
Mr. Abdi says he was sitting with some foundation people, listening to them complain about how hard it is to come up with new job-creation schemes, when he made his pitch for the megarug. He signed a deal with Behezisti in 1995 to provide about $160,000 in start-up funds. A job announcement about the project in Ben's mosque brought a crowd of 250 women to the site, many of them wondering whether the carpet was a joke.
Big rugs do have a history in Iran. In the 1950s, the shah ordered a series of approximately 1,550-square-foot rugs for his palaces. One of them is still on display, under eight dining-room tables in the north Tehran palace, now a museum. "It's the biggest carpet one could ever make," says one of the security guards, who tended the palace before the revolution, too. "I'd bet my eyes on it."
Competing Claims
Bad idea. The Guinness Book of Records lists a 54,000-square-foot carpet made with gold-enriched silk in eighth-century Baghdad as the biggest, though it no longer exists. Oman recently commissioned a very big carpet from Iran for its new Sultan Qaboos Mosque, but it is being woven in four pieces. At the Dubai Shopping Festival, Persian carpet dealer Abdul Rahim Forootan made headlines with his 8,600-square-foot "world's biggest carpet." "It's the biggest on the market," he explains, though the market for megacarpets is so quiet that he never actually had to unfurl the rug.
Handling big carpets takes some muscle. Every six weeks, Mr. Abdi brings in six men from Isfahan to raise the loom so the women, who earn 2 1/2 cents for every 100 knots, or about 50 cents an hour, can keep working at eye level. The yarn and silk threads for the 500-million-knot carpet together weigh seven tons, and the pylons supporting the steel loom are sunk more than 3 feet into the ground. When the carpet is finished, the team will break down the outer wall of the fire station and, with a crane, load the rug onto an 18-wheeler. If he can muster the manpower to unroll it, Mr. Abdi would like to stop and display the completed rug in Ben.
So far, there hasn't been a flood of interest from buyers, the rug's sponsors concede. They say the Red Crescent, Iran's version of the Red Cross, considered buying the carpet to resell for hard currency with which to buy medicines, but a new director put the kibosh on the plan. The Behezisti Foundation plans to tout the rug at a carpet exhibition in Tehran in September. Its brochure will say the carpet is "the symbol of Iranian people because of their patience, fine work and humbleness."
Big Bug-Catchers
Maybe so, but big carpets are more trouble than they are worth, according to Sefatollah Taghi Khani, curator of Tehran's carpet museum. The museum keeps one of the shah's leftovers in the basement, and airing it once a year takes 15 people, he says. "It's so damn difficult to move, even though it's one of the thinnest carpets ever made." Besides, Mr. Khani says, the bigger the rug, the more chance it will house insects.
Another problem, says Mohammed Reza Hakami, a Tehran carpet dealer: Carpets become more valuable when people have walked on them. That is one reason rug dealers and some buyers will leave their new rugs on the sidewalk for a few days. But "nobody could ever cover such a big carpet."
Besides, "They're cheating when they make the big carpets," says Shoukoufeh Sadeghi, weaving a rug with her three sisters in Sefid-Dasht. She shows how some big-carpet weavers save time by skipping knots, a trick called farsi boff. She says, "It's like machine made. I call it counterfeit."
Mr. Abdi says there is no farsi boff in his rug. He doesn't see why anyone would want to walk on a piece of art. And, as for bugs, he is using tobacco and mothballs to keep them away.
Updated June 30, 1997""
Articles written by Daniel Pearl -- 30 June 1997 "FROM THE ARCHIVES: June 30, 1997
Who Has the Room or Money To Purchase This Megacarpet?
By DANIEL PEARL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BEN, Iran -- This is a small town in search of a really big floor.
It should be a bare floor, big enough to accommodate about 6,000 people, with no columns breaking up the space. And it should be crying out for the subtle decorative touch of the world's largest hand-woven carpet, with a third of an acre of beige, brown and blue swirls and flowers.
Working in two shifts in a converted fire station at the top of a hill, 84 women have spent two years on the carpet so far, and it is only half finished. The asking price, yet to be arrived at, could be as high as $1 million. There is nary a buyer in sight.
"I would like to see it in a great exhibition hall -- a big room, where anyone who walked in would say, 'Vuy!' ('Wow!')" says 21-year-old Mehrandokht Aghaie, sitting on a 100-foot-long bench at a huge loom, tying knots with woolen yarn around hanging silk threads and then swiping the excess with a razor blade.
