Friday, May 20, 2011

Carpets and Dumpster Diving

A couple of weekends ago, a friend rang me up and told me that while she was dropping off her recycling at the bins at the 3rd Street school, she noticed a box of the green glass Rauch juice bottles in the trash bin. She and her husband make excellent wine but have plenty of bottles so she thoughtfully gave me a call. I'm not too proud to dumpster-dive so I zoomed right over there. Sure enough, there were 13 new bottles (a case plus one!), some still with the original juice swirling around in the bottom (although it was pretty stinky and fermented after sitting in the sun for a few hours). I sterilize all of my beer- and wine-making equipment anyway so this was a most fabulous find! A new case of Rauch juice costs around SR 400. Look how much I saved!

Later that morning, I went to a carpet show here on camp. Residents will often invite carpet shop owners on to camp for a "show"--basically an open air affair with carpets laid out in the driveway and garage. I deliberately went with very little cash in my wallet, certainly not enough to buy a carpet, because I wanted to take a look at what was available. I am still exploring my personal taste in carpets. I know what I don't like but sometimes it's hard to define what I do like. I don't like really red carpets. I don't care for the silk ones (they are made for hanging on walls, not for walking on; plus they are hideously expensive and usually have patterns that are far too busy). I don't like Kazakh carpets much. I don't care for excessively floral patterns. See? Easy to say what I don't like. I prefer carpets done with vegetable dyes which produce rather muted colors. People that like really red carpets don't usually like vegetable-dyed carpets for that reason.

Well, the carpet seller unrolled a Turkmen carpet done in a primitive style. I loved it at first sight. Vegetable dyes, of course. He called it a "country carpet" that was done free-hand (without a strict pattern worked out in advance). The pattern repeats in a very casual way. Some of the larger elements reminded me of Tibetan designs.

Detail of the Turkmen carpet; Mimi's feet for scale. The orange-gold background and the light blue elements are unusual. Also note that most of the design elements lack a dark outline.
The villagers make such carpets mostly for their own use, not for the commercial market. Still, some of them get sold to traders because there is a market for primitive art. I knew right away that this carpet was unusual (I'd never seen one like it) and that it was of good quality.

The light side of the Turkmen carpet. All handmade wool carpets have a light side and a dark side, referring to the way the colors look depending on the angle from which you are viewing it.

I really like it, I told him, but I'm so sorry, I have no cash with me today.

This is the dark side of the Turkmen carpet. You can see how the colors look richer from this angle. Mimi for scale.
Not to worry, madam, he said as he whipped out his wireless credit card reader!

I spent the morning pulling bottles out of a dumpster and the afternoon purchasing a couple of carpets (I picked up a small Iranian carpet that also caught my eye). I think these sorts of events that might seem incompatible in our home countries are fairly typical for western expats in Dhahran.

This small Iranian carpet is also done in a primitive style. While I am not a fan of red carpets, the red in this carpet is exactly what it should be. This is not as high a quality as the Turkmen carpet but I liked the colors and the bird and plant/fruit motifs.

Detail of the small Iranian carpet. The bits that look brighter are plush with the fibers sticking up. The duller parts are knotted threads without fibers sticking up. I've seen carpets like this before but they are usually done in an annoying checkerboard or windowpane pattern (squares of plush alternate with squares of knots). This effect is quite ugly in larger carpets but in this small "throw rug" size it's interesting.

I apparently was on quite a roll because the following weekend I went to another carpet show on camp and bought another Iranian carpet. Also done in vegetable dyes, all of the floral design elements and borders in this magnificent carpet are done in silk while the green and cream background is done in wool. When you run your hand over the carpet, you can feel the smooth, cool silk next to the rougher wool. The colors of this carpet immediately attracted me. It is a very high quality carpet and quite a showpiece in my living room.

I love the green, cream, and dark gold in this carpet. Note that the inner border isn't a solid square but has triangular bits that stick out. Those are extremely difficult to weave. This is a nicely subdued floral pattern. Silk carpets don't have light and dark sides. Because there is so much silk in this one, the color change effect is subtle.

An Asian guy at the second carpet show asked me how I knew what a good price for one of these carpets should be. I told him that first you have to have some idea of what the retail price is. Then you have to have some idea of the market value which you can guesstimate by reading books or simply looking around at similar carpets and asking questions. Then you have to decide how much the carpet is worth to YOU. After all, you are the one who will be looking at it for years. Finally, you and the seller must agree on a price that is somewhere amongst all of those numbers.

As I've run out of floor space in my hovel to display my carpets, I think I'm done with carpet buying for the moment. I can see the attraction of buying carpets and I can even see how some westerners become addicted to buying them (one American guy and his wife left here last October with more than 30!). But I am just a dilettante, dipping my toe in the carpet pool, so to speak. I'm equally as entertained by dumpster diving for bottles for my beer and wine.

Detail of the Iranian carpet. Mimi's nose for scale!

2 comments:

Ramona said...

The Turkmen carpet is SOOO beautiful!

Rover Mom said...

I have to agree - the Turkmen carpet is lovely! I like the simplicity of the pattern and subtlety of the palate.