In this salon we had a chance to see some remarkable non-Turkman Central Asian material and to read some skeletal portions of the remarkes that Jame Blackmon made about them in his presentation at the recent Textile Museum Rug Convention.

I want to thank Jim once again not only for this excellent presentation itself but also for making it possible for us to bring it in virtual form to this setting.

I am also grateful to him and to Richard Isaacson for the notes and text corrections they provided that made the initial salon essay possible.

We are also here indebted to The Textile Museum and to its Director Ursala McCracken, for one of the most uniformly excellent Rug Convention programs I have attended.

I will not attempt to summarize our conversation much.

We noticed immediately that these pieces have a great deal more color and range of color than we have heretofor generally expected in non-Turkmen weavings.

It was also drawn to our attention that some of these pieces have unusual structures that hark back to some of the oldest weavings known.

We were frequently at a loss about what to say because many of us have not had much direct experience with such material and even some of us who have had such pieces in our hands are still mostl gazing at them in wonder. I was pleased, though, to see that the beauty of these pieces attracted some posters who have not posted much in the past.

It does seem true that some lines can be drawn between such pieces and the weavings of the western Turkmen and we began in a halting way to list some likely indicators.

It is also true that some pieces that we have been calling "Ersari," without thinking about it, much are being recognized as likely belonging to this non-Turkmen group. Perhaps this is one way in which the long-recognized need to break the large and admittedly too generalized designation "Ersari" will begin to be broken down usefully.

Some posters attempted groupings of these pieces and looked for connections to other known rug and design groups and this, too may be a sort of work that yields interesting and useful results.

I trust that participants in this salon have enjoyed this unusual group of rugs as much as I have enjoyed bringing them to you.

Thanks to all for your participation.

Regards,

R. John Howe