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Space Rugs

@space_rugs

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Poetry ponders the world in a grain of sand, & writes in jasmine water, a craft fluid in solution, beauty love, sex & death, syntax, device, & breath.

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Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
– Mary Oliver, Poet.

Pairing: Young Girl on a Red Carpet, ca: 1912, by
Felice Casorati, Novara- 1883 - Torino- 1963, Italy.

Felice Casorati still painted in the symbolist style. During the war he was influenced by new movements such as metaphysical painting, Futurism and Cubism. From the start of the 1920s he still preferred to paint simple subjects and still-lives in an austere, abstract style. The painting Young Girl on a Red Carpet is a good example of the artist’s symbolist period. The model for the painting was Ada, the oldest daughter of the painter Attilio Trentini. There is a photo of her standing in a similar pose and it was undoubtedly this that inspired Casorati. The bird’s-eye view emphasises the distance between the spectator and the girl, who has withdrawn into her own world. The objects around her refer to her past childhood years and the unknown years of adulthood which lie ahead. The light striking the carpet subtly suggests the outside world. The strange combination of red and violet-blue enhances the symbolic nature of the painting.
Source: https://www.mskgent.be/en/collection/1915-d
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#spacerugs
#felicecasorati
#symbolistart
#inthefamilyofthings
#maryoliver
#imageandpoetry
#younggirlonaredcarpet
#likemeinmygrandmasantiqueshop
#relflections
#thepoetryofplace
#knotsoftime
#wovenstories
#symbolistart
#imagination by @space_rugs

“Don’t educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so they know the value of things, not the price.”

-Victor Hugo, French writer and politician (1802–1885), Besançon, France. Resting place the : Panthéon, Paris.

Photos c/o @saintgermaindespres_org and @postcardsby_myri

Capturing the élégance, coleurs et essence of beauté that is Paris, the city of love. Always reminding me that beauty is the only real protest. Not to discredit the power of peaceful protest, only a fool would dismiss the actions and outcomes that arise from this human right to raise awareness and to say hey! Look here…but in the end, it is beauty that smooths the rough and broken edges of the psyche that nourishes the eyes, sustains the soul and uplifts the heart, the house of our spirit. Without beauty we are lost to a sea of grey. And to many are living this experience already. Enjoy your evening drink Paris. Vive La France et L’ Europe.
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#spacerugs by @space_rugs

All things belonging to the earth will never change--the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth--all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth--these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever.

The tarantula, the adder, and the asp will also never change. Pain and death will always be the same. But under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless, faithful, coming into life again like April.

-Thomas Wolfe, from ‘You Can't Go Home Again’ American genius.,

Photograph : @gardenofrohuna An exquisite spray of Zinnias, Tangier. Photo by Umberto Pasti.

hummingbirds love zinnias, bringing their iridescent beauty to your garden while keeping the white fly population down
butterflies flock to zinnias and light up your garden with their striking patterns
the zinnia flower can be as small as one inch across or as large as seven inches across and can range from eight inches to four feet tall
Spanish explorers discovered the little zinnia in Mexico and thought it so homely they named it “mal de ojos” or sickness of the eye!
Source: https://www.flowermeaning.com/zinnia-flower-meaning/

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#spacerugs
#gardenofrohuna
#zinnias
#tangiermagic
#lesfleurs by @space_rugs

The Game Of Chess

Dogmatic statement concerning the game of chess: Theme for a series of pictures.

Red knights, brown bishops, bright queens,
Striking the board, falling in strong ‘L’s of
colour.
Reaching and striking in angles,
holding lines in one colour.
This board is alive with light;
these pieces are living in form,
Their moves break and reform the pattern:
luminous green from the rooks,
Clashing with ‘X’s of queens,
looped with the knight-leaps.

‘Y’ pawns, cleaving, embanking!
Whirl ! Centripetal ! Mate ! King down in the
vortex,
Clash, leaping of bands, straight strips of hard
colour,
Blocked lights working in. Escapes. Renewal of
contest.
-Ezra Pound, (1885 - 1972), American Expatriate Poet.

For me this incredible poem could well be capturing all the minutiae of this glorious picture, set to poetics, the shapes and forms, lines and colours of the legendary antique dealer, decorator, and collectors space- seem to inhabit and engage the very game Pounds prose speaks of. The red knight I see in a painting and a carpet in the sky-well of the Dar, the luminous green of the queen crossing the game, reforming patterns in rugs and textiles…and yes, the board is alive and light.

Photography: the mystique and mesmeric atmospherics of Gordon Watson’s 1840s’’ Dar Ouezzane, Marshan, Tangier- captured so poignantly by Marco Scarani of Creel and Gow, Manhattan and Dar Zero Tangier.
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#spacerugs
#aesthetics
#poetryofplace
#darquezzane
#tangiermoments by @space_rugs

Much more of the body is devoted to movement than to language. Language is just a little thing sitting on top of this huge ocean of movement. -Oliver Sacks.

