ORC Gazette 8-07 - Navab Brothers Oriental Rug Company

ORIENTAL RUG GAZETTE
Fall 2007 edition
NAVAB BROTHERS
ORIENTAL RUG COMPANY
4409 EXCELSIOR BOULEVARD ST LOUIS PARK, MN 55416
www.orientalrugcompany.com
A Passage to India …and Pakistan!
Reflections on a recent trip to the Indian subcontinent.
by Farzan Navab
hough Sam Navab has been a frequent visitor to India and a former resident of New
Delhi, for me our recent trip to India and pakistan, was an eye opener and so I decided to
share some of my experiences and impressions
with our readers. My impressions are of a general nature and very personal. Here I am not
offering facts but only opinions.
T
The Nawabs are coming
Our f light from Amsterdam arrived on time in
New Delhi and going through the customs was
remarkably a fast process. It was the first time
that a driver was expecting us at an airport.
And there were literally fifty to a hundred men
holding up signs that displayed names of
expected passengers.
Ours was one with the Indian spelling of
our last name: “Nawab” as opposed to how
Persian speaking people spell it: “Navab”
with a “V” instead of a “W”. Nevertheless
we understood that the man was looking for
us to be delivered to the “Taj” hotel, one of
the nicer hotels in New Delhi. At the hotel
too, we were treated like royalty (Nawab in
India was a title for governors and royalties
during the Mugal period). Our insistence
that we were really “Navabs” and not
“Nawabs”, or in any case royalty, apparently
was not to be believed by our Indian hosts.
Farzan Navab (middle) with Mr. and Mrs. Sharma
“India gives so much to the world“
said our buying agent Aditya Raman
The generosity of Indian people is stuff of legends but until you go to India you do not realize
how such respect and generosity shown to a visitor can be so genuine and sincere. It is perhaps
such sincerity expressed by Indian people that makes many tourists dress in Indian garb. We saw
many women wearing the sari and many men wearing the overall type Indian suit. To mix with
the locals seems a natural thing to do even for a visitor whose stay is rather short.
On this trip we were guided by our able and ex tremely kind representative in India Mr. Aditya
Raman. A well known family in Varanasi (formerly Benares), the Ramans are known in the rug
industry as creators of fantastic rugs, pioneers of unusual weaving techniques and above all of having impeccable credentials. We have known this family for twenty years and have benefited from
their great insight and assistance, and in this particular trip we benefited from their wonderful
hospitality.
Aditya Raman was a consummate host, taking us through villages of Varanasi, the streets of
Agra and Jaipur, homes and cottages of various weavers, the Taj Mahal and inviting us to the
Rambagh Palace hotel, were we had dinner in the courtyard accompanying a former Maharajah
while enjoying the trance like experience of watching traditional Indian dancers. He sure made
us feel like a Nawab!
Of weavers and artisans
Woman Spinning, Jaipur, India
Farzan Navab at rug washing plant in Agra
Rug Finishing in Agra, India
Manufacturing rugs in India is a very organized industry. Unlike making rugs in Iran that is still
somewhat disorganized with many people doing work independently and in totally separate locations, rug making in India consists of two basic components: weaving and finishing. A manufacturer makes a particular design, provides the wool to a weaving house and finishes the job by performing all finishing related activities including shearing, washing, edging the sides and fringing
the ends and finally re-dyeing the surface for consistency.
Of all these steps, the weaving though complicated and difficult, seems a straight forward step
in the rug making process. To start with, the way the wool is spun and dyed is the number one
factor determining the final look of a rug. Some wools are machine spun while others are not.
The degree of twisting the wool while spinning will make a difference in the eventual surface
look of the rug. Some wools have a high twist while others have very little twist. In addition,
natural dyes versus synthetic can create an entirely different look. Each manufacturing house dyes
its own wool, assuring its quality and keeping the dyeing portion of their production somewhat
of a secret.
I was specially surprised to see how much work is done on a rug that has just come off the
loom. In particular, with the ever changing U.S. market demanding new colors and designs, the
finishing of an Indian rug can be a very complicated task.
