Posted by Tom Cole on 06-22-2003 01:00 PM:

The Quiz... anyone interested to know the answers?

Anyone interested to know the answers are you just satisfied looking at the photographs.... let me know, and I can post those details...

Posted by Patrick Weiler on 06-22-2003 01:36 PM:

Stumped

Tom,

You have certainly selected a difficult group of weavings to identify, particularly because a concensus on attributions of Baluch weavings has not yet materialized.
If you would just send the detailed information to my e-mail address, I will sell it to the others!

Posted by R. John Howe on 06-22-2003 06:55 PM:

Dear Pat -

Oh no! We can't let him off that easily.

I definitely want to hear both Tom's indications in response to his task and his rationale in each case, using the rules he stated in his initial essay.

He can do that in his summary, if he wants to give folks maximum chance to take his task, but we need and want what, on the West Coast, at least, is called "closure."

Regards,

R. John Howe

Posted by Tom Cole on 06-22-2003 07:26 PM:

1. Khorassan.. classic dark blue ground, saturated orange/red, turkic inspired motifs

2. Already identified as Seistan.. aubergine ground, w/ greens, colourful palette.. much more colourful and varied than what one would see in weavings from other regions..

3. Seistan.. design pool typical of the region, saturated palette w/deep red and green....

4. already identified as Afghan area baluch group.. not a very saturated palette.. somewhat limited palette...

5. Khorassan.. classic Turkic motif, deep dark aubergine colour w/ dark green

6. Afghan Baluch.. again, not a real saturated palette... coarser weave, longer pile

7. Already identifed as Seistan region... classic design of that area, the so-called Mushwani motif.. as I said ALL rugs are open left which excludes the symmetric knotted "Bahlul" pieces...

8. Khorassan, deep red ground, very unusual for Baluch pieces but one would ONLY see that feature in Khorassan pieces...

9. Afghan Baluch... not so old, weak palette, yellowish-brownish reds

10. Afghan Baluch... great colours, old piece from Afghanistan, anomalous design for Afghan Baluch work but the red is not saturated and the pile is long-ish...seemingly an Afghan characteristic...


11. Afghan, possibly Chakhansur region, weaving... good colour, yellowish red, good light blues, typical warm aubergine of the Afghan Baluch tribes...

12. Khorassan.. classic blue ground, orange/red of Khorassan.. mina khani motif is a Khorassan feature as well..

Posted by Patrick Weiler on 06-22-2003 08:36 PM:

The Big Picture(s)

Tom,

Are you planning to show the whole rugs? A couple of the small "teaser" photos show what would appear to be border motifs. It would be enlightening to see the complete rugs!

Thanks,

Patrick Weiler

Posted by R. John Howe on 06-23-2003 08:53 AM:

Dear folks -

Just a couple of thoughts here as we are approaching the end of Tom's salon about the instructional design aspects of it.

As I said in another thread, I think this kind of design is one of the healthier sort of activity that we can do on a site like this. The actual statement of a thesis and the opportunity to attempt to apply it concretely is to my mind likely to result in far more learning than is our more frequent tendency to share speculations and what is hard not to call pure opinion.

I do not know how much further Tom plans to pursue his suggestion here that color might be a useful primary indicator of the geographic location in which some "Balouch" rugs were woven, but if he plans to do so, here are my thoughts about it as an instructional designer and as a student who took on the salon task.

1. It would be useful in future versions of the resource to label the examples by number and to refer to them with complete unambiguity. Tom usually, referenced rugs that followed the related portion of his text, but I had to look a lot to discover what was an example of what.

2. I think it would be useful to make his "Afghan" references more explicit. As I read it (and my reading may well be incorrect) it seemed to me that there is one Afghan reference that seems to suggest one of his major groups, but that there are also sometimes Afghan references WITHIN other groups. This needs to be sorted out.

3. I think that Pat Weiler's suggestion that the full pieces should be shown is well-advised and I would suggest it both for the resource examples and for the "task" items. I was never quite sure why only small details of the pieces were being offered (perhaps in part to show color usages up close). But if details are needed I would argue that the full rug images would still be useful.

4. Tom can test whether his thesis is being conveyed as he wants by asking a number of people like our group here to take his exercise and then to correct the responses. The error patterns will indicate what parts of either the resource thesis or the task statements are not clear to learners and he can make adjustments until students score at the level he would aspire to. It would make a good experiential rug club presentation.

I want to congratulate Tom on this design. It was useful even if one might disagree with Tom's thesis. At a minimum one can determine whether Tom's rules about color function to permit one to make the identifications he sees in both the resource examples and in the task items.

Regards,

R. John Howe