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Thursday, June 17, 2010

 Societies
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The Turkish Carpet Company Blogging is part indulgence, part egotistical broadcasting and part knowledge impartation. I am not sure who, if anyone, reads my indulgence, however there are some kernels of wealth in my ramblings to be sure. Today, I am of a mind to blog about The
American Conference on Oriental Rugs ACOR, this is a learned body and... association concerned with textiles and in particular oriental rugs/carpets.

The membership base is comprised of aficionados, rug dealers, learned treatise writers and et al. Societies like this are, of course, an indulgence amongst their august membership, but they rarely produce anything of note. The members do, of course, and it perhaps becomes their showcase to exhibit a rare Caucasian, Turkish or other species of Oriental rug.
Don't get me wrong, I think ACOR has a place, the last conference was in 2006 ACOR 8,the 9'th in St Louis, MO, was postponed because of ..well the recession I think, all the rug dealers were/are broke. But, I think its more of an academic enterprise. Lets not mince words, at the sharp end of rug dealing there is a snobbery beyond compare, not that I have been exposed to it, I just know its there.
At the real sharp end are the small men, the knowledge base from whom all of these rug book experts culled their snippets of knowledge to encapsulate all into a BOOK, degrees on degrees of palagarism beyond belief. They are the true experts, the small rug shop owners in Istanbul and other points eastwards, whom I have met, who are the true heroes of the story.
7:59 pm pdt

Thursday, June 10, 2010

 DOBAG

So where was I, ohh yes the Dobag. I personally had experience of a Government sponsored operation close to Marmaris in Turkiye. Admittedly, they were a co-operative who was as much interested in selling rugs to tourists as keeping up with the old traditions. However, as a Sunsail Skipper I was encouraged to bring groups to this place for drinks and a show designed to make the punters part with their cash, my end 10% ...... Sunsail's ? More than me I am sure. This cheapens the project to an extent, however everyone needs to make a living. Tourists are thinner on the ground now, and so I wonder if this establishment is still going. I dearly hope there is still as much interest amongst the YURUK or Black Tent Nomads in rug making, it would be such a disaster if the Chinese and Pakistani knock offs for genuine Turkish rugs were able to dominate the market. 30 years ago when I first became interested in Turkish rugs and began collecting them, you'd be hard pressed to find a rug dealer in the provinces hawking inferior bogus Turkish rugs, made in China, now its evermore common. To a tutored eye, very easy to spot, but a tourist could make a mistake and end up with a less than genuine "Turkish" rug for $2000.00 + dollars which is a shame. A clue, hand-made Turkish rugs are full of irregularities and sometimes something called Abrash, which is just a word for inconsistancies in the dye, making colour variations in the weave ...this is a good thing, and really not replicatable in knock-offs.

7:19 pm pdt

Rug weaving revitalization project in Turkey

I must get some discussion going about the Turkish DOBAG project, rather than discussion on immigration and its costs. This is a very interesting project which saw its inception around the 1960's, to revitalize the Turkish Village Carpet Weaving Industry. the use of natural dyes, harmonious and regional designs from the past, hand looms and all of the love and effort that it takes to make a genuine Turkish Rug. It literally translated from Turkish as the Natural Dye Research and Development Project. Sustainable, I am not sure, so much of the Anatolian population have moved to the larger cities like Istanbul, rug making is not just a dye'ing art its a dieing art.

7:14 pm pdt
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