The Indian rug makers are descendents of great artisans that came to India with the arrival of
Mughal conquerors in the 17th century. In the beginning, rug manufacturing was centered
around Punjab and in particular Kashmir where the general feel of the culture had already been
inf luenced by the Persians.
Today most of the manufacturing is done in and around Varanasi, Agra and Jaipur. Each area is
known for a particular look and feel that though it might seem similar to the untrained eye,
is obviously different with aspects of design, weaving and finishing representing indigenous
local traditions.
A life changing experience
I had previously heard from some of my associates and friends that once
you travel to India you will not look at life the same way. But I did not
know what that meant or for that matter what to expect when I got to
India.
To say that India is a land of extremes and contradictions is of course an
overused cliché. But as is the case with all clichés there is more than an
inkling of truth to such expressions. India is a vast country with many
seemingly insurmountable problems. The overwhelming poverty juxtaposed with extreme wealth is an ordinary scene in India. So is looking at a
dead body on the street or looking at the amazing colors of fabrics, people,
nature and landscape. The aroma of various perfumes mixed with food
and incense and the ever present sound of Indian music in cars, hotel lobbies, on TV and on every street corner, is also something that makes life in
India more of a mythical experience. You feel in a way as though you, just
like countless movie stars, singers and dancers of Bollywood films, are taking part in an ongoing movie called “life”.
Stick it on with glue
Unfortunately the U.S market has recently shifted interest from
hand knotted rugs to what is known as “Hand Tufted”. The latter being a cheaply made product quickly constructed using a gun
tufting machine and latex glue. Many formerly hand knotted
weaving houses have switched to making these cheap products.
Almost all hand tufted rugs are made for sale in the US market
where they are distributed through such mass marketers as Pottery
Barn and Home Depot. The effect on the livelihood of people in
Indian rug industry has been devastating. While making hand
knotted rugs is more difficult, the pay is much better, making life
easier on thousands of families that reside in the area. However
the same workers get very little for making these awful tufted
products.
Weaving on the shores of the Sacred River
Ceremony on the Ganges, Varanasi India
Varanasi, formerly Benares, where the holy river Ganges runs through the city and is
a revered place for all Hindus, is also the largest rug producing region in India with the
town of Badohi, about 40 miles away, being its center.
The mostly Muslim population of Badohi make their living by primarily working
in the rug industry. Almost every home in Badohi and surrounding areas has either a
working loom or is a finishing workshop for rugs. Some weaving houses have become
extremely wealthy while the population at large has remained extremely impoverished.
The government of India seems too busy promoting their high tech industry while the
plight of the carpet industry remains unnoticed. One positive observation is that we
did not encounter the use of child labor in any of the production places we visited.
Most of the work in Badohi is done by grown young men and some who did not
seem so young. There are I am sure, many child laborers in various industries in India
including the rug industry but not limited to it. The giftware industry for example,
which is much larger than the rug industry relies heavily on child labor. It is a fact
however that cheap and poorly made rugs are the product of child labor and that quality rugs require more sophisticated and trained weavers who are older. As a rule, our
company since its inception, has stayed away from poor quality department store type
rugs.
It is important to note that such practices are the product of overwhelming poverty.
To change that, we must address the underlying conditions that contribute to child
labor practices. Governments including both the U.S and the Indian governments,
can address these issues and enforce better regulations.
Further Reading on India:
Shah Jahan and Mumtaz
At the Taj with Aditya Raman
Of Taj and rugs
Another interesting place where rugs are made in India is Agra.
Associated primarily with the palace of Taj Mahal, literally meaning the
place of the crown. Agra is also a rug producing region at least since
the reign of Mughal rulers (early 16th to mid 19th century).
In 1631 Shah Jahan, emperor during the Mughal period of greatest
prosperity, was grief-stricken when his second wife Mumtaz Mahal
died during the birth of their daughter Gauhara Begum, their fourteenth child. Contemporary court chronicles concerning Shah Jahan's
grief form the basis of the love story traditionally held as the being the
inspiration for the Taj Mahal.
