Being Iranian, I am fascinated by Persian rugs and the exquisite uniqueness that defines them. The art of carpet weaving in Iran is deeply connected with the culture and the customs of the country.

persian rug michele roohani

Being away from California,  surrounded by snow in Switzerland and far from my natural  “soft fascinations” (read flowers, sunshine, rustling trees) I am experiencing a funny sense of “ecoanxiety” that may be cured by writing about my favorite permanent garden: the Persian Rug…

cartoon drawing naghsheh persian rug michele roohani

The designs (naghsheh or cartoon—a grid on paper with spaces colored to guide rug weavers in selecting pile yarns) are still mostly drawn by hand even though computers are doing wonders in this field.

Iranians are literally conceived, born and brought up on Persian rugs! Warmed by their soft and comfortable texture,  touching, caressing,  lying down and relaxing on them, comes naturally to Persians. The rugs add warmth underfoot like my favorite red carpet with these gorgeous Shah Abbasi patterns (with floral and leaf motifs mainly in the form of lotus blossoms):

shah abbasi motif esphahan persian rug red michele roohani

The density of tightly woven Persian knots (or guereh) are the calibrating tool for the quality of the rug,

knot count on nain rug michele roohani

a good Nain rug may have 500 kpsi or 500 knots per square inch (farsibaaf,  asymmetric or Persian pile knot.)

persian knot ardabil carpet michele roohani

This is how a flower looks on the back of this Nain (Na’in):

persian knots rug nain michele roohani

and the same carpet from the front:

michele roohani naiin persian rug shah abbasi

Like most textiles, carpets consist of warps  (tar) and wefts (pud). The warps are the threads running the length of the carpet. The wefts are the threads that run across its breadth. This is the same carpet spread out:

glenroy sunset nain rug michele roohani

Persian rugs go by region (cities mostly— like Tabriz, Esfahan, Nain, Kashan, Kerman, etc…) and each region has its MasterWeaver brand. A small encased signature can usually be found in the minor border like Habibian in Nain, Pirouzian in Tabriz and Taghavi in Bijar.

ardabil carpet cartouche hafez maqsud kashani micheleroohani

The most important signature must be Maqsud Kashani’s (from 1540) on the famous pair of Ardabil Carpets. A poem of Hafez is woven into the cartouche:

“Except for thy threshold, there is no refuge for me in all the world.
Except for this door there is no resting place for my head.”

جز آستان تو‌ام در جهان پناهی نیست

سر مرا بجز این در حواله گاهی‌ نیست

ardabil carpet central medallion micheleroohani

The Ardabil Carpets  have an interesting story:  the lower field and border of one of them has been used to restore the other (now in Victoria and Albert Museum in London). The used and abused twin sister was kept in the dark (not to outshine the V&A version) until 1931 and finally found her way to Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1965.

ardebil ardabil carpet lacma micheleroohani

After exhaustive restoration done to the dazzling beauty, the LACMA sister was finally shown last year (look at how they had to wash it!)

washing of ardabil carpet lacma

The Ardabil carpets are the world’s oldest dated and historically important carpets in the world. This is the twin sister in Victoria and Albert museum in London:

ardabil carpet V&A museum Richard Wait micheleroohani
It all comes down to this fundamental design that I just finished reproducing for the blog:

michele roohani persian rug layout glossary toranj

A love for fine Farsh (rug in persian) may be one of the few things that Shahs and Mullahs have always agreed upon!

cheese and wine in the garden michele roohani

Even though I have visited the great Manufacture des Gobelins some years ago,

manufacture des gobelins paris michele roohani women tapestry

I am dying to see the real thing in Iran,

chris lisle carpet weaving iran michele roohani

and take some great pictures.

loom metier a tisser michele roohani natural dyes

I will leave you with this superb painting of my favorite Orientalist painter, Gerôme, called The Carpet Merchant (ca 1887):

jean leon gerome carpet merchant marché du tapis michele roohani

A great site to get acquainted with Persian rugs: Farsh Mashad

Weaving Art Museum here

About different motifs and style here

Port-au-Prince: Capital of Pain

January 19th, 2010

ca·lam·i·tiy:

