The Red That Wore Itself Soft
Tied thick, for a cold house.
Walked thin, by a warm one.
The red stayed. The red always stays.
Only the wool learned to lie down.
Some rugs are made for a tent and end up in a house, and this is one of them. It was tied thick, the Zaïan way, around 1980, in a red that was meant to be seen across a dark room by firelight, with the diamonds set in rows like a well-kept orchard. Then it went indoors, and a family walked on it. Children learned to stand on it. Tea was spilled and scrubbed out of it. Somebody slept on it every night for a decade, and the pile, which started at three fingers, has worn down to one, close and even, with the red still there under the hand like a stone that has been in a river.
That is the thing about madder, it does not go, and the weave is tight and the rug lies flat and heavy, eleven kilos of it, and the colour has gone from a new red to the red of a brick wall in late sun. It is a rug for a kitchen with a long table, or a study, somewhere it will be walked on again, because that is what it is good at.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.