Category Archives: Rug Images

Images and photos of subjects depicted in war rugs and carpets.

Tyne Bridge with Newcastle Swing Bridge



For some years there has been speculation about the location depicted in a group of landscape rugs showing a through arch bridge similar to the beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge. The rugs in question though show a distinctive clock tower. Nigel Lendon was onto it in the post above (the ads and broken image links are unfortunate). These rugs show River Tyne with the Tyne Bride (through arch) and the Swing Bridge (at leftmost foreground in red and white.)



David R. Williams has a good
photo on Flickr from a similar vantage point showing both bridges


Abstract rug from the Textile Museum of Canada


Notice in the left foreground the white arch supported by red lines of the Swing Bridge.



This one is reversed (note the white arch on right) with warehouse building in foreground.

UPDATED, April 23, 2019
From Luca Brancati’s Pinterest board I discovered this beautiful and interesting rug. It is a grand Tyne Bridge rug, as seen by the double warehouse at the bottom right, and the little white line of the swing bridge above it. Oddly, it has heavy armor integrated into the streets of Newcastle.

More info here . I especially like the white rectangles with drooping pomegranates. The inner border is Mushwani, and the the burgundy background on the outer border also looks Mushwani. The reversal of the image and the abstraction of some buildings in the top panel is interesting.

The Met Museum Releases 375,000 Images into Public Domain

The Metropolitan Museum in New York has made a tremendous contribution to the public domain by releasing hundreds of thousands of photos under a Creative Commons Zero license.  The Museum has made available a wealth of information licensed for almost any use.   Here are a few examples found in a search for “weaving”.

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/14794?sortBy=Relevance&what=Woven&ao=on&ft=*&offset=10608&rpp=100&pos=10638

 


http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44125?sortBy=Relevance&what=Woven&ao=on&ft=*&offset=10708&rpp=100&pos=10727

 

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/13552?sortBy=Relevance&what=Woven&ao=on&ft=*&offset=10508&rpp=100&pos=10593

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/67544?sortBy=Relevance&what=Woven&ao=on&ft=*&offset=9808&rpp=100&pos=9825

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/73310?sortBy=Relevance&what=Woven&ao=on&ft=*&offset=10708&rpp=100&pos=10755


http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/316416?sortBy=Relevance&what=Woven&ao=on&ft=*&offset=10908&rpp=100&pos=11002

 

 

Afghan War Rug Exhibition at Temple University

War rug art is fascinatingly educational friends! Temple University’s Samuel L. Paley Library, in room 309, is currently holding a Afghan war rug exhibition that contains 14 of my Afghan war rugs. These rugs tell stories and contain history which, ” helps contextualize a group of people that many Americans know very little about.” Theirs so much to be learned and talked about. Go check it out!

Video on vimeo (embed removed to stop unwelcome third party javascript from running on Warrug)

This show has curated by Alicia Cunningham-Bryant and student assistant curators, Ilana Napoli, and Rachel Morin.

Rugs shown are documented here

Drone Rugs, Now On the Radio

war-rugs1

The drone rug craze has maintained its drive. Public Radio International featured a story on the rugs, their background and growing popularity. There is a written story on PRI site, as well as the option hear the full radio interview. You can find a link to both below. Thank you to PRI for the interest!

http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-03/drones-are-everywhere-even-rugs

Major Press for the Drone Rugs

red drone

The drone rugs have been causing quite a stir in the media recently. COLORS Magazine issued a great piece at the end of last month, which was then re-ran by Quartz just a few days later. Links to the articles are below. Huge thanks to both publications for spreading the word.

http://www.colorsmagazine.com/blog/article/drones-on-rugs

http://qz.com/333733/afghan-carpet-weavers-are-putting-drones-on-their-rugs/

American Drones on War Rugs

Warrug.com recently received a shipment of rugs from Peshawar, Pakistan including some new designs woven in Pakistan. The weavers are Afghan Turkmen who have settled permenantly in Pakistan after being refugees. This summer they produced three rugs featuring Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s or drones).

The blue rug below, #1566, features three different drones: Global Surveyors, Reapers, and Predators.

The second rug, below, #1580, features armed Predator drones.

Below is the third rug of the set, and it is particularly interesting because the drones are colored red, white and blue. I didn’t notice this important color choice until photoshopping (rather GiMP’ing) the border photo when I noticed the interlocking red, white, and blue border.

TCNJ’s ‘Art Amongst War’ Exhibition featured in Sunday New York Times

Today’s New York Times Metropolitan section has a story by Tammy La Gorce about the show ‘Art Amongst War’ at The College of New Jersey’s Art Gallery. The show is curated by Deborah Hutton, and it features an array of art made by Afghan artists including 5 war rugs loaned by warrug.com, including the one in Times’ story. The show includes fine paintings, beautiful needlework, historical and contemporary video, installation art and some beautiful and haunting photographs.

“The anonymous weavers of six 1980s and 1990s-era “war rugs” — carpets whose motifs include land mines, guns and soldiers — may have had no formal training, learning from their relatives, but they have incorporated the grim realities of life in a war zone into their traditional craft.”