Deliberate Wonktitude

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

I purchased this Afshar rug a couple of years ago, and recently decided to get some more rugs up on the walls--ten-foot ceilings seem to ask for some stuff hanging all the way up to the ceiling. Anyway, this Afshar is pretty thin, but because of the red wefts, the wear is mostly obscured in the borders and the outside of the field, and you really only see it as a kind of abrash in the deep indigo central field/medallion. I think this piece is from deep in the 19th century, with the lovely embroidered kilim ends, the fine knotting (though very soft and floppy), detailed drawing, and spectacular colors. There's a super-pale blue in the details that is very intriguing.



So once I had it up there and started looking at it, the profound wonkiness of the blue medallion/field impressed me more powerfully than it had previously. The medallion's right side starts and ends significantly higher than the left side. There are little "teeth" on the edge of it, and she clearly started the right side one tooth late and finished the same way. The "teeth" do actually sort-of line up, with one extra tooth on the lower side on the left, and a higher tooth on the right.



I am forever enchanted by what seems to me to be a deliberate distortion of the design in this way. I think that many old tribal pieces achieve a sense of movement and three-dimensional depth with this sort of distorted design. Baluchis and Turkmen do this sort of thing all the time. Sometimes it seems to be the work of a novice but often it seems like this--a skilled weaver making a special piece, and she did this deliberately. The mystery of course is what the intention was. All we have is speculation, but of course, that's the fun of it.

BTW, while I'm here, I thought I'd show the super-pale bluish color from the back. From the front, at this point, it looks like more ivory... but it clearly is not...

[Frank Petruziello Member Find all posts View Profile Close Frank Petruziello]

Paul, it’s a beautiful piece. I’m with you looking for and admiring the anomalies. It shows the personality of the maker. I like to think of it as a result of virtuosity. The exuberance of the rough sketch not the dullness of rigid symmetry. Here is one of mine that has distortion in the medallion shapes that gives the piece life.

thanks for sharing
Frank

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

Hi Frank,

Cool example. I love the plain field, and yeah... those medallions are definitely moving upwards (to my eye). Cloudband designs always look to me like they're moving. The whole rug sort-of pulsates. I agree that wonkiness (at its best) does seem to create depth and movement.

Paul

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Nice rug. I do enjoy the colors on it and its aged look. If I may suggest, that beauty needs its own wall and would stand out better if you put it on the right wall (in the pic) that has the small framed picture.

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

Hi Joe,

I appreciate your observation. I just took this photo in not-ideal light for rugs (that's morning in this room), showing that it's part of a larger context. It's probably not persuasive in the least, but I like it. Actually I lobbied my wife about my Tekke torba (I started a thread on it in March) going below that picture (which is actually a sampler made by an ancestor 200 years ago), but she vetoed that, with there being four weavings on that wall already (including a main carpet). There are several paintings and photographs in the room that also receive their own column, without weavings above or below, so there's more repetition there, FWIW.

Anyway, on with wonktitude!

Paul

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Much better pic and seeing the room in a larger pic definitely makes sense now. Looks great and nice display of your pieces.

[Dinie Gootjes Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dinie Gootjes]

Hi Paul,

Great rug that deserves a great spot. Like you I usually love "wonktitude", but in general I am less generous with calling it "deliberate" . For your rug I think a good case can be made that the irregularity was caused by the less than perfect cooperation of two weavers. Looking at the rug as a whole, it looks like the right side has in almost every part different, mostly better, drawing than the left. The blue ground floral meander border from top and bottom is continued as is on the right side, left it stops meandering and has all diagonal lines going the same way. The white ground Khamseh border is not particularly well drawn anywhere, but on the right side the elements at least stay together, while on the left the bar and the opposing two 'tents' shift away from each other as we move up. There the border also seems to wobble and become wider towards the top. In the red field on both sides of the blue centre there are the Afshar combinations of a toothed 'skyline' with a shield shape above it. On the right, they are all well drawn and regular. On the left the teeth of the three at the very bottom are a mess, then the first single one above that has no teeth, just two triangles, while the tops of all the central tall teeth are like a roof instead of indented. The shields are also clumsily drawn on the left. I think it more likely that the irregular drawing of the blue medallion was caused by the obvious lack of coordination of two ladies, than by any intent to create movement in the rug. I do not deny that the effect is there, and I actually like it very much, but I cannot imagine a weaver intentionally and consistently drawing well on the one side of her rug, and drawing clumsily on the other. I am sure weavers have fun with the treatment of certain designs, but I don't think that is the case here.