One could speculate that Agra being “the place for the crown”
became an important rug producing region due to the patronage of its
Mughal rulers who brought with them many Persian artistic traditions.
But the rugs of Agra have a distinctly Indian characteristic that is also
present in all other arts of the Mughal era. The delicately drawn f loral
elements in these rugs have a particular affinity to the Indian textile
design of the period and even to the f loral motifs used as decorative
elements in the design of the Taj Mahal.
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Obviously there is a ton of material on
India. One simply wouldn’t know where to
begin. However a simple way of approaching the subject may be reading a few things
by one of my favorite authors! The distinguished writer and scholar Ved Mheta can
illuminate the subject more than any one I
know. I first read his book on Gandhi:
“Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles” (New
York, The Viking Press 1977) about the life and times of the great
Indian leader. Subsequently I read his autobiographical book on
his days as a student in Arkansas : “Sound-Shadows of the New
World” (New York: W.W. Norton & Company), as well as a wonderful little book “The Photographs of Chachaji” (New York: Oxford
university,1980).
On Ved Mehta’s web site we read: “Although blind since he
was nearly four, the Indian-born American writer Ved Mehta
has surmounted his disability to become one of the most versatile contemporary men of letters. In 1957, when he was twentythree, he published his first book, a young autobiography titled
Face to Face. Following the success of that book, Mehta went
on to publish several nonfiction books in which he created his
own brand of roving journalism. He has written with equal
felicity about events and personalities in India, Great Britain, and
the United States, and about more abstract matters, such as philosophy, history, theology, and linguistics. In 1972, Mehta
received much acclaim for his book Daddyji, a delicately crafted
portrait of his father, a distinguished Indian public health officer.
Between 1961 and 1994, he was a staff writer and reporter with
the New Yorker magazine. Since then, he has held distinguished
chairs at many colleges and universities, including Yale and
Williams College.”*
* Source: www.vedmehta.com
Fall 2007
Jaipur is the jewel!
Sam inspecting rugs
The passionate artisan
In Agra we met with the very enthusiastic and
friendly Rahul Goel of Goel carpets. Rahul is
a true artist who utilizes old Indian rug patterns that are sometimes over two hundred
years old. The delicately drawn patterns on
checkered paper were a product of chance discovery in an old building. Rahul is a perfectionist who believes his mission as a manufacturer is to preserve the Indian artistic tradition.
His recreation of old designs is remarkable in
that all aspects of design and even the wear and
tear has been recreated. Much like many other
rug makers we encountered in India, Rahul
Goel also complains of the treatment he
receives from wholesalers in Europe and the
U.S who constantly ask for lower production
costs and yet expect the quality to remain high.
He is also saddened by the fact that many buyers do not contribute to his knowledge by
keeping him informed of the latest trends in
the marketplace.
The husband and wife team
and the “separate” tea!
Throughout our journey we were served tea at
every production house we visited. As
Persians, we are fond of our tea drinking habit
that entails sucking on a sugar cube while sipping dark black tea. In India, however, they
make their tea mixed with milk. So our host
Aditya had learned to indicate our preference
for black tea every where we went. The term
used was “separate” as in bring the milk on the
side and not mixed in with the tea.
The tea served to us in Agra at Mr. and Mrs.
Sharma tasted specially good. The fact is that it
is a rare occasion where you feel mutual reverence and respect at first sight specially in business dealings. The Sharmas greeted us at what
seemed to be an annex to their home. They
are an unassuming couple who conduct their
business in a quiet way. They have a rather
small production company that is very accommodating to the needs of specialty retailers
such as us. We kind of cleaned out the house
by buying just about everything we saw. I
think the fact that up until then we had dealt
with an all “male” cast of characters and the
surprise of meeting a husband and wife team
with so much sincerity gave us an extra dose of
enthusiasm.
Built of pink stucco in imitation of sandstone,
Jaipur is remarkable among pre-modern Indian
cities for the width and regularity of its streets
which are laid out into six quarters separated
by broad streets 111 ft (34 m) wide. The urban
quarters are further divided by networks of
gridded streets. Five quarters wrap around the
east, south, and west sides of a central palace
quarter, with a sixth quarter immediately to the
east. The Palace quarter encloses a sprawling
palace complex (the Hawa Mahal, or palace of
winds), formal gardens, and a small lake.
Nahargarh Fort crowns the hill in the northwest corner of the old city. Another noteworthy building is Sawai Jai Singh's observatory,
Jantar Mantar. Jaipur, with its rich and colorful past, resplendent with tales of valor and
bravery is now one of the most important heritage cities in India, and is a must-see for
tourists coming to India.
An Important location for the production of
traditional arts and crafts, Jaipur also prides
itself as an important place for the making of
glorious rugs and carpets. Jaipur rugs made a
huge impact in the market in the early 1990s
and the Raman family (our host family in this
trip) with the making of Noble House rugs
revolutionized the market using ancient
designs, fantastic lustrous wool and above all
vegetable dyes.
In Jaipur too we met with top rug producers
and were impressed with their willingness to
show us their best products. One Mr. Kapoor,
the president of a well established firm pointing out Persian inf luences on Indian art and
culture, broke in to a Persian language proverb:
“one who enters a salt mine will become
salty”. In Persian, salt can be a metaphor for
many things including “sharing” as in breaking
bread and salt with a neighbor or being indebted to someone who shares his bread and salt
with one, or for being “charming” as in she
looked “salty” meaning she was charming.
But for Mr. Kapoor who had studied Persian as
a school boy in Punjab before the partition of
India, salt mine was a metaphor for Persian culture and its inf luence on India.
A reunion after twenty years
Our last memorable experience in Jaipur was
an evening spent with Mr.Lakshmi Raman,
Aditya’s father and their family. It was an emotional encounter especially for my brother Sam,
who had met Mr. Raman some twenty years
ago while he was working for another rug
firm.
Mr.Raman was then a major supplier of this
Twin Cities firm and had come to get a
glimpse of the operation in Minneapolis.
Now, some twenty years later, his son had
taken the helm from his father operating the
handmade rug portion of a business empire
that includes major hotel and real estate development in addition to the ownership of a chain
of fine vegetarian restaurants throughout India.
Lakshmi Raman is a true Indian gentleman.
Wearing a traditional thick and long mustache
and dressed impeccably in a “Safari” shirt
(which I tried to find one for myself without
success: Mr. Raman has a personal tailor), he
greeted us at the door of their modern compound and embraced us warmly. “You have
not changed a bit, Sam” said Mr. Raman.
“And you are like a Kerman rug, getting better
with age” replied my brother Sam.
The evening was spent with Lakshmi Raman
reminiscing about his visit to Minneapolis and
giving us tips on where the rug market is
going. He showed us a few of the cars from his
collection of antique English cars while enjoying his grandson’s playful interruptions. This
was truly a remarkable experience, because
twenty years ago we could not imagine a day
when we could meet Lakshmi Raman in his
own house in Jaipur, India. Surely “Kismet”
had something to do with it.
Farewells and trepidations
The next morning we boarded a plane back to
Delhi where the day after we were scheduled
on a f light to Lahore, Pakistan. In the US we
were told that having an Indian visa might hinder us getting one from Pakistan. That did not
happen. We were able to quickly get visas for
both countries, national animosities notwithstanding. But we felt that things would perhaps be different in Pakistan especially due to
renewed security concerns. That weekend,
terrorists had bombed a train that linked the
disputed Kashmir territory to Pakistan killing
dozens of innocent passengers.
The Navabs are wanted!
Such fears grew large as we entered Lahore’s
Allameh Iqbal airport, named after the great
Urdu and Persian poet and Islamic reformist.
Here too, we were supposed to be met by a
driver who was to take us to our hotel.
Instead, the signs displaying our names (this
time with its correct Persian spelling) were
held up by two airport security guards. I
thought to myself: “here we go, they are going
to hold us as suspicious travelers from India!”
Well, that turned out to be a typical False
Farzan moment. In fact, our rug supplier in
Pakistan knew someone important at the airport and had made sure that we were cleared
from customs and immigration without a
hitch. So they took us to an office, collected
our bags and put us in front of a car awaiting
us, in no time.
