OAKLAND, CA.- The complexity of the art of weaving an Oriental rug combines elements of skill, dexterity, imagination, and artistic vision. With roots that span thousands of years, the final products, exquisitely constructed, primarily by women, are works of art appreciated by collectors, artists in other media and casual observers. Take a glimpse with me into the minds and methods employed by those weavers as they produced truly remarkable works of art, sometimes under the most trying and primitive conditions.

For a moment, imagine yourself a small girl living in a Kurdish encampment in the mountains of Azerbaijan. The constant activity of the nomadic lifestyle is fascinating for you to watch, the numerous daily tasks of milking the goats, grinding wheat into flour, or carrying water up from the stream. Yet one activity is the most enchanting of all: when your mother takes her place in front of the long horizontal loom to weave.

Her fingers move deftly, effortlessly as she ties knot-after-knot out of the brightly colored wool. Her body moves rhythmically back and forth as she secures a row of newly formed pile by pounding in horizontal weft threads with her long-handled comb. And very slowly as you watch, as days and weeks go by, a woolen garden begins to take form. Intricate geometricized flowers appear as your mother works on, chanting a continual melodic tune in harmony with the movement of her hands and body at the loom.

From Turkestan on the east, across Persia to the Caucasus to the northwest, the tribal weaver was a master of several complex skills. First of all, she was a supreme craftsperson who could tie a knot every five seconds to create a 4x8 rug which would contain some 700,000 knots. She was also a sensitive shepherd and a magician at the ancient method of vegetal dyeing. Most importantly, she was a genuine artist, whose dexterity of harmonizing color and design was unsurpassed.

Creating the finest weaving materials is synonymous with following the rugged nomadic lifestyle. Many tribes throughout the rug-making world traditionally went on lengthy semi-annual migrations, allowing their sheep to graze for a few short months on the rich grass of the highest mountain meadows. The result of the combination of this rich feed and the mild summer temperatures produced “mountain oily wool,” the most resilient and lustrous in the world. The mountain Kurdish and Luri tribespeople of Persia were known for producing wool of especially high quality.

The making of a tribal rug took a level of patience and love of physical activity which is unfamiliar to the Western world. The amount of care taken in preparing the wool for weaving had a dynamic effect on the finished product. The newly shorn wool was first washed thoroughly and then sorted for length and quality. It was carded (or “teaseled”) to separate and fluff the fibers before being spun. On nomadic migrations, the women were often seen spinning as they rode, a drop spindle in one hand and one or more whorls in the other.

Finally, the wool was ready to be dyed, an art form that was as highly developed and fascinating as the knotting of the rug itself. The great majority of tribal dyes from the 1800s and early 1900s came from natural vegetal and mineral sources and were obtained only through the lengthy gathering and boiling processes. The bold reds for which tribal carpets are known were often produced from the roots of madder, a spindly bush which grows in the clay soil throughout the rug-weaving areas. Dried yogurt powder was sometimes added to soften the color into lighter hues. The deep blue’s came from the leaves of the indigo plant and were only extracted after a difficult fermentation procedure. It took over 100 pounds of indigo to produce a mere four ounces of the precious indigotin dye.

Other dyestuffs included ground henna root or the prized cochineal beetle for the deepest reds, pomegranate or the rare saffron for yellow. To create green, the tribespeople often employed the extremely time-consuming process of over-dyeing yellow wool with indigo. Rich dark brown coloring was obtained from the hulls of walnuts. Camel brown was created by boiling pomegranate skins with the outer shells of acorns. White was the easiest color to create, as it came from the sheep’s wool left undyed.

Just as the tribal weaver employed many materials she gathered locally as dyestuffs, she also both wool and other available materials for weaving. Certain tribal groups preferred to use cotton rather than wool for the rug’s foundation. Often, nomadic weavers, notably the Baluche, wrapped the sides of their rugs with strong threads made from the hair of their goats. Sometimes camel’s hair was used undyed, adding a magnificent golden-brown color to the carpet’s field.

And this was just a portion of the process that ultimately produced the emotionally and intellectually impactful tribal rugs. In my next article, I will delve more deeply into the art of weaving and what it has produced over the centuries.