1 : a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss
2 : a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering

This “bar-coded” child is the symbol of the total helplessness of people in Port-au-Prince.

ruth fremson nytimes haiti earthquake

I am heartbroken by the utter distress/despair of Haiti. So much misery and suffering caused by a few seconds of random natural violence…

damon winter haiti earthquake

“Tout est enfin divisé
Tout se deforme et se perd
Tout se brise et disparait
La mort sans conséquences”

jean michel basquiat haiti michele roohani

“Everything is finally divided
Everything is deformed and lost
All breaks and disappears
Death without consequences” Eluard

jean michel basquiat haiti michele roohani radiant child

I wonder how Basquiat would have seen all this suffering in his fatherland; he painted some prescient images in 1980’s…

jean michel basquiat haiti michele roohani untitled

Damon Winter has taken striking pictures of the inconsolable Haiti.

damon winters haiti ny times michele roohani

I always thought that a woman out of a Persian Miniature will be known as the Iranian Marianne—maybe something like this dreamy painting by Farah Ossouli:

farah ossouli adam and eve painting three angels watching michele roohani

or the ageless super model, Yasmin Parvaneh (picture on the left) or her daughter Amber Le Bon (on the right):

yasmin parvaneh amber le bon michele roohani persian

It could have been one of the young beautiful movie stars or myriads of miscellaneous beauty queens or even one of these two who represent the separate worlds of today’s Iranian women:

iranian women worlds apart

Little did we know that an unknown young woman, Neda Agha Soltan, killed ruthlessly in the Iranian election protests last month would be the face of the Persian woman to the world…

jacques brinon AP neda iranian protests

Neda was a “casualty” of the conflict; she gave a face to the faceless victims. May she not have been killed in vain…

melvin sokolsky twiggy masks michele roohani

I am sure Melvin Sokolsky doesn’t mind the great Reza being inspired by him in making the Neda masks.

A NY weekend —short and sweet just the way I like it.

chrysler building dusk michele roohani

The Chrysler building is still magnificent—I like the upper east side best.

manhattan subway lexington and 51st street michele roohani

sometimes photographers have to take some risks,

yellow cab madison avenue manhattan michele roohani

New York is a walking city and the shop windows are fabulous—I have dedicated an entire future post to it—Bergdorf Goodman’s window displays are so sophisticated, they are like mini-exhibitions.

window shopping manhatan marie antoinette michele roohani

India is big on Fifth Avenue:

manhattan fifthe avenue store display michele roohani

so is the cathedral

saint patrick cathedral manhattan michele roohani

Manhattan is a “hall of mirrors” with a maze of old and new architecture to dazzle you:

manhattan skyline michele roohani

Brownstones are beautiful in springtime,

ochre brownstone new york michele roohani

so are bluestones!

brownstone manhattan NY blue michele roohani

Prepare yourself to eat half a cow at Carnegie Deli,

carnegie deli pastrami michele roohani

and then the other half:

carnegie deli cheescake michele roohani

Jim Dine’s Venus on the 6th avenue,

jm dine venus manhattan michele roohani

The upper west side is younger and hipper—Amsterdam avenue leads you to a little gem of a café,  good enough to eat.

amsterdam avenue ny traffic light michele roohani

A hole in the wall, Zibetto espresso bar, is an ideal place to get you going again,

zibetto espresso bar manhattan ny michele roohani

to see some more of this beautiful city:

audrey hepburn marilyn monroe NY michele roohani

its buildings,

manhattan skyline grisaille michele roohani

and its skyline.

manhattan skyline traffic light michele roohani

I visited the Metropolitan museum and the Frick Collection as my usual pilgrimage but the most exciting show was at the New York Public Library. I have two great exhibitions to tell you about but that’s got to be in the next post.

