Carpet Display & Exhibit Explore World Culture
The alternative version is what you'll find in "The Language Carpet Project & The Magic Carpet Project," a new exhibit at Mission Mill Museum that showcases the traditions of the Middle East and Central Asia, according to the Statesman Journal.
This is one exhibit where you walk on the art, as well as see it on the walls; it's a measure of the essentially utilitarian nature of carpets in any part of the world.
"The pieces were so much made for use and part of life, so we wanted you to have that experience," said Holly Piper, a multimedia artist who operates the Magic Carpet Cultural Center, a cross-cultural organization in Marcola.
"Almost all these, everything was made for a purpose; making it was part of their lives."
Not unusual in the Third World, the carpets were made by women as they tended to children and did other home-based duties.
"Men are the farmers with outside jobs," said Ali Avci, who works with village carpetmakers and is based both in Istanbul, Turkey, and Marcola.
"The women are the ones who are always at home, preparing meals."
Piper said a lot of the pieces in the exhibit were done as dowry pieces.
"The better the weaver you were, the more prized you were as a bride," she said.
The rugs in this show are as individual as the makers, and there are some techniques and styles no longer in vogue or that no one can currently duplicate.
Some are as old as 120 years; one is from the 1800s.
"These are all one of a kind," Avci said.
The examples include a wild and wooly-looking Tulu rug, often hung on a wall as decoration; a Persian prayer rug; and Shia and Sunni prayer rugs from Iraq.
Among the more unusual, reflecting how the rugs were representative of the makers' lives, are the "war rugs" from Afghanistan, dating from the Russian invasion of that country.
There are images of mosques and the popular tree of life motif, but the carpets have border decorations of tanks and guns and images of bombers and TV antennas in the center.
"These are made out of the need to tell what happened," Piper said. "There's the tree of life, but there's all this stuff going on all around you. It's the continuum."
There are floor rugs here made in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era, with dark backgrounds but vividly colored imagery, including the Russian double-headed eagle and protective eyes.
"It's just like wild color coming out of the darkness," she said.
The antique, tribal and village carpets and textiles on view are more often notable for their peaceful symbolism, with images of seeds, flowers and religious beliefs.
Created as the makers had time, some of the larger carpets probably took years to create, Piper said.
All were done as handwork, without the benefit of looms, and often just laid out on the dusty floor as the weavers worked.
One, with an irregular shape and colors, shows the result of the prolonged creation, as the rug was shuffled on the floor and different dyes became available.
One of the more intriguing parts of the exhibit is "The Magic Carpet Project," which Piper started five years ago and which she runs in cooperation with Avci.
Project organizers visit classrooms across the country, introducing kids to the stories and symbolism of carpets of the different regions.
After learning "the language of the carpets," the children create their own designs, weaving in their wishes, hopes and dreams for themselves, their families and the world.
Relying on his tribal village roots and heritage as a native of eastern Anatolia, Avci has some of the designs woven into carpets in Turkey, with the weavers taking their own creative liberties, using symbols and colors.
One carpet shows chocolate chip cookies; others show animals, abstract designs or images from the children's lives.