new blogs and old suzanis

OK so i was looking for suzanis online, i look for them a little everyday.

i land on one of my favourite blogs an indian summer and learn about a great new blog called textile swatches . seema the woman behind the blog is a textile designer now based in Boston and is soon to launch her own line of fabrics. its a young blog but is a great place to learn about some of the traditional textile processes like block printing etc.

it is through textile swatches that i landed in heaven. seema mentioned this place called tessera on her blog and to me it is heaven. its work like this that i want to be doing. travelling the world, learning and surrounding myself with beautiful arts and crafts of its people, selling them to enrich more lives and in my small way give back to the society a little that i can.

tessera has the awesomest collection of ikats, suzanis, furniture and more beautiful things but they do not sell online(or if they do i haven't found it on their website yet, i'll go back to take a closer look). while i study their website a bit more..here are some images to feast you eyes on. and you are welcome:)

oh and i forgot to tell you...remember the turkish bowls i had posted here sometime back?? tessera have a range of similar turkish bowls!! i dunno if i should laugh or cry cuz i see them everywhere but i still don't own them...:/

kanika

Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s film, Gabbeh, 1996.

In the opening scene of the Iranian film, Gabbeh, viewers are confronted with a riot of colour‑colourful costumes, bright scenery and a dazzling gabbeh (hand made rug), woven by Iranian nomads. Some viewers have wondered whether this is a colour overkill but there is an interesting story behind this. The film maker turns up the colour not for aesthetic reasons but to make a prophetic statement. The Iranian government had become prescriptive about the clothes Iranian women were to wear.....you may read the complete review here
Text via : reviewingbooksandmovies.blogspot.com

i saw this movie when i was in college and remember having fallen in love with it. it was mystical and beautiful..full of colour! i must get a copy and watch it again!

Gabbeh or Gabbe is a traditional variety of Persian carpet.
A gabbe is a triple hand-knotted carpet/floor mat, crafted almost exclusively by women from Qashqai and some other tribes in southwestern Iran. This kind of carpet is much thicker and coarser than other Persian carpets; sometimes it is as much as one inch in depth. In fact, it is more of a variety of kilim than carpet.

via wikipedia

Kaitag

i'm falling in love with textiles from Central Asia. images above are Kaitag Embroideries from the remote mountainous region of Daghestan. image on the cover of Hali magazine, 2007, is Silk on Cotton, 18th Century.

via stylecourt

KAITAG ART
Situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, Daghestan is an inaccessible and mountainous part of the Caucasus, an autonomous region first of the Soviet Union and now of Russia, flanked by the mighty Russian and Persian empires. Kaitag art, from a small region in the south of Daghestan, is the creation of a multi-ethnic people, incorporating Zoroastrian, Muslim, Christian, Jewish and pagan symbolism. This remarkably vibrant and beautiful tradition is found mostly in the rectangular panels embroidered with vividly coloured silks that are the subject of this book. Examples are attributed to the 16th through to the 19th centuries. The geography of the region and the self-contained and inward-looking pattern of living of the Kaitag people were major factors in the confinement of such a distinct art to such a small group of villages.
THE DESIGNS
The vast repertoire of designs is the legacy of the society that produced them. Byzantine, Fatimid, Mongolian, Timurid, Mamluk, Chinese, Ottoman and Celtic forms, combined with local animist art in a glorious diversity: hieroglyphic motifs, sun signs, birds signs, sun bursts, octagons, cosmic columns, horns, crosses, fantastic crab-like beasts, elk, reindeer, fat swordfish, dragons, amoebae-like shapes, masks and even foetuses can be identified. Many ancient talismanic symbols occur, for these panels were used in rituals associated with birth, marriage and death - to wrap cradles or as dowry covers, for example.

text via textileart.com