Hello, Well I have heard Marla Mallett lecture on the subject where she explains in depth her theory. Marla is a marvel. Brilliance personified with a scathing wit, and a searching mind that never stops exploring and challenging new ideas. We chat now and then and I always come away having learned something. Her book is one of the five best books available in the field of Oriental Rugs today. Now the wrangle got kicked up when Jim Allen objected to a quote from Marla. "I believe that weaving processes dictate the ultimate expression and constrain the ideational content far more than do the processes in virtually any other visual arts." Jim explained, "The reason I was upset about Marla's statement about design being derivative of the constraints of weaving is that it almost precludes or obstructs the idea that weaving is a linguistic process whose constituent bits of information are encoded mentally and expressed through the fingers in the wool. This whole discussion leads to an area where I suspect Jim and Marla have more in common than is at first apparent. Obviously the weaving process including materials and even loom have a vast impact on the finished product. Take Turkmen weaving I think it safe to say that both Jim and Marla would agree that the older the Turkmen weaving the less mechanical the weave and in newer pieces the weave is very mechanical. Why I believe as the Turkmen settled they got better looms and wove professionally for the market place. Certainly the weaving process enters into shaping what is the resultant product. So Marla is right. On the other hand if the weaving process was the sole determiner then weavers on similar looms with similar wool and similar dyes should make rugs that are about the same product. A Tekke and a Yomud rug should be indistinct because both weavers the Tekke and the Yomud were faced with virtually identical weaving processes. But that is not the case even though both women has the same constraints their rugs are different enough that we can examine them and know by physical examination which is the Tekke and which is the Yomud. There has not been a Tekke or Yomud tribe in over 100 years but there are still Tekke or Yomud. That is because there are people who speak the Tekke dialect of Turkmen as their mother tongue, as there are people who speak the Yomud dialect of Turkmen as their mother tongue. Over and over from the far east (China) to the far west (Morocco) we find people weaving in small identifiable groups and they are distinguishable on the basis of their mother dialect and their weave. This leads around to a very strong argument that there is a weaving language body that is broken out in languages and dialects as is their spoken language. So Jim is right. There is merit to both arguments and from both we can learn a great deal. I suspect that not every body will believe this immediately so I have a way to demonstrate the concept. Pick a group it could be Baluch or Turkmen or some other group and start doing structural analyses. Obviously if you want the analyses to be meaning full then you need to buy: Mallett, Marla. Woven Structures: A Guide to Oriental Rug and Textile Analysis. Atlanta: Christopher Publications and Marla Mallett Textiles, 1998. I suggest that before very long it will become very obvious that every little group has it's own distinctions. Just in Afghan Baluch I found a number of distinct groups that all my research showed a probable correlation to the dialects of the Chahar Aymaq language as well as Baluch, Mushwani, and Pashtun. Now if all weavers wove the same there would be no need for Marla's book. It is because of the woven language that makes Marla's book a necessity for every rug collector. I think Steve Price and his group on TurkoTek are to be congratulated on the exemplary job they do in fostering a learning experience. Obviously discussions can become passionate as egos enter in to the fray but without both Jim and Marla TurkoTek would be a much poorer place. I know I learn far more when both Jim and Marla are contributing. Best wishes, Barry |
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