Qamar Zaman, a major rug producer in
Lahore, and a larger than life quiet gentleman,
greeted us at his car. Qamar is a graduate of
NYU and seems equally comfortable living in
the East or the West. His latest model BMW
indicated his desire for finer things in life. He
apologized for taking us to the Holiday Inn
instead of the more luxurious Pearl
Continental. But there seemed to be too
much going on in Lahore at the time including
a major conference for Pfizer pharmaceutical
company which has a branch in Lahore. So all
hotels were booked solid.
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Modern Lahore
The new Lahore airport, clean streets and modern buildings
surprised us particularly since we had just arrived from India,
where life looked considerably different. In spite of what we
are used to see on TV, life in Lahore seemed normal and there
was no sign of Al Qaeda. Not that I could recognize a so
called terrorist if I would see one. But I mean to say that people were busy going after their business. Most women did not
wear the veil and at the night of our arrival, Qamar took us to
a former British club that today entertains the aff luent and
modern Lahori crowd. An eighteen hole golf course and several swimming pools together with a full bar (that did serve
alcohol) and a restaurant were among the many amenities the
private club would offer its members. This was truly an
unheard of kind of thing in a Muslim country with the
Taliban banging on its doors!
At another occasion, we were invited to lunch by our hosts
Qamar Zaman and his father whom we called Haji (since we
did not know what else to call him, not being sure if Zaman in
fact was his last name or the middle name of his son) at
Lahore’s prestigious Pearl Continental hotel. We noticed that
there were some very attractive women hanging about in well
designed traditional Pakistani attire. We soon found out that
there was a fashion show in progress and that we could see
some of their offerings at the hotel lobby. Again, for a muslim
country that is associated with the Taliban and is in the midst
of a struggle with hard line clerics, this was an interesting sight
to see.
Two branches of the same tree!
The difference between life in India and Pakistan may appear more subtle
than one imagines. After all the two countries were a single nation at one
point. The partition of India came about in 1946 and Pakistan as such is a
new nation. Much in the two cultures is shared by the two people, including Urdu or the Hindustani language.
But it is important to realize that had Pakistan not been created, problems
for India’s Muslim population would have been much greater. As it is, India
has about three hundred million Muslims, most of whom live in dire conditions. Judging by an admittedly superficial observation, and looking at
Lahore only, one can assume that the Muslim population in Pakistan is
somewhat better off.
Navab Brothers with Haji in the middle
The self service “Village”
Buried in wool
We experienced the delight of Punjabi cuisine
first hand as we were taken to the “Village”, a
kind of corny recreation of a village house
that lacked much in the way of atmosphere
but made up for it by having some of the very
best ethnic food I ever had. The open
kitchen was organized through a series of
booths displaying varieties of meat, chicken
and seafood. The self service kitchen was not
a sophisticated affair but the the spicy yet
tasteful food was good and the effect was long
lasting. My measure of a good ethnic restaurant is if the natives go there. The Village was
indeed packed with villagers.
Going Home
Rug finishing in Lahore, Pakistan
Rug Weaving in Pakistan
Rug weaving in Pakistan was also the product
of Mughal rulers of India. In fact just a few
miles outside of the Pakistan-India border and
not far from Lahore, is Amritsar an old weaving center during the Mughal era. And today
a few miles west of Lahore is Faisalabad, an
active weaving center in Pakistan and a weaving area that contributes greatly to the
Pakistani production. But there is also a lot of
Afghan production that is done at the southern
side of the border with Afghanistan. There, in
the town of Peshawar, a great deal of Afghan
rug production is made and then brought to
Lahore for export. Up until ten years ago, rug
production in Pakistan consisted of traditional
Persian designs in tight weave structures such
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as Kashans and Kermans or varieties of
Bokhara type rugs. More recently the inf lux
of Afghan rugs in to Pakistan has changed rug
production in that country. Afghan weavers
are very talented and with their background in
tribal rug weaving they are well qualified in
recreating older designs.
Again, like in India, all weaving is done in a
cottage industry environment and all post production is done at business centers that house
within them various workshops. None of
these rugs are sold to tourists. All are produced for export, mostly to Europe and the
United States. Tourists in India as well as in
Pakistan are offered the so called “silk” rugs
that are mostly made of rayon, a synthetic
material, or mercerized cotton.
As we said farewell to Pakistan we were thinking about our journey home. The reality of
spending a huge sum in two weeks of rug buying had not sunk in yet. Naturally we were
preoccupied with other things.
We were now returning to Delhi to catch a
f light back to Amsterdam but our return path
turned out to be more arduous than we
expected. We were arriving in Delhi as transit
passengers that did not need to go through
immigration. But there was much confusion
at the overcrowded airport with no transit hall
in sight and no one who could help.
With only two hours left before we could
catch our f light, we spent over an hour trying
to find what to do. Finally an airline representative figured that he had to fetch our luggage
physically and transfer it to our plane before we
could board the plane. We accepted this bit of
excitement as the price to pay for a wonderful
journey, and we were officially called the
Nawabs, if not of India but at least of
Minneapolis!
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Fall 2007
Freud the Collector
by Farzan Navab
t is a well known fact that when Sigmund
Freud arrived in London in the summer of
1938, he brought with him a collection of
Oriental Rugs from Vienna. The address was
20 Maresfield Gardens, London, England.
The former residence of the father of psychoanalysis is today known as the “Freud
Museum”.
We can only speculate as to the reasons why
Freud was interested in rugs. It is by no means
surprising since as a cultured man and one well
aware of Non-Western artistic traditions, Freud
enjoyed all cultural by products including statuettes of the Buddha and various Indian
deities, Egyptian and Greek artifacts and of
course Oriental rugs.
Freud's interest in other cultures had deep
roots in his general philosophical outlook. In
his research for such books as “Totem and
Taboo,” “The Future of an illusion,” “Moses
and Monotheism” and “Civilization and its
I
Discontents” Freud had dealt with varieties of
cultures that one could categorize as Non
Western. Therefore such cultural artifacts as
rugs naturally was of great interest to him
The fact however remains that Freud’s rugs
were among some of the best examples of
Oriental rugs displayed in European homes at
that time. Mostly made in the 19th century
with a few examples from earlier times, Freud’s
rugs included tribal as well as city pieces.
Among what was displayed, one can identify a
Qashqi used as a cover on top of his famous
couch, a Bakshayesh carpet on the f loor and a
Turkman tribal rug covering his desk of
Buddhas and other deities.
In relation to Freud’s love for these artifacts
Erica Davies, Director of Freud Museum in
London writes: “All the Egyptians, Chinese
and Greeks have arrived, have stood up to the
journey with very little damage, and look
much more impressive here than at Berggasse.”
Sigmund Freud’s letter to his friend Jeanne
Lampl de Groot expresses his contentment
that, after months of anxiety and turmoil, he,
his family and all his possessions were now settled in their new home at 20 Maresfield
Gardens in Hampstead, London. The large
brick house was to provide a haven for Freud
where he could pass the last year of his life in
relative peace and contentment.
The heart of this house was, and still is,
Freud’s study and consulting room, where his
collection of antiquities and library were set up
in 1938, arranged in much the same fashion as
in Vienna. The unique atmosphere is retained
today. The rooms glow with the rich colors of
oriental rugs which cover the f loor, tables and
the psychoanalytic couch; while the walls are
lined with shelves, dismantled and moved from
Berggasse 19 and filled with books ref lecting
Freud’s professional interests-neurology, psy-
chology, psychoanalysis - and his intense passion for archaeology, ancient history and
anthropology. Among the books are glass cases
filled with many hundreds of antiquities. The
contents of these books and cabinets were the
raw materials which would sustain Freud’s
intellect and feed the imagination of the
Viennese neurologist to whom “the Secret of
Dreams was revealed”. The collection itself is
an eclectic mix of Egyptian, Near Eastern,
Classical, Oriental and South American pieces,
ref lecting the extraordinary breadth of Freud’s
taste. As it is shown to a wider public through
exhibitions such as this, ever more layers of the
man and his passion are revealed. Many pieces
clearly held particular meaning - the figures of
Athena and Eros are perhaps the most obvious
examples - yet as much of the collection was
acquired for its romantic and aesthetic
appeal.”*
Above all there seems to be something to the
fact that Oriental rugs, with their varied patterns and colors, can stimulate the imagination
and perhaps the “subconscious”. One can
speculate that the 19th century South Persian
Qashqi rug on the couch helped surfacing a
few buried emotions and awakened a few souls!
