The Colour of Nothing Happening
No line, no diamond, no border.
Just the fleece, four fingers deep,
the exact cream of the sheep it came from,
and fifty years of quiet.
Every so often a Beni Ourain weaver made a rug with nothing on it at all. No lozenges, no dark lines, not even a border: just the undyed cream of her own flock, knotted four centimetres deep and left alone. It is the hardest kind to make well, because there is nowhere for a mistake to hide, and it is the kind collectors cross rooms for, because there is nowhere for the eye to stop. This one was made in the 1970s and weighs twenty-four kilos. Standing on it is like standing in deep snow that is somehow warm.
Fifty years have given the cream a faint honey at the edges and the surface a soft, uneven sheen, so it reads as a landscape rather than a blank. Put it in the room where you want to think, under a low sofa, and let it be the quietest thing you own.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.