Related and Suggested Posts and Resources

Babooshka dolls and Franz Kafka in Prague

A night with George Steiner and Gaelle Boissonnard—now that’s a curious ménage! Late caffeine kept me up until 6:30 this morning and I spent the night with these two.

gaelle boissonnard passerelles poissons fish michele roohani

Steiner took me from an old Transfuge to wikiquotes and Cornel West; there goes  3 hours pf precious sleep and when my mind was too tired to absorb anything more, Boissonnard’s images were there to help with their delicate originality.

gaelle boissonnard passerelles poissons fish michele roohani hat

“There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.” Steiner

gaelle boissonnard passerelles blue michele roohani

Boissonnard is everything our “noisy” culture isn’t—serene, quiet, tranquil…

She has started working with a new company; I hope this move makes her work more available to international markets. Just found out that my friends in Paris, La Banque de l’Image,  mention her in their company’s blog!

Gaelle Boissonaard michele roohani in the wind

I love this quote of Steiner: “the most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.” This is what I have learned by heart long ago:

“Le tout est de tout dire, et je manque de mots
Et je manque de temps, et je manque d’audace
Je rêve et je dévide au hasard mes images
J’ai mal vécu, et mal appris à parler clair.”  Eluard

gaelle boissonnard passerelles bird michele roohani

دلم گرفته است

دلم گرفته است

به ايوان مي روم و انگشتانم را

بر پوست كشيده شب مي كشم

چراغهاي رابطه تاريكند

چراغهاي رابطه تاريكند

كسي مرا به آفتاب

معرفي نخواهد كرد

كسي مرا به ميهماني گنجشكها نخواهد برد

پرواز را به خاطر بسپار

پرنده مردني است


I feel sad,

I feel blue.

 

I go outside and rub my fingers

on the sleek shell of the night.

 

“I see  that lights of contact are blocked,

All lights of contact are blocked.”

 

“Nobody will introduce me to the sun,

Nobody will take me to the gathering of doves.”

 

Keep the flight in mind,

The bird may die.

Forugh Farrokhzad

This post is in the loving memory of the 3 sisters my friend, Marie, has lost in the past few years (the last one two days ago)—all young, all from heart problems…

Claude Verlinde and Jacques Poirier are two underrepresented French painters. They are both master illusionists/image makers/mirage makers.

invitation aux jeux du theatre verlinde micheleroohani

I fell in love with the above painting when I first got introduced to Verlinde’s work in Paris. We all know hollow people, lacking in real value, sincerity, or substance – we have all met shallow people lacking in depth of thought, or feeling. In Persian we call them “hollow drums”: noisy but empty.

the witness jacques poirier micheleroohani

Thanks to the internet we can know of something without really knowing about it. We used to have to read, to see, to hear something in order to be able to talk about it but not anymore folks! everybody’s an expert.

I’ve been wanting to talk about V.S. Naipaul for the longest time. Every time that somebody tries to eat up my life/time, I remember the writer’s fabulous statement reported on BBC: “my life is too short, I can’t listen to banality”.

naipaul young and old micheleroohani

Staying with the trompe l’oeil of Verlinde and Poirier, take a look at this very clever ad:

jobsintown.de micheleroohani

You can see the rest of these very funny ads here.

Today is my blog’s first anniversary! If you like what you see, please subscribe.

Farah Pahlavi, the queen of Iran, is still alive and well, but people are not talking about her much. Things changed when it was reported last month that “the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has put on display an exhibition that art experts call the most important collection of modern Western art outside Europe and the United States.” In the 1970’s she collected great works of art – about 150 paintings – by Picasso, Monet, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, etc…

farah pahlavi coat mirror micheleroohani

I bought some old Paris Match magazines some years ago in Paris spanning from 1958 through 1969. It was interesting to see her on the cover from practically the minute she met the Shah in Paris. I put some of the photos from Paris Match together to share them with you.

farah diba pahlavi micheleroohani hotel crillon

She lived a Cinderella story that turned sour at the age of 41 after the Iranian revolution of 1979.

farah diba pahlavi micheleroohani crown bride tiara

In spite of my belief that monarchy is absurd in the 21st century, it seems like I can’t shake my affinity for this woman; the fact that we both went to the same school (Jeanne d’Arc of Tehran) and had to endure the same French nuns may not have much to do with it.

farah diba pahlavi micheleroohani 3 faces

The deposed queen has somehow survived the animosity that follows the Pahlavis wherever they go. At the minimum she should be applauded for amassing a collection of priceless art, as opposed to worthless shoes or stolen jewelry (see Queen Elizabeth and Imelda Marcos).

