One Window in a Sand Wall
Four and a half metres of warm sand,
and in the middle of it, one small square of sky.
She could have drawn more.
She knew when to stop.
Four metres fifty, and almost nothing on it. A ground of peach and sand, the colour of a mud wall at five in the afternoon, with a border of small motifs running quietly round the edge and, in the very centre, one small diamond in teal, like a window cut into the wall with the sky showing through. That is the whole composition. It takes a particular kind of confidence to weave for weeks and draw so little, and the Boujad women had it.
The pile is low and the rug lies flat and light for its size, which is why it works where a thick rug would not: a hallway, a long open-plan room, a studio. Forty years have given the sand colour a faint gold and left the teal exactly as blue as it was. It is the calmest large rug in the gallery.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.