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Subject	:	Repetitive design
Author	:	Vincent Keers
Date	:	09-06-1999 on 07:43 p.m.

Dear all,

Ken took me by surprise. He talked about a fragment with a repetitive design. Oeps! I have one, and I like it a lot. I'm so very human! I'm not sure about its origine. It's all wool. Warp: S3Z brown/white. Weft: S2Z continues along the back. Sides: Not original.

Caucasian? Turkman/Uzbek? I did some text and pictures from H.M. Raphaelian's book "The hidden language of symbols in oriëntal rugs" 1955. Just a nice book. His explanation puts the Chinees story in. We allways seem to forget, to give the Chinees their proper place in rug design history. That's why I like it so much. Raphaelian makes up a story, and 40 years later I have the original? Maybe Raphaelian made it? I'm allways curious about what people see in the design. I saw the cross first, and a friend saw the swastika first. Now I see the swastika first, and my friend the cross. What you see is what you get/are.

With kind regards, Vincent Keers

Subject	:	RE:fragment
Author	:	Marvin Amstey
Date	:	09-07-1999 on 08:27 a.m.

mamstey1@rochester.rr.com Dear Vincent, Is a complete bag face a fragment? Most of us would consider a bag face - even without its back - a complete object, not a fragment. In the very real sense, however, it is a fragment of a pair of bags, and if this is the case, then most of my collection is made up of fragments. I love them all. Best regards, Marvin

Subject	:	RE: Is this a fragment?
Author	:	Steve+Price
Date	:	09-07-1999 on 08:56 a.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear Almost Everyone, Marvin raises the dreaded question: Do collectors of tribal textiles, despite their protests about fragments, actually live amid a collection of treasured fragments themselves? Obviously, we do;every bagface is a fragment. So is every Turkmen torba or mafrash from which the fringe is gone, and every asmalyk and spoonbag missing its pompoms. And, as every collector of African art knows, much of the object is missing just by having it out of context. African masks were part of a costume that was part of a dance. One of the things I like very much about our discussions is that they force us to focus on some hard questions that we are in the habit of ignoring. This is a good example. Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:
Author	:	Vincent Keers
Date	:	09-07-1999 on 02:55 p.m.

Dear Marvin and Steve, The borders are cut, so there's missing at both sides, design material in the horizontal lines. The back is where it belongs, at the back. My friend has the other bag. He did cut the bags. I didn't know. I thaught he had only one. I washed his ears. But he needed the money. And one, is easy to sell. This is what is happening all around the world with our "art". The comparison with a mask doesn't work, for I'm not talking about the whole nomadic dowry. If the mask had two very big ears, which for whatever reason had been cut, the mask couldn't tell us it's genuine story. (The guy was deaf and that's why he could communicate with the spirits.) But we don't know, so what? The person who sold us the mask, makes us belief we bought real, genuine African, Indian "Art". With kind regards, Vincent Keers

Subject	:	RE:Is this a fragment?
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-07-1999 on 06:44 p.m.

sprice@hsc.vcu.edu Dear Vincent, Actually, I think tribal arts like African masks are very good analogies to the rug collectors' bagfaces. The collector of African masks and sculpture usually knows that much of the art is lost when the item is out of context, but selects things that he finds beautiful and interesting and simply puts up with the fact that they are incomplete (more genteel expression than fragment, don't you think?). This is exactly what tribal textile collectors do, and for pretty much the same reasons. Regards, Steve Price

Subject	:	RE:
Author	:	Vincent Keers
Date	:	09-07-1999 on 08:18 p.m.

Dear Steve, Taking something out of context, isn't what the topic is about. I've seen this line of thinking a couple of times now and I do not agree with it. All art has been taken out of context and musea, collectors etc, are trying to get them back into the context. Even if it is only possible for a couple of weeks, so we can pay for the display of the art in context. It's the missing parts of the individual work that will in future times make it hard to find it's original context. Beethoven suited me better. Forget one note here, forget one note in the next symphonie, forget an instrument here etc., and we'll be disliking Beethoven very soon. With kind regards, Vincent Keers

Subject	:	RE:Is this a fragment?
Author	:	Sam Gorden
Date	:	09-08-1999 on 12:00 a.m.

gordsa@earthlink.net Dear Steve, The emphasis on the eventual USE of awork-of-art appears as an attempt at obfuscation. Don't roil the waters. Does the loss of the fringe impinge on the emotional communication intended by the rug's creator?? I consider this analogy irrevelant, immaterial and incompetent. The question is, "Is the fringe a vital part of the emotional message INTENDED by the rug's weaver?" This is always true of any textile which is made solely for the tribe and which embodies its culture and traditions. I deem that African Masks are just a coverup. It is hoped that the above helps Marvin and Vincent understand my point of you. Sam PS I am not shouting. My ability with the computer is still very limited. I tried to use italics but without success.

Subject	:	RE: Analogies
Author	:	Steve Price
Date	:	09-08-1999 on 06:35 a.m.

<a href="mailto:sprice@hsc.vcu.edu">sprice@hsc.vcu.edu</a>

Dear Sam,

I disagree with the notion that comparing other fragmentary works of tribal art with bagfaces is an obfuscation. Neither you nor I nor anyone else knows what a Turkmen weaver was trying to communicate (if, in fact, she knew herself!), we only know how we react to it. Obviously, to collectors of bagfaces (and I am one of them), the fact that they are incomplete and out of context does not destroy their appeal <i>as art</i>, although it probably lessens it somewhat - that is, I'd rather have the intact bag than just the face, but I love the face anyway. Likewise, the Salor fragment from the Sotheby's sale of Jon Thompson's collection is gorgeous <i>as art</i>, but surely much less so than the whole juval must have been.

Exactly the same considerations apply to masks or other African art. I have a Nigerian terracotta head that I think is simply wonderful, despite the fact that the entire body is gone and I'm not eve nsure whether it is a man or a woman.

Likewise, a couple of Cameroon pipe bowls missing the stems.

These are fragments. They are still works of art, and people who collect such things would make no apologies for their incompleteness.

Regards,

Steve Price

Subject	:	Swastikas and crosses
Author	:	Steve+Price
Date	:	09-08-1999 on 07:53 a.m.

<a href="mailto:sprice@hsc.vcu.edu">sprice@hsc.vcu.edu</a>

Dear Friends,

I'm putting these images up on behalf of Vincent Keers; they are from the book to which he referred in a previous message.

Steve Price

Subject	:	Deleted
Author	:	samarkand@freemail.n
Date	:	09-08-1999 on 07:18 p.m.

Deleted- Contributor's name not provided. Steve Price sprice@hsc.vcu.edu

Subject	:	Deleted
Author	:	Vincent Keers
Date	:	09-09-1999 on 04:42 p.m.

Deleted - Response to deleted message. Steve Price sprice@hsc.vcu.edu