Her good reputation lasted way longer than her jewelry.

Matters of the heart

February 11th, 2008

Just watched Charlie Brown agonizing over the girl with red hair in a peanuts valentine specialSnoopy of course gets all the girls as usual.

valentine 2008 micheleroohani women

I would like to share the work of an artist that I admire greatly. Having been in the greeting card industry for years, I seldom get impressed by new art in this business. Gaelle Boissonnard is an artist living in the Loire Valley region of France. Her work is exquisite and I have been collecting it since that fateful day I fell in love with her images in a small shop in Mont St. Michel.

boissonnard1 micheleroohani

There is something otherworldly about her work – it’s fresh, whimsical, happy yet somehow profound (let’s not forget that these are commercial works being sold in small shops). They don’t scream at you, they share their beauty quietly.

boissonnard2 micheleroohani

I did get in touch with her and am still waiting for her distributors to start doing something in the U.S. It’s easy to find her in the card shops in France now but she’s difficult to catch in the internet.

boissonnard 6 micheleroohani

Just found out that she has a book out too.

boissonnard micheleroohani

I wished somebody would start putting words/poetry to these gorgeous paintings of hers – something like Prévert’s Immense et Rouge:

“Immense et rouge
Au-dessus du Grand Palais
Le soleil d’hiver apparaît
Et disparaît
Comme lui mon coeur va disparaître
Et tout mon sang va s’en aller
S’en aller à ta recherche
Mon amour
Ma beauté
Et te trouver
Là où tu es.”

boissonnard micheleroohani home

or Tagore’s great piece:

“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.”

or better yet, Rumi who keeps bewitching people after 800 years…

rumi micheleroohani

I believe Rumi should not be translated (I’ve read soooo many bad/mediocre translations) – his work loses its magic – Happy Valentine’s Day people.

I am sitting in this cute café which happens to have wifi! The world is changing and Paris with it.

cafe du metro michele roohani paris

I’ve been very busy since I am here; three interesting exhibitions in 2 days: Arcimboldo has never been so complete as in this exhibition in the Luxembourg museum.

michele roohani arcimboldo luxembourg

A way more somber show was Germany, the black years at the Maillol museum. Otto Dix, Beckmann and Grosz were the most impressing but i have to admit that the German propaganda posters with Hitler’s name on them were the most striking/chilling to me.

michele roohani german war poster 11

This one can give you nightmares:

michele roohani war poster german

this next one takes me back to all of my dear Professor Ungvari’s battlefields (Somme, etc…)

michele roohani somme

of course Paris can erase these nightmares with a winter sunshine after the rain.

michele roohani pont des arts

Mamal Isfahani

October 6th, 2007

Mamal ,Isfahani, modernist, sculptor, iranian, artist ,painter, wood, artI met this artist last week and can’t wait to go to his show this coming Saturday, October 13th, at 5921 Whitworth Drive #101; Los Angels, CA 90019; from 7:00pm to 10:00 pm.

Mamal is a modernist sculptor, working in metal, concrete, and wood (gorgeous wood i have to add) but I found him very excited about his new venture into the realm of painting where whirling dervishes mix with naked women…

mamal, isfahani, sculptor, painter, artist, modernist, wood, iraninan, california

I particularly loved his wood work which is one of my favorite media. It was interesting to see this veteran of Iran/Iraq war (sculpted his first piece with his army knife from a piece of wood he’d found in a battlefield and dressed it in a metal jacket and a helmet to protect it from missiles), playing with his cute dog, Gorgui. He described how he’d fallen into a place between hell and heaven and closed his eyes to the red and bloody scene around him in one of the bloodiest nights of the war. The red is omnipresent in his work.

Mamal ,Isfahani, modernist, sculptor, iranian, artist ,painter, wood, art, ballista

mamal_isfahani@yahoo.com (310)500-8993