Contemporary art works by Samy Snoussi, French-Moroccan artist. b. Toulouse, France 1993. Lives between France and Casablanca where he works in the mediums of drawing, sculpture, textiles, and installation.

Artists Statement:

“I sense a certain plurality or reflexivity within my body. The German anthropologist Helmuth Plessner stated, ‘Our primary otherness is with our body—or, more precisely, in the ambiguous relationship we have with it.’

Consequently, I unconsciously felt the need to dissociate my consciousness from my physical movements; to this end, I began an auto-analytical artistic exploration of my relationship with my own physical body.

Living with dysorthographia, I believe I have developed a deeply emotional relationship with my body. To fully experience this, I began staging situations that trigger my specific challenges—such as dictation exercises or rapid note-taking. To set the scene, I employ all the classic tropes of the schoolroom dictation...

I immerse my body in an environment that is uncomfortable for it. Unable to keep pace, my brain abandons my hand, which attempts to transcribe whatever it can. Quite quickly, the rhythm of the spoken words becomes purely instrumental; my consciousness dissolves, and the writing gradually distorts. Words transform into mere impulses, and for a brief moment, I exist solely as a physical body, devoid of consciousness.

I drift into a trance-like state as my hand unconsciously traces lines. This fleeting moment—where ‘I’ cease to exist—allows me to create surprising graphic forms.

Thus, my dictations are not formal exercises, but rather a form of energetic exorcism for my hand, seeking to express itself beyond the confines of my consciousness.”

- Samy Snoussi. @samysnoussi_
Source of text: Copyright ©2024 LOFT ART GALLERY, Casablanca, Morocco.
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#spacerugs
#artistsoftwolands
#frenchmoroccanartist
#dyslexiaanddysgraphia
#semioticemotionalart by @space_rugs

The Elegant Sufi

When the Sufi discovered English wool, cashmere, and silk scarves, he tore off his coarse woollen robe and said to himself: I’ll feel more comfortable wearing these cloths. They will make my genuflections more graceful. I’m going to cut my hair and trim my beard, brush my teeth three times a day, use a good Eau de Cologne as a deodorant, chuck my tattered prayer mat away and replace it with a genuine Zemmour rug.* I will show myself neat and tidy in front of God and I dare say my prayers will become purer. Henceforth, I will no longer live on alms. I’m going to find myself honest and honourable work. I will mingle among my kind, become acquainted with their preoccupa-tions, find out about their blasphemies and initiate myself into the secrets of their terrestrial attachments, taste their earthly wines, and little by little lead them back to the path of the Mystery. After all, my life would only have changed in an outward way, but I will have paved a new path towards mysticism, that of the elegant Sufi.
~Abdellatif Laâbi, Morocco.

A splendid example of rural weaving from the Zemmour people of the Middle Atlas Mountains. The Zemmour were a migrating people who never remained in one place for long and over time had accumulated a rich repertoire of weaving techniques and textile patterns that are evident in all manner of objects from bags to blankets. This soft and supple cushion cover contains extremely intricate and elegant weave variations interspersed with zig zag and diamond patterned rows of raised wool pile. The colours are soft tones of red, brown, orange, ochre, blue and green. Some minor repair. ~Copyright © 2009-2022 Tina Tabone.

Material: Wool .
Size: 95x67cm.
Circa: 1900-1910.
Item No: 11-348
Source:https://tinatabone.com
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#spacerugs
#weavingstories
#threadsandyarns
#weavingcultures by @space_rugs

“Because they fall we love them – the cherry blossoms.
In this floating world, does anything endure?”
~Ariwara no Narihira (823 – 880), Japonoise.

Photographs 1 & 2: repost @ashmoleanmuseum ,
The Courtesan Agemaki of the Miura House, Sukeroku: Flower of Edo. 2004 June, Kabukiza Theatre.
Collection of Bando Tamasaburo V.
Photos to follow : repost from an article by Daniel Schmid, The Written Face, 1995. Photo of Tamasaburo Bando V. Photo credit and © unknown. Bowie in Tamasaburo’s dressing room and then applying his Ziggy Stardust makeup, photos of Tamasaburo in female kabuki costumes & roles.

Six spectacular kimonos belonging to the kabuki actor Bandõ Tamasaburõ V are currently on display in our Textiles Gallery. Tamasaburo is the most popular and celebrated onnagata - a male actor who performs female roles - he was born on 25th April 1950 and as a baby suffered from polio which gave him a slight limp. The doctor suggested that traditional dance would be a good form of therapy - and, inadvertently, Tamasaburo was set on the path toward the Kabuki stage, he is currently still working on stage. You’ll see elaborate and beautifully crafted costumes that reflect the wide variety of roles in this actor’s long and celebrated theatre career, from court ladies and courtesans to geisha and demons. The free exhibition Kabuki Kimono: Costumes of Bando Tamasaburo V is on display until Sunday 8 December.

