Stanley Bulbach's art work reflects our origins
as well as our current times. The roots of the carpet making arts
in the Near East arose primarily out of the need of people to protect
themselves from the harsh elements. When the earth upon which people
lay down was cold and hard, carpets provided insulation and made
that ground more comfortable. One need only imagine life prior
to the availability of chairs and frame beds to appreciate how
crucially important these weaving traditions were to basic survival.
And when people developed the ability to include designs in
their carpets, they were able to imbue ideas, wishes, protective
magic, and even a sense of homeland in these portable life-improving
surfaces.
For thousands of years in the Near
East it was on carpets where people slept and dreamed, where
they prayed, made love, conceived,
and gave birth, where they convalesced when ill, and also where
they died. Carpets like these became the special surfaces
upon which life's most important events transpired, and over
time,
this gave rise to the traditional patterns and designs used in
the creation of these traditional pieces.
In considering the designs, it is important
to understand the important role played by the nature of the
wools and the woven
structures. It is virtually impossible to create a carpet
without some kind of a design manifesting itself in the weaving
process: It is virtually
impossible to weave a field
with the traditional materials that appears purely monochromatic. Even
where the area might appear to be homogeneously the same color,
it usually
has significant
variations
of reflectivity.
It probably did not take very long for the carpet making skills
to begin to develop specialized designs, not only for decoration,
but for the artistic powers to assist in the transformation of
the ground beneath the carpets into special places.
Thus, in carrying a carpet from place to place,
at the end of one's travels one could then lay the carpet down
and magically
recreate a comfortable place with its familiar special powers.
Therefore, when creating a carpet,
not only were traditional weavers creating an important utilitarian
object, they were also
creating an aesthetic piece of spiritual importance. Could any
artist — ancient or contemporary — seek a more expressive
and exciting canvas than this woven metaphor of the human condition? |