Sigmund Freud died at his Hampstead
home,now the Freud Museum,on 23
September 1939. A collector to the end,his
ashes lie in an ancient Greek vase in the crematorium at Golders Green, north London
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*Source:The Freud Museum
Navab Brothers Is
Presented with Certificate
of Appreciation
ecently, Navab Brothers was awarded a certificate of appreciation by the
"Partnership For Education of Afghanistan's Children". Barbara Gerten and
Ghafar Lakanwal visited Navab Brothers Oriental Rug Company headquarters on
Excelsior Blvd. and presented the company with their special award.
A good part of our business is generated from the sale of rugs made by talented
and creative Afghan rug weavers. Navab Brothers is proud to be supporting the
cause of Afghan Children and the effort made on their behalf by a local organization in the twin cities. We invite all of our clients to support the Partnership for
the Education of Afghanistan's Children
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R
http://www.afghanimodelschool.org
Farzan Navab (Center) is presented the award by
Barbara Gerten and Ghafar Lakanwal.
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Woven Paintings of Lisa Cicotte
by Farzan Navab
hose of you have traveled to Mexico may
have visited the rather cosmopolitan city
of Oaxaca. A place full of art galleries and
indigenous crafts, Oaxaca is also close to such
archeological zones as Monte Alban and Mitla,
prehistoric capitals of the Zapotec and Mixtec
people.
In Oaxaca you will also see plenty of what is
known as “Mexican” weavings; the Oriental
inf luenced f lat weaves, similar to some Navajo
designs developed by trading posts and the
likes, since the 1920s.
A former Saint.Paul resident, Lisa Cicotte is a
painter known for her colorful and lively
abstract paintings. She is a graduate of
Minneapolis College of Art and design and a
recipient of a McKnight foundation grant. For
the past ten years however, Lisa has been living
in Oaxaca.
Since moving to Mexico, Lisa’s paintings
have acquired a distinct sense of color that
ref lects, among other things, Oaxca’s everlasting sun. Her brightly colored paintings are
sometimes whimsical with an affinity towards
organic forms.
T
For some time now Lisa has been involved
with rug making , using traditional weaving
techniques sometimes refereed to as “f lat
weaves” or “hand loomed”. In her rugs Lisa
has been experimenting with natural dyes that
express her sense of color that is present in her
paintings. Inspired by possibilities offered
through great artisans and weavers in the area,
Lisa has studied ways in which she could use
natural dye material from indigenous plants in
Oaxaca. In this way, Lisa has come up with
some stunning rugs that, while still connected
to her background in abstract painting, are
works of art in their own right.
These minimalist weavings of stripes and
polka dots display both a sun drenched color
palette as well as the randomness of chance
aided by the use of natural dyes and hand spun
wool.
A small sampling of Lisa Cicotte rugs are
offered through Navab Brothers. Please come
see these beautiful samplings. Custom sizes are
n
available by request.
Lisa with Petrona and Paco
Paco a weaver who works with Lisa
NAVAB BROTHERS
ORIENTAL RUG GAZETTE
ORIENTAL RUG COMPANY
4409 EXCELSIOR BOULEVARD
ST LOUIS PARK, MN 55416
www.orientalrugcompany.com
PRSRT STD
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
MPLS, MN
PERMIT#28507
Navab Brothers @20!
Our original store on the corner of 50th and
Bryant circa 1988
We are celebrating our twentieth year
in business. Please watch for upcoming
announcements for our special
sales and parties!
Printed on recycled paper
Navab Brothers Oriental Rug Company • Minnesota’s gateway to the woven gardens of the East
Newsletter by Beylerian Design