In 1629, the ruling shogunate flat-out banned all women from performing kabuki. The reason given was something about how kabuki was corrupting public morals. To be fair, a lot of early kabuki plays were provocative and erotic. But that is another story!

The shogunate not only banned women from the stage, it also forbade young men from performing kabuki. All the female roles then, even those of 16-year-old girls experiencing love for the first time, had to be played by middle-aged men.

‘Kabuki seems to me to have the perfect balance between sensuality and ritual which are the two poles of Japanese culture’, (Alex Kerr, Lost Japan, 1983)

#spacerugs
#kabuki
#kimonoheritage
#japanesearts by @space_rugs

I try, while exchanging compliments through our interpreter, to note down the details of their dresses. But how shall I describe the complex jumble of the gauze thrown on the heavy brocades? The lovely movements made with thick silk ribbons in large gold loops which are slipped under their underarms and lift their heavy sleeves? The fullness of the beautiful fabric, with folds like those in a Veronese painting, high above the large rigid belts? And, above all, the incredible complexity of their hair? Their black hair, curled and shaved at the bulge of the forehead, makes only a black line below the gold diadem or cloth band that a jewel holds just above their arched brows… Braids fall over every other part of their face; over their ears, which are laden with heavy earrings, coral pendants, big gold rings with emeralds or pearls, “bijoux de juifs” made in the Mellahs nearby the old walled cities. The countless necklaces fall on the gleaming of rich caftans, above the little pink, blue, or white gauze frills in the style of Watteau. On a narrow neck of black velvet: necklaces of gold, amber, coral, eccentric combinations of amulets and rough stones crafted in the same goldsmithery in the Mellah. All this forms an ensemble of extraordinary radiance, where the pink gauze blends with the blue and gold brocade, the white gauze with old rose gauze and violet or green-apple belts. Through the group weaves in and out a little négrillon with the sweet little face of Zamor, whose violet silver-spangled caftan is encircled by a beautiful raspberry-pink silk scarf.
- Edith Wharton, from Les Marocaines Chez Elles, (1917).

Photographs: #VogueArabia a cultural expose of Moroccan Kaftans, with designers of the 24th edition of Moroccan Caftan Week, whose mastery of craft mesmerised… Fouzia Naciri, Hind Iraqi, Siham Elhabti, Meriem Belkhayat, Houda Larini, Amal Soussi Aouad, Hind Lamtiri, and Imane Ochan.

“Their work, which protects and celebrates the intricate craftsmanship, cultural legacy of the Moroccan kaftan, was photographed at Dar El Bacha Museum for the #septemberissue -@mrarnaut
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#spacerugs
#kaftanheritage
voguearab by @space_rugs

[…] the skin that is found
On the bodies of Gorée
It is the same skin that covers
All the men of the world
But the skin of slaves
Has a deep pain
That does not exist at all
In other men of the world
It is the skin of slaves
A flag of Liberty
-Gilberto Gil, Lyrics from La lune de Gorée,

Photographs: Maison Crespin, art house, boutique hotel, cultural space, Gorée, Senegal. @maison.crespin

“The Crespin House, nicknamed “The house of the last Signare” was acquired in 1950 by Alain Crespin. It was originally built in the 1780s. Like most of the houses in Gorée located on the edge of sea, it extends over approximately 500 square meters spread over two levels, with an upper floor lined with twin galleries where the signares once lived, and a vast ground floor opening onto the sea. From 1980 to 2025, the house was inhabited by Marie-José Crespin, daughter of Alain. A former member of the Constitutional Council and the first honorary president of the Court of Cassation of Senegal, she belonged to a long line of Senegalese mixed-race people and was often referred to as the “last signare” of Gorée”

Today, Maison Crespin is inhabited by her children and grandchildren, mixed-race people from around the world, bearers of a family memory deeply linked to the history Gorée. Combining family heritage a contemporary creation”.
Source: maisoncrespin.com

Featuring exquisite contemporary sculptures by Ndary Lô (1961-2017), Senegalese artist of renown, whose work whispers a reminiscence of my fav sculpture Giacometti. Other works on display; jewellery by Marie-José Crespin, cultural artefacts, and paintings by famous local creatives. What a desirable destination offering such elegance and authentic charm, creative inspiration, and a deep reverence for the historically-embedded saddess of past, a place for reflection, relaxation with une vue magnifique sur la mer. -Monique @space_rugs
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#spacerugs
#boutiquearthotel
#senagaleseaesthetics
#vivrelabeauté
#designetdécor by @space_rugs

“One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors.”
-Robert Graves,(1895-1985), English poet.

Photographs: Mesmeric geometries- crafted into architectural plaster panels. Inspired by and reflective of ancient cloister patterns- wonