A Foreshadowing of 21st Century Art
by
Christopher Alexander
First of all, I must say you do, without doubt, have in captivity one of the most beautiful collections of Turkish Carpets/Oriental rugs I have ever been priviledged to see. (If even only in pictures. However, I suspect the pictures are quite good, otherwise, why would you, with your taste, show such exquiste things in photographs?)
Second: The text contains some of the worst gobbledegook I've ever waded through.
Third: Nonetheless I think you're on the right track (if a bit side tracked at this point) and thus "A Foreshadowing..." is one of the most provocative books about rugs (or anything else) I have ever read.
Fourth: To establish my credentials please have a look at my Website. Its main
URL is listed above, but to go right to the Textitle Art pages use:
textileart.html
Fifth: If I say all that your book has provoked me to say, this will be the longest
letter you ever received, so I will only touch upon the highlights.
Here goes:
All this endless chatter about "centers" I think could be summed up by two
references:
A) to Indra's net, wherein each pearl reflects every other pearl, which of course
reflects the whole, and
B) to Mandelbrot sets and/or fractals which, literally, starting with a single point,
grow to form patterns patterns patterns patterns which finally evolve into
ORGANIC-like FORMS.
I can hardly believe you're not already familiar with these two "things/ideas." But
perhaps you haven't made the (obvious) connections between these two "Images,"
"Metaphores," "Theories," whatever you want to call them, and what's going on in
Oriental rugs via the Sufis or anyone else who has ever gotten deep into the
love/art and MAKING of textiles.
I can only guess that all this airy-fairy theorizing nonsense comes from the fact
that you have never sat down and actually woven a rug, or tried a needlepoint.
Christopher Alexander/3-29-97 Page 2
Who do you actually think was doing all this theorizing and "oh so difficult!" (sic)!!!!
thinking about the rugs that were being made? Surely not the (probably women)
Sufis who were blissfully meditating as they wove, and certainly not the women of
the desert, who after a few days/weeks trudge unpacked their looms and sat, also
blissfully, down to manifest the marvelous patterns that had come dancing into
their heads, or the traditional patterns that had rearranged themselves once more
in their minds during their long nomading treks.
Try weaving one.
Next, I must take you to task for your almost unintelligible explanations which,
more often than not, do not relate either to the rugs or to your drawings.
I have never seen anything so appalling lacking in accuracy of representation as
your drawings of even the simplest elements!!! A stitcher/weaver would use graph
paper. You can see every stitch in a rug. Why not honor that fact in your
drawings?
Indeed, from that single fact you can tell you are neither a weaver or a stitcher.
Accuracy! is one of the most fundamental elements of stitchery of any kind. There
are so many knots in a line, so many knots to an inch, so many stitches in a one
inch square of 18 mesh needlepoint canvas. If you're going to talk about the
elements of the design, and what the weaver/artist/Sufi meant by them, you have
to be ACCURATE!
-- Not give a wild or willful sketch of "something like" what was in the rug.
-- Not give some more "fundamental" interpertation of what you think is under the
pattern but is "not seen!"
What you see in a rug you see. You see what the weaver put there, unless you are
C. Alexander and off some place in never never land talking about some concept
that you are Imposing into and onto the rug. To go on and on for 99 pages about
this, making a "small perception into a continental theory," you have neglected
many things far more fundamental to the perception love and making of Oriental
rugs -- totally.
Because you have no concept of accuracy, you have not even noticed the endless
color variations within the seemingly symmetrical patterns. You have as a matter
of fact said almost nothing about color at all. You create an equation, that made me
almost cream all over when I first read it, between light=geometry=color or
color=light=geometry or geometry=light=color etc. and let it go at that. Very likely
because there is very little to say about it in words. For if you want to "talk" about
color you simply have to do it. You have to weave or stitch or somehow do (NOT
DRAW!) what the weavers and stichers do. That's how you talk about color in
textiles or music. Or if you must talk about it in a conventional sense, it has to be
stitch by accurate stitch and element by accurate element.
Christopher Alexander/3-29-97 Page 3
You might refer to some of my most recent needlepoints, i.e. the ones based on
North Indian Classical music, for in their texts I come as close as one can probably
ever come to speaking about color. Which I can do probably because I am
tiptoeing a tight rope between stitchery and music, both of which deal with color,
and both of which can only deal with color within their practice.
Another thing you have missed because of your almost pathological inaccuracy, is
the endless variation in shape, structure, balance, design, intentional and
unintentional variations. What do you suppose it means when there is only half a
design at the top and a full design at the bottom? or 2 borders at the bottom and 2
or 1 and 1/2 or 3 or 6 at the top? when right is different from left, when one
corner does not imitate the other corner? You emphasize the importance of the
detail, speak about the macrocosm in the microcosm, then consistently fail to
accurately draw the details to the point where I just gave up on some, being totally
unable to identify what in the rug you were talking about.
You also have forgotten or never perceived the almost universal
IMPROVISATIONAL manner of making, especially tribal, rugs. Though I don't
dispute their traditionalism, etc. No one, but no one sits down and designs (pre-
plans) this element to be blue on the left and orange on the right, or an animal
figure at the top of the rug to balance a flower at the bottom. Improvisation!!!
Listen to some North Indian Classical music. (Or better yet, go across the Bay to San
Rafael and spend some time nodding in on or even practicing some North Indian
Classical music at the Ali Akbar College of Music.) None of it is written down. It
doesn't exist except when you are playing it. Fortunately wool lasts a little longer.
And these "little," unseen by you, variations are probably closer to the soul of the
rug -- the endless variation on the similarities of life -- than your whole concept of
centers. The rugs are living things! because they were brought to life -- at the
moment of creation! They were Not created out of some abstract theory thought
up in a comfortable house in 20th century America, not in a 12th century Persian
hut. Rug making, like most "women's work" and/or music, etc.is PRAGMATIC. So is
architecture! as "A Pattern Language," in particular, told me.
Also, quite simply, you need an editor (don't we all) for such badly put together
paragraphs as conclude Chapter 2 on page 26, etc.
I promised not to write the longest letter in existence -- hence the directness of the
above. I don't mean to wound, I mean to say once again, you've probably written
the most important book ever written about Turkish Carpets AND about the future
of art -- but, dear Chris, it just ain't good enough, yet!
Again, I urge you to have a go at my Website, re the needlepoints. You may find
that some of us, assiduously studying Oriental rugs, were already doing 21st
Century art at least a quarter of a century before the millenium. Keep in mind that
I am brand new at The Net and have just began to scan the needlepoints onto the
Web and fill out the texts from previous
Christopher Alexander/3-29-97 Page 4
museum display pages -- which were very brief. But I, like you, think that what is
actually in Textile Art: Turkish, Oriental, Asian, Peruvian, Catal Huyuk, African,
Amercian, modern American etc etc etc needs to be talked about. Now.
And, in my opinion, you OWE it to the world to put your collection on The
Internet!!!!!!!!!!! Imagine all the world being able to enjoy works of
such profound beauty and delight! For if textiles are one of the oldest mediums of
communication in the world The Net is the newest -- and I'm sure the weaving
metaphors in which The Net, The Web etc exists are not lost on you. Stitch by
stitch, knot by knot, pixel by pixel -- Indra's net, each center reflects the whole.
Maybe the rugs are on there already, I must have a look.
Many thanks for a HIGHLY PROVOCATIVE book.
Love from,
P.S. I briefly surfed The Net, found out that you are a computer expert, but didn't
find the rugs, nor your age, nor whether or not you still teach at Berkeley. All of
which may be there, but I was on a friend's Net, not my own. I read "A Pattern
Language" years ago and was impressed, and I, too, wait for the "Nature of Order"
to come out.
Approximately 4,033 words
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu