Hello! My name is Michael Christie and I am The Ruggist.
Welcome to Monologue. Short, concise, micro-pod-casts in which I share my opinions and thoughts about myriad topics as they relate to and intersect with the trade of handknotted and handmade rugs and carpets.
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Monologue – Episode 7 – Time
How do you measure time? In eons, ages, millennia, centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, or perhaps seconds? Maybe it’s in generations, moments, or seasons? Regardless we tend to think of time as ours to master, to control, to quantify into neat and tidy increments to be measured so as to assuage our uncomfortable relationship with the end of our own time here on Earth. Our time. Such an interesting phrase in and of itself as if we have domain over the great natural forces and mechanizations of the universe. Our time, such as it is, is limited. Finite yet indeterminate, we know (k)not when ‘ours’ will come to and end, yet we know of its immense intrinsic value.
In our youth it seems as though it will last forever. As we age, wisdom as well as the wrinkles, aches, and pains, remind that the proverbial clock is running and that how we choose to spend our moments is our one true currency. This is the origin of the mysteriously defined ‘soul’ of handknotted carpet.
How do you measure, measure a year?
Jonathan Larson, Rent, Seasons of Love
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In 525,600 minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
If every element of a proper handknotted carpet is created by hand, from the hand spinning of the yarn, to the handknotting of the pile, to the finishing by hand, not to mention the hand involved in rearing sheep and so forth, then a proper handknotted carpet is not just an amalgam to be ordered and specified so as to arrive just in time for the arbitrarily chosen date of your next party.
No! A proper handknotted carpet is a physical manifestation representative of the time each and every human has put into its crafting. Hours and hours of weaving. A year to grow and raise the wool. In sum, carpets with true soul have such a quality not because we pretentiously ascribe this characteristic in order to market them – for we do – but because someone, many someones have traded a portion of their precious time in order to craft objects of unique and singular beauty. Carpets have soul because someone, somewhere, imbued a carpet with it by trading away a portion of their time in existence. The most aesthetically and technically laudable handknotted carpets have soul, simply because they – like wisdom – take time to develop.
This has been Monologue Monday.