Dinie Downer

[patrick weiler Member Find all posts View Profile Close patrick weiler]

Lovely Afshar rug! The naturally short pile is often susceptible to wear. Here is a piece on the bedroom wall (I keep telling myself I will take it down and properly photograph it one day). The foundation is visible in the field.
Good to see you putting more rugs on the walls! Mine are mostly full.
Patrick Weiler

[Chuck Wagner Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Chuck Wagner]

Hi Paul,

We have an Afshar with a similar "toothed" central field with the diamond-shaped, upper and lower diamond-shaper terminations, and central medallion.

While things are not perfectly aligned, the distortion is far less than your wall piece.

Here's one pic (NOTE: this was taken from slightly above, so the width stretch between top and bottom is a function of camera lens distortion)":




Since you brought up wonkish, here's more, that suggests the distortion in yours may be due to uneven warp tensions (too tight on the left), or "shrinking/tightening" warps on the left following removal from the loom.

Upper three:
Left: Copied a strip with left-side "teeth" and aligned with top edge of "teeth" on right. Clearly shorter at the bottom
Middle: Move to right edge and stretch so that the length matches the right edge
Right: Move directly left against right "teeth"

Bottom two:
Left: Shift up until teeth are aligned
Middle: Move back to approximate left "teeth" position. Note bottom of rug pretty much aligns but top is much longer.

So, like I said, this may be a warp tension thing.

Wonkishly,
Chuck

[Guest Close Guest]

Hello all

This reminds me of a thread I once started on the topic, in the busier days of Turkotek. Have a look where it took us back then:

http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00106/quirky.htm

Regards

Frank Martin Diehr

[Guest Close Guest]

Hi Chuck,

Your suggestion could be easily checked by starting at one of the big teeth, and following the line of knots to see if it ends up in the corresponding spot on the other side.

Dinie

[Joel Greifinger Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Joel Greifinger]

Hi Paul and all,

I am entirely in agreement with Ms. Dinie Downer: the irregularities in your Afshar rug seem best explained as the product of a more competent weaver working side by side with a not very competent co-worker. I applaud her extremely well-observed account of the result

My initial speculation was that this might be a joint project of an experienced weaver instructing her daughter. I thought myself rather clever for the hypothesis, until Frank's post reminded me that I was lifting the narrative from comments in an earlier discussion of the intentionality of 'wonkiness', and its impact on aesthetic assessments. In that discussion, (http://www.turkotek.com/misc_00106/quirky.htm) Marla Mallett questioned the Romantic lens through which contemporary collectors view the artifacts produced by those earlier rural artisans. I largely agreed with her comments then (2009) and still do. I'm not surprised or bothered that we sometimes find 'wonky' pieces cool and intriguing, perhaps prefiguring a modernist aesthetic sensibility. I just think that Marla's experiences with later rural female weavers likely held true in the century before she spoke with them, as well:

When I first started visiting nomadic and village weavers about 30 years ago, one of my main concerns was to learn about these women's attitudes toward their work. ..to learn what standards they applied...to learn how they judged the work of others in their communities. I was eager to learn to what extent it was appropriate to apply my own "Western" aesthetic standards to tribal weavings--to learn whether "Eurocentric aesthetic agendas" in the so-called "decorative arts" were really so different from that of the tribal women I was visiting. In addition, I was feeling so irritated by common rug book fantasies, attitudes and interpretations that I was eager to discover to what extent my own weaving studio experiences were duplicated in village houses and tents. I found few surprises, and found few instances when creative instincts and attitudes toward craftsmanship did not parallel mine. I also found that the negative constraints of commercialism and production for the marketplace differed very little from those faced by my fellow American artisans...that attitudes toward production were nearly always altered significantly when the objects were to be merchandized. I haven't been everywhere; my in-depth conversations with weavers over the years have occurred primarily in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and more recently in Thailand and Laos. Within these quite divergent cultures, the similarities in attitudes towards aesthetics, creativity and craftsmanship are astounding. The basic differences are quite minor and superficial, relating only to style.

I think within the community in which the weaving was done, the response to much of what we treasure as 'wonkiness' (particularly when based in technical irregularities) would be less, "How charming" or "How profound" as "She certainly needs a lot more practice."

Joel

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

Hi Frank,

Thank you for the link to that earlier thread. It's good to look back fifteen years and realize that I still would say everything I said there. Many important issues on wonkiness were raised in that thread.

Anyway, everyone, very good points here! Dinie's not a downer! It's a completely reasonable position, with which I am not in complete agreement.

I remain agnostic on a lot of these issues, but I'm very interested in them, which is to say that I don't necessarily assume these things are the work of shamanic ritual (but I would be loathe to assert that rituals of that sort never existed among tribal weavers), but neither do I think that Western standards for "quality" in visual precision are necessarily relevant to this inquiry. I am highly skeptical of any attempt to suggest universal aesthetic standards, though I appreciate that the technical aspects of weaving represent an important factor in weaving quality and aesthetics. It is important to note that Marla Mallett's statement, above, describes conditions in the 1970s in Turkey, where she was doing serious field work. My field is music, but I would not be inclined in my professional work to assume that attitudes towards precision and "perfection" of the musicians that I worked with, say, in Dublin in the late 1970s (which BTW was at a pretty high standard) would necessarily have much to do with those same agendas among Irish musicians in the 1860s, or the 18th century, or whenever.

One thing worth pointing out in this rug, which is in my opinion an important factor in assessing significance and quality here, is that in spite of whatever quirkiness in the weave, she was using good materials. Those end finishes are pretty fancy; that turquoise and the pale blue were not usual colors. The idea of multiple weavers, that several people mentioned, I think is absolutely valid, but it isn't necessarily an example of a master teaching a teenager... depending on context (and, OK, I do think this Afshar is a dowry rug of some sort), it could be a setting where one or more elders or sisters or ?? joined the younger weaver to produce the piece. If you ever spend any time among indigenous people, it doesn't take long to notice how often your assumptions are useless. If you think you understand what is going on, you would be wise to examine that "understanding." I do not agree that this respect for aesthetic traditions outside one's own context is necessarily "Romantic." One of my assumptions was that an object was the intended outcome of weaving, but I have learned that many traditions regard objects as mementos or artifacts of important events/rituals. In that circumstance, it would be likely that "wonkiness" could be part of that process, or a reason that precision in weaving could play a secondary role to other agendas. Hard to know. But, I think it is dubious to assume that it is without-a-doubt unintentional incompetence, when other factors indicate otherwise.

So, the tilt is not just in the drawing. If you look at the wefts showing through the wear in the blue ground... you'll realize that the wefts are tilted. Significantly. If you follow those, then the teeth on the edge of the blue field line up, and so does the tilted little medallion in the middle of the blue field. Not only that, but the little elements in the madder red field line up in that tilt. But the outside is not rhomboid--it's more-or-less rectangular. Incompetence? Inexperience? Somebody knew what they were doing, seems to me. But that might just be me.

In any case, I think there are weavings that are the work of youngsters--I've got a Baluch chanteh comparison to add here--and some weavings where you have to wonder if the gals got into the hashish, but I think there is a level of deviance from Western ideas about symmetry and order in some pieces that is not explained by incompetence or poor eyesight, and it creates a sense of movement, depth, and delight that I am not inclined to dismiss.

[Joel Greifinger Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Joel Greifinger]

I am highly skeptical of any attempt to suggest universal aesthetic standards, though I appreciate that the technical aspects of weaving represent an important factor in weaving quality and aesthetics.

Hi Paul,

I believe the crux of our disagreement is embedded in this statement. While I think we'd agree that there isn't a clear, context- independent line between technical and aesthetic standards in any culture, there is a some continuum between skill and ineptitude in all. To what degree the technical skill of the weaving is valued probably varies greatly between groups and situations. But, I do begin with the assumption that it is one, important factor in how their product might be assessed in the weavers' own communities. If that is a "universal aesthetic standard", which I don't think it is, it is a minimalist one that I'm willing to try to argue has some empirical basis in our extant ethnographic knowledge.

It is important to note that Marla Mallett's statement, above, describes conditions in the 1970s in Turkey, where she was doing serious field work. My field is music, but I would not be inclined in my professional work to assume that attitudes towards precision and "perfection" of the musicians that I worked with, say, in Dublin in the late 1970s (which BTW was at a pretty high standard) would necessarily have much to do with those same agendas among Irish musicians in the 1860s, or the 18th century, or whenever.

Speaking of ethnographic knowledge, we can also agree that we don't have much about the Kerman Afshar around the turn of the 20th century, when your rug was likely woven. So, confidently asserting either the weavers' intentions or their technical and aesthetic standards with any great confidence is too likely a product of our own projections. However, your analogy to the assumptions of Irish musicians of the 1860's or even of the 18th century overstates the epistemic problem. When Marla was speaking with rural weaving women in the 1970's, many had probably been taught to weave by mothers whose own mothers were the age of the weaver of your rug, or perhaps by a grandmother of that weaving generation. They would have been counseled on what was considered adequate or expert, admirable or merely tolerated in any given type of piece within that community. Perhaps increasing market pressures had radically altered the perspective of those younger weavers of their products from those that they had learned from their elders. Given the prodigious rate at which Afshar rugs were being sold in the international market by the early 20th century that seems unlikely, but certainly possible. At least as likely is that the attitudes that Marla found were well established in many, if not all, rural weaving communities.

and, OK, I do think this Afshar is a dowry rug of some sort

Certainly a pleasant thought. In the absence of any more detailed ethnographic information on Kerman Afshar weaving, we can’t even make an informed guess.

One of my assumptions was that an object was the intended outcome of weaving, but I have learned that many traditions regard objects as mementos or artifacts of important events/rituals. In that circumstance, it would be likely that "wonkiness" could be part of that process, or a reason that precision in weaving could play a secondary role to other agendas. Hard to know. But, I think it is dubious to assume that it is without-a-doubt unintentional incompetence, when other factors indicate otherwise.

Yes, hard to know. And, assuming that any 'wonkiness' that is aesthetically pleasing to us is "without-a-doubt unintentional incompetence, when other factors indicate otherwise." is certainly dubious. Luckily, no one here has made such "without-a-doubt" assertions, so no harm done.


Joel

P.S. - A quick personal note. I learned to weave this year. After a week long 'boot camp' at a wonderful weaving school, I went off on my own, armed with books and online videos. I also joined two weaver's guilds and about a half dozen FB weaving groups. While in all of those groups participants post their pieces and get lots of supportive "Beautiful"s and "WOW"s, the vast majority of the posts are weavers at all skill levels looking for advice over technical problems in a specific weaving. And, the possibilities for problems are endless. However, the greatest number, by far, concern various issues with warp and/or weft tension. Learning to maintain these consistently throughout the piece is a hard-won skill taking most weavers years and a lot of trial and error to get right. Along the way, there are lots of opportunities to decide when to try to correct the problem and keep weaving, when to tear it all out and start again and when to just get on with it, finish the flawed, but useable piece and try to do better next time.

The other question that frequently comes up is how technically polished a piece should be to be either gifted or sold, rather than kept for oneself. I'm sure that discussion has been going on in the weaving communities that we have been discussing here for at least 125 years.

[PaulSmith Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PaulSmith]

Hi Joel,

As near as I can tell, traditional rug weavers never tore anything out. Has anyone seen evidence of that? It seems that the way it's done is to keep going, no matter what, which itself is an intriguing aesthetic agenda.

Here is my promised chanteh comparison. First, my good one. I really don't know if it's older, but it pretty clearly is "better" than my second example.


This second one is not as fine a weave, and colors are duller, but my purpose in posting it is that I think it demonstrates wonkiness that is indicative of inexperience/less competence than the first example. She really struggled with those eight-pointed stars. This is not the sort of wonkiness I was after in this thread.



But don't you think something like the drawing in this piece (below) demonstrates intentionality? If she didn't like those little elements on the right side of the field, she would have adjusted. Clearly, she meant to keep going with that. Nothing wrong with her weaving chops. There's a shift in the field from the center that to me represents a kind of "wonkiness" that is something other than incompetence. Shiv Sikri's somewhat-vague theses about deliberate shifts in tribal rugs seems to me to be a response to this sort of wonkiness, though it seems that he is hesitant to ascribe meaning to it. Frank's example, above, is similar in this sense--she did the same thing twice. It's a common bit of advice in jazz improvisation--if you play something weird, repeat it, then everyone will think that you meant to do it.

The weavers of this Shekarlu never intended to put the elements in neat little rows, like most of these carpets. They could weave a conventional border, but they had an entirely different agenda with the field. I love the arch that emerges from the bottom. I think that this is the sort of wonkiness that is intentional. Is this incompetence?



So, my intention is to explore this continuum. The reason for using the Afshar was that I think it falls in between incompetence and genius. I'm glad that they kept going, whatever the reason, even thought their wefts were definitely pointing ENE. I don't see your distinction between my experience with Irish master musicians and Marla's with Turkish weavers about the same time, though. Epistemologically, it is precisely the same sort of context. We were both outsiders learning directly from traditions that had gone through incredible change in the previous century. If you consider the transformative impact of the 20th century just about everywhere, I think it is a dubious notion to think that attitudes in the 19th century can be gleaned from artisans of the late 20th century.

Paul