Persian Gabbeh pile rug

Q: When does a rug become a work of art? A) When it tells a story. B) When it's pleasing to the eye. C) When it's imbued with the feelings of the weaver. D) All of the above. This week's new arrival isn't just a simple floor covering. It tells a story about life in the Zagros Mountain range, a nomadic life which hasn't changed for centuries. The herds of sheep need to constantly move or there will be no food - for them or the nomads who depend upon them. Life, stripped down to the barest of necessities - a temporary home, fire to cook, water to drink - would seem to leave little room for beauty, but everything about this rug suggests otherwise.

The dyes, created from local vegetation, are soft and pleasing. The thick, loosely knotted pile, gives the rug the feeling of a painting. The imagery reflects life on the move, but it's not the urban life we may know, the life where there never seems to be enough time. It's the nomadic life, where there is only time. In an engaging way, this rug makes you think about what life on the move really means, and about what kind of person made it when they found them self with nothing but time on their hands. We will never know the name of this person. Undoubtedly, it was a woman. That's the nature of this type of rug. It’s called a gabbeh, which means raw and natural in the local language. Authentic gabbeh are created by sensitive women for themselves and their loved ones. Whatever her name, the woman who wove this rug exhibited an impressive level of skill and artistic pride as she imbued the piece with all her feelings about life in the mountains and on the plains. The answer to the above question is: D) All of the above. Knowing the answer doesn’t really tell us what it was like to create this rug – to shear the sheep, comb the wool, make the dyes, color the yarn, create the foundation and painstakingly knot the individual threads into a work of art on a well worn loom, which was handed down from mother to daughter for many generations. However, the answer does suggest the creation of this rug was less likely a matter of work than a labor of love.

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