Perhaps a European soccer stadium could put it on display when there isn't a game being played, says Farhad Shams, a sponsor of the project.
It's crazy to make such a big carpet on speculation, says Karim Mirzamani, a Tehran exporter. The market is so bad that for six months he hasn't even been able to get foreign orders for carpets of any size. The U.S., once the biggest market for Persian rugs, is off-limits now because of trade sanctions. Iran's taxes and currency regulations -- and low-wage competition from India, Pakistan and China -- have hurt the rug trade. Persian-carpet exports dropped nearly 35% last year, to $602 million.
Still, Iranians can't stop making carpets. By some estimates, the industry occupies one of every seven Iranians. "People in the villages don't have anything better to do," says Nasrollah Arvarian, 31, a weaver in the village of Sefid-Dasht, down the road from Ben (population 8,000). He has invested his life savings (about $21,000) in two living-room-size rugs that he and his family are weaving at home. His wife, Nargess, who sometimes works through the night, is bug-eyed from staring at tiny knots. "The doctors say I have to stop, but this is my job," she says.
Record Breaker
And certain Iranians can't stop making big carpets. That's the weakness of Elyas Abdi, 47, the designer behind Ben's megarug. He was raised in the rug-trading center of Isfahan. He says the 500 people in his family tree all have been in the carpet trade. His business card reads: "producers of the biggest carpets in the world." He says, "Every time I come up with a big carpet, I have to start another one to break the record." Mr. Abdi says he sold a 6,451-square-foot carpet to a buyer in Dubai. But for two decades his dream has been to weave the ultimate carpet: 50 meters long and 30 meters wide. That is an area of more than 16,000 square feet.
Mr. Abdi says he copyrighted the design, which includes a record-breaking six main flowers. But for years, he couldn't find a carpet trader willing to bankroll the project.
Then he found the Behezisti Foundation. Financed by the government and private-donation boxes, the foundation is a sort of workfare project, Iranian style. It helps get jobs for widows, orphans, and girls who have "gone astray," to keep them on the moral track, according to Siavosh Ahmadi, Behezisti general manager in the city of Shahrekord in western Iran. Actually, he says, "We do not find jobs for them, we create jobs for them." In his region, which includes Ben, that means supporting about 400 carpet-weaving projects. Most girls, and some boys, in Iranian villages know how to weave carpets by the time they reach their teens.
Mr. Abdi says he was sitting with some foundation people, listening to them complain about how hard it is to come up with new job-creation schemes, when he made his pitch for the megarug. He signed a deal with Behezisti in 1995 to provide about $160,000 in start-up funds. A job announcement about the project in Ben's mosque brought a crowd of 250 women to the site, many of them wondering whether the carpet was a joke.
Big rugs do have a history in Iran. In the 1950s, the shah ordered a series of approximately 1,550-square-foot rugs for his palaces. One of them is still on display, under eight dining-room tables in the north Tehran palace, now a museum. "It's the biggest carpet one could ever make," says one of the security guards, who tended the palace before the revolution, too. "I'd bet my eyes on it."
Competing Claims
Bad idea. The Guinness Book of Records lists a 54,000-square-foot carpet made with gold-enriched silk in eighth-century Baghdad as the biggest, though it no longer exists. Oman recently commissioned a very big carpet from Iran for its new Sultan Qaboos Mosque, but it is being woven in four pieces. At the Dubai Shopping Festival, Persian carpet dealer Abdul Rahim Forootan made headlines with his 8,600-square-foot "world's biggest carpet." "It's the biggest on the market," he explains, though the market for megacarpets is so quiet that he never actually had to unfurl the rug.
Handling big carpets takes some muscle. Every six weeks, Mr. Abdi brings in six men from Isfahan to raise the loom so the women, who earn 2 1/2 cents for every 100 knots, or about 50 cents an hour, can keep working at eye level. The yarn and silk threads for the 500-million-knot carpet together weigh seven tons, and the pylons supporting the steel loom are sunk more than 3 feet into the ground. When the carpet is finished, the team will break down the outer wall of the fire station and, with a crane, load the rug onto an 18-wheeler. If he can muster the manpower to unroll it, Mr. Abdi would like to stop and display the completed rug in Ben.
So far, there hasn't been a flood of interest from buyers, the rug's sponsors concede. They say the Red Crescent, Iran's version of the Red Cross, considered buying the carpet to resell for hard currency with which to buy medicines, but a new director put the kibosh on the plan. The Behezisti Foundation plans to tout the rug at a carpet exhibition in Tehran in September. Its brochure will say the carpet is "the symbol of Iranian people because of their patience, fine work and humbleness."
Big Bug-Catchers
Maybe so, but big carpets are more trouble than they are worth, according to Sefatollah Taghi Khani, curator of Tehran's carpet museum. The museum keeps one of the shah's leftovers in the basement, and airing it once a year takes 15 people, he says. "It's so damn difficult to move, even though it's one of the thinnest carpets ever made." Besides, Mr. Khani says, the bigger the rug, the more chance it will house insects.
Another problem, says Mohammed Reza Hakami, a Tehran carpet dealer: Carpets become more valuable when people have walked on them. That is one reason rug dealers and some buyers will leave their new rugs on the sidewalk for a few days. But "nobody could ever cover such a big carpet."
Besides, "They're cheating when they make the big carpets," says Shoukoufeh Sadeghi, weaving a rug with her three sisters in Sefid-Dasht. She shows how some big-carpet weavers save time by skipping knots, a trick called farsi boff. She says, "It's like machine made. I call it counterfeit."
Mr. Abdi says there is no farsi boff in his rug. He doesn't see why anyone would want to walk on a piece of art. And, as for bugs, he is using tobacco and mothballs to keep them away.
Updated June 30, 1997""
RugNotes: Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi
RugNotes: Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi: "Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi
Economic news in brief (Feb. 6): "Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized
TEHRAN –- Managing director of Iran Carpet Co. Ltd said that most of the stocks of the company would be ceded to the private investors by the end of the year.
Mohammadali Karimi stated that the company is to sell some 19% of its stocks to its current employees, its retired employees and those weavers it sponsors. Meanwhile, some 51% of the stocks will be sold to the National Pension Fund and about 30% to the Commerce Ministry. He also pointed to the recent reduction in the volume of Persian carpet exports, saying, “This should not be regarded as a matter of concern for the price of our carpets has not decreased.” Foreign customers are now distinguishing between Persian carpets and those illegally copied in another countries, he uttered.""
Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized - Mohammadali Karimi
Economic news in brief (Feb. 6): "Iran Carpet Co. to be privatized
TEHRAN –- Managing director of Iran Carpet Co. Ltd said that most of the stocks of the company would be ceded to the private investors by the end of the year.
Mohammadali Karimi stated that the company is to sell some 19% of its stocks to its current employees, its retired employees and those weavers it sponsors. Meanwhile, some 51% of the stocks will be sold to the National Pension Fund and about 30% to the Commerce Ministry. He also pointed to the recent reduction in the volume of Persian carpet exports, saying, “This should not be regarded as a matter of concern for the price of our carpets has not decreased.” Foreign customers are now distinguishing between Persian carpets and those illegally copied in another countries, he uttered.""
RugNotes: Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot for $710,665 alleging unpaid invoices
RugNotes: Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle: "Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle
Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle: "Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot
Bashian Bros. Inc., a nation importer and wholesaler of Oriental Rugs, has sued Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., doing business as Expo Design Center, for $710,665 alleging unpaid invoices.
The complaint was filed June 14 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark.
Bashian said in the complaint it supplied Oriental Rugs to Expo Design Center stores throughout the United States on a consignment basis in the Expo Design Center Hanging Partnership Program. When Expo Design Center recently terminated the Hanging Partnership Program, it allegedly failed and refused to pay for those Oriental Rugs which it was obligated to purchase pursuant to that program. Many of the invoices have allegedly remained unpaid for more than a year. ""
Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot - 2004-06-24 - Atlanta Business Chronicle: "Bashian Bros. sues Home Depot
Bashian Bros. Inc., a nation importer and wholesaler of Oriental Rugs, has sued Home Depot U.S.A. Inc., doing business as Expo Design Center, for $710,665 alleging unpaid invoices.
The complaint was filed June 14 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Newark.
Bashian said in the complaint it supplied Oriental Rugs to Expo Design Center stores throughout the United States on a consignment basis in the Expo Design Center Hanging Partnership Program. When Expo Design Center recently terminated the Hanging Partnership Program, it allegedly failed and refused to pay for those Oriental Rugs which it was obligated to purchase pursuant to that program. Many of the invoices have allegedly remained unpaid for more than a year. ""
RugNotes: Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
RugNotes: Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience: "Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience: "Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
Source: Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency
As a contemporary example of Iranian architecture, the design of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art has been inspired by certain traditional Iranian as well as modern architecture. This architectural style is inspired by the wind-towers of Iran and was designed by the Iranian architect Kamran Diba. It is built in three floors and has been used as a permanent exhibition since 1977.
The Museum has nine galleries, three of which are dedicated to paintings by international artists from the museum's permanent collection. The permanent collection contains paintings from artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Andy Warhol and many more. Temporary exhibitions are held in the other six galleries throughout the year.
The Sculpture Court is a semi-enclosed exterior space within the museum complex. It is an appropriate setting for the sculptural works of three outstanding artists: "Le Therapeute" by Rene Magritte, "A Man and a Woman" by Alberto Giacometti, and "Horse and Rider" by Marino Marini.
Most of the museum complex's grounds are located to the north of the museum building and called Sculpture Park. The Park is home to works by a number of the world's leading sculptors, including "Capricorn" by Max Ernst; "The Prickly Pear" by Alexander Calder; "The Reclining Figure" by "Henry Moore"; "Homage to Pablo Neruda" by Eduardo Chilida; "Multiplied by Space" by Max Bill; and "Shirin and Farhad" by Parviz Tanavoli, amongst others.
This museum comprises a cinemateque, a Library, a Coffee Shop, Book Shop and a Photography Workshop.""
Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience: "Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art: A Museum with Mixed Design and Audience
Source: Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency
As a contemporary example of Iranian architecture, the design of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art has been inspired by certain traditional Iranian as well as modern architecture. This architectural style is inspired by the wind-towers of Iran and was designed by the Iranian architect Kamran Diba. It is built in three floors and has been used as a permanent exhibition since 1977.
The Museum has nine galleries, three of which are dedicated to paintings by international artists from the museum's permanent collection. The permanent collection contains paintings from artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Andy Warhol and many more. Temporary exhibitions are held in the other six galleries throughout the year.
The Sculpture Court is a semi-enclosed exterior space within the museum complex. It is an appropriate setting for the sculptural works of three outstanding artists: "Le Therapeute" by Rene Magritte, "A Man and a Woman" by Alberto Giacometti, and "Horse and Rider" by Marino Marini.
Most of the museum complex's grounds are located to the north of the museum building and called Sculpture Park. The Park is home to works by a number of the world's leading sculptors, including "Capricorn" by Max Ernst; "The Prickly Pear" by Alexander Calder; "The Reclining Figure" by "Henry Moore"; "Homage to Pablo Neruda" by Eduardo Chilida; "Multiplied by Space" by Max Bill; and "Shirin and Farhad" by Parviz Tanavoli, amongst others.
This museum comprises a cinemateque, a Library, a Coffee Shop, Book Shop and a Photography Workshop.""
RugNotes: Sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli on Display in Armenia
RugNotes: Monday, June 07, 2004: "Sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli on Display in Armenia
Mehr News Agency English: "Contemporary Iranian Artwork Go on Display in Armenia
TEHRAN June 6 (MNA) ?- A selection of artwork by Iranian contemporary artists are to go on display June 12 at the Yerevan National Art Museum, Armenia.
According to the Public Relations Office of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, a total of 60 paintings, statues and installation work by contemporary artists will be showcased for two weeks.
Paintings by Marco Gregorian, Mohammad-Ibrahim Ja?fari, Edmund Ayvazian, Kamran Katuzian, Sirak Melkonian, Gholam-Hossein Nami, Mahdi Hosseini, Gizella Varga Sina?i, and Sharareh Salehi, sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli, Fatemeh Emdadian, and Shideh Tami as well as an installation work by Bita Fayyazi are among the works to be put on display.
An exhibition of artwork by Armenian artists was displayed at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts in 2001. ""
Mehr News Agency English: "Contemporary Iranian Artwork Go on Display in Armenia
TEHRAN June 6 (MNA) ?- A selection of artwork by Iranian contemporary artists are to go on display June 12 at the Yerevan National Art Museum, Armenia.
According to the Public Relations Office of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, a total of 60 paintings, statues and installation work by contemporary artists will be showcased for two weeks.
Paintings by Marco Gregorian, Mohammad-Ibrahim Ja?fari, Edmund Ayvazian, Kamran Katuzian, Sirak Melkonian, Gholam-Hossein Nami, Mahdi Hosseini, Gizella Varga Sina?i, and Sharareh Salehi, sculptures by Parviz Tanavoli, Fatemeh Emdadian, and Shideh Tami as well as an installation work by Bita Fayyazi are among the works to be put on display.
An exhibition of artwork by Armenian artists was displayed at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts in 2001. ""
RugNotes: iranian.com: Heech revisited: Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
RugNotes: iranian.com: Heech revisited: Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing: "iranian.com: Heech revisited: Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
iranian.com: Goli Farrell,: "Heech revisited
Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
Goli Farrell
May 16, 2005
iranian.com
I like my Persian compatriots' long standing love affair with nothingness. And I say "Persian" to include a literary/linguistic country from Samarqand, Bokhara, Herat, to Balkh, Dushanbe, Ashqabad, Konia, Baku, Ganja... from Tehran all the way to TehrAngeles... rather than a country with political borders. We love nothingness and all its paraphernalia with a passion. After all what is Persian poetry, our most cherished national pass-time, but elaborate, polished, worked on nothingness?
It is the most abstract of all fine arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, in order from the most concrete to the most abstract). Also Persians do not "write" poetry, they "say" it.
Once you have memorized a poem, a ghazal from Hafez or Sa'di or Rumi, it is there: voila, polished, elaborate, filigreed, pure thought, nothingness, heech, the secret that sits in the middle and knows. Our long standing love affair, our 1000-year-old meditation with Rudaki and Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Rumi, to Sepehri, Farrokhzad, Lotfalian, Bahrami, Samandar, Kadkani, Behbahani, Attar.... add your own list ...
We have been meditating to the music of Ney, the flute, a hollow reed full of air: nothingness music from the void, air, wind dancing in an empty reed, turning round and round, as if around the Sun: Shams, and whirling in and out of strategically placed "holes" in the reed, more nothingness, the space between the notes that makes the music.
Yes Sir, nothingness is serious business here.
Our favorite national drink: tea... which is aromatic hot water: nothingness
Our favorite national fruit: the fine little fragrant, Persian cucumber, mostly water, lots of taste and flavor, near zero calories, heech. And we consider those cucumbers as fruits, not some third rate vegetable.
Persian watermelon belongs in the same category as our cucumbers.
Our favorite snack: "tokhme" roasted watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds,
Pear seeds or anchoochak, even apple seeds.
Once my Mom was on a bus trip, going from San Francisco to Reno, Nevada. Next to her was seated an American lady who was puzzled and greatly intrigued by my mother eating something for hours, that smelled extremely good and appetizing but invisible. She kept taking something out of a large transparent bag and eating it, but there seemed to be nothing in the bag. My mother says that finally the lady took out her glasses out of her bag and put them on to see just what on earth was going on.
My mother finally decided to put her out of her confusion by telling her that she had roasted something like 50 apple seeds and that was what had kept her happy, satisfied, and made the travel time pass much faster and more enjoyably. But Mom said that she was sort of embarrassed to offer the lady this microscopic but delicious and healthy, low calorie snack.
One of our greatest living artists, Parviz Tanavoli, has concretized, given body to this long love affair with his set of NOTHING/HEECH sculptures that are incredibly beautiful. In another group of works, Tanavoli calls one of his magnificent huge, shiny bronze sculptures: vahdate vojud! Only a Persian could do that. Unity of Being. Oneness of Existence.
Tanavoli has also a painting that is called "Bolboli barg e goli khoshrang dar menghaar daasht" (the Nightingale with a beautiful flower on her beak) that made me cry. The nightingale has a red lock on the beak, signifying forced silence. Nothingness.
Another great sculptor, Abdollah Hesam, among many beautiful works, has a mural sculpture of a man with a closed zipper on the mouth.
Nothingness being what it is / for us Persians:
tangible, a real thing, heech,
has a free standing, independent,
bona fide name of its own, "heech"
having nothing to do with "no" nor with "thing" /
in fact nothing to do with negation at all.
The silence between the notes that makes the music.
Having been brought up on Hafez, Rudaki, Nezami, Rumi...
We walk on air, on nothing,
high, intoxicated without any visible intoxicant
our addictive substance being: art, poetry, love, ecstasy
yes sir, Ecstasy being a real thing to us
Tangible and in daily use /
not the powder/ but the real thing.
And now this new fangled Internet, the lovely WWW has brought about the ultimate union of the lovers, the vesaal, between us and our beloved heech, our centuries old love of the ethereal heech, the phenomenal way in which Persians have taken to the Internet, like ducks to water. Our newly rekindled, rejuvenated love affair with this "virtual" world of an invisible "web" of radio waves, is the consummation of a long awaited reunion of the lovers, Romeo and Juliette NOT dying, but living happily ever after, watching the sunset together, seeing their children grow. All the marvellous Persian web sites and the emails criss-crossing the continents and the oceans, have created a virtual home, a "vatan".
The dot.com world has encouraged me to the point that I want to go back and rewrite the script, changing some chapters of our history:
King Mahmud Ghaznavi will NOT be influenced by the bad guys in his entourage and will change his mind and pay Ferdowsi the promised golden treasure. What is more, he will take Ferdowsi to live beside him in the Palace, the way Lorenzo di Medici (Il Magnifico) took young Michelangelo to live and work in his palace, and even built a sculpture garden for him.
Rostam will recognize his son Sohrab BEFORE he is killed and together they will go and find Rudabeh and they will build a magnificent house and garden in Zabolestan. The garden is so lovely that Simorgh decides to go live there as well. After all Simorgh is the one who raised Rostam's father, Zaal e Nariman. Shams Tabrizi visits them too, from time to time. Bijan and Manijeh also.
And Mirza Taqi Khan e Amir Kabir will NOT be killed and instead he will build many other DarolFonuns polytechnics all over Iran. He will also rebuild the Ark of Bam, and repair Apadana, in Perseplis.
And Mansour Hallaj will NOT be hanged and he will tell us to sit down upon the ground beside him and will tell us, in great detail and in a leisurely manner, while having tea and baqlava, and maybe gaz from Isphahan, all about the "truth" and we shall ask him to elaborate, and he will reveal "THE secret".
And Emam Hosein will NOT be killed, and instead Yazid and Shemr will change their minds and bring nice drinks and ice water to the desert, and then will take them all back to have dinner together.
And Rabe'e will live happily with her beloved (who will NOT be killed by her brother) and she will write lots of nice love poems and we will take her chocolates on Valentine's day.""
iranian.com: Goli Farrell,: "Heech revisited
Nothingness being what it is for us Persians: tangible, a real thing
Goli Farrell
May 16, 2005
iranian.com
I like my Persian compatriots' long standing love affair with nothingness. And I say "Persian" to include a literary/linguistic country from Samarqand, Bokhara, Herat, to Balkh, Dushanbe, Ashqabad, Konia, Baku, Ganja... from Tehran all the way to TehrAngeles... rather than a country with political borders. We love nothingness and all its paraphernalia with a passion. After all what is Persian poetry, our most cherished national pass-time, but elaborate, polished, worked on nothingness?
It is the most abstract of all fine arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, in order from the most concrete to the most abstract). Also Persians do not "write" poetry, they "say" it.
Once you have memorized a poem, a ghazal from Hafez or Sa'di or Rumi, it is there: voila, polished, elaborate, filigreed, pure thought, nothingness, heech, the secret that sits in the middle and knows. Our long standing love affair, our 1000-year-old meditation with Rudaki and Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Rumi, to Sepehri, Farrokhzad, Lotfalian, Bahrami, Samandar, Kadkani, Behbahani, Attar.... add your own list ...
We have been meditating to the music of Ney, the flute, a hollow reed full of air: nothingness music from the void, air, wind dancing in an empty reed, turning round and round, as if around the Sun: Shams, and whirling in and out of strategically placed "holes" in the reed, more nothingness, the space between the notes that makes the music.
Yes Sir, nothingness is serious business here.
Our favorite national drink: tea... which is aromatic hot water: nothingness
Our favorite national fruit: the fine little fragrant, Persian cucumber, mostly water, lots of taste and flavor, near zero calories, heech. And we consider those cucumbers as fruits, not some third rate vegetable.
Persian watermelon belongs in the same category as our cucumbers.
Our favorite snack: "tokhme" roasted watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds,
Pear seeds or anchoochak, even apple seeds.
Once my Mom was on a bus trip, going from San Francisco to Reno, Nevada. Next to her was seated an American lady who was puzzled and greatly intrigued by my mother eating something for hours, that smelled extremely good and appetizing but invisible. She kept taking something out of a large transparent bag and eating it, but there seemed to be nothing in the bag. My mother says that finally the lady took out her glasses out of her bag and put them on to see just what on earth was going on.
My mother finally decided to put her out of her confusion by telling her that she had roasted something like 50 apple seeds and that was what had kept her happy, satisfied, and made the travel time pass much faster and more enjoyably. But Mom said that she was sort of embarrassed to offer the lady this microscopic but delicious and healthy, low calorie snack.
One of our greatest living artists, Parviz Tanavoli, has concretized, given body to this long love affair with his set of NOTHING/HEECH sculptures that are incredibly beautiful. In another group of works, Tanavoli calls one of his magnificent huge, shiny bronze sculptures: vahdate vojud! Only a Persian could do that. Unity of Being. Oneness of Existence.
Tanavoli has also a painting that is called "Bolboli barg e goli khoshrang dar menghaar daasht" (the Nightingale with a beautiful flower on her beak) that made me cry. The nightingale has a red lock on the beak, signifying forced silence. Nothingness.
Another great sculptor, Abdollah Hesam, among many beautiful works, has a mural sculpture of a man with a closed zipper on the mouth.
Nothingness being what it is / for us Persians:
tangible, a real thing, heech,
has a free standing, independent,
bona fide name of its own, "heech"
having nothing to do with "no" nor with "thing" /
in fact nothing to do with negation at all.
The silence between the notes that makes the music.
Having been brought up on Hafez, Rudaki, Nezami, Rumi...
We walk on air, on nothing,
high, intoxicated without any visible intoxicant
our addictive substance being: art, poetry, love, ecstasy
yes sir, Ecstasy being a real thing to us
Tangible and in daily use /
not the powder/ but the real thing.
And now this new fangled Internet, the lovely WWW has brought about the ultimate union of the lovers, the vesaal, between us and our beloved heech, our centuries old love of the ethereal heech, the phenomenal way in which Persians have taken to the Internet, like ducks to water. Our newly rekindled, rejuvenated love affair with this "virtual" world of an invisible "web" of radio waves, is the consummation of a long awaited reunion of the lovers, Romeo and Juliette NOT dying, but living happily ever after, watching the sunset together, seeing their children grow. All the marvellous Persian web sites and the emails criss-crossing the continents and the oceans, have created a virtual home, a "vatan".
The dot.com world has encouraged me to the point that I want to go back and rewrite the script, changing some chapters of our history:
King Mahmud Ghaznavi will NOT be influenced by the bad guys in his entourage and will change his mind and pay Ferdowsi the promised golden treasure. What is more, he will take Ferdowsi to live beside him in the Palace, the way Lorenzo di Medici (Il Magnifico) took young Michelangelo to live and work in his palace, and even built a sculpture garden for him.
Rostam will recognize his son Sohrab BEFORE he is killed and together they will go and find Rudabeh and they will build a magnificent house and garden in Zabolestan. The garden is so lovely that Simorgh decides to go live there as well. After all Simorgh is the one who raised Rostam's father, Zaal e Nariman. Shams Tabrizi visits them too, from time to time. Bijan and Manijeh also.
And Mirza Taqi Khan e Amir Kabir will NOT be killed and instead he will build many other DarolFonuns polytechnics all over Iran. He will also rebuild the Ark of Bam, and repair Apadana, in Perseplis.
And Mansour Hallaj will NOT be hanged and he will tell us to sit down upon the ground beside him and will tell us, in great detail and in a leisurely manner, while having tea and baqlava, and maybe gaz from Isphahan, all about the "truth" and we shall ask him to elaborate, and he will reveal "THE secret".
And Emam Hosein will NOT be killed, and instead Yazid and Shemr will change their minds and bring nice drinks and ice water to the desert, and then will take them all back to have dinner together.
And Rabe'e will live happily with her beloved (who will NOT be killed by her brother) and she will write lots of nice love poems and we will take her chocolates on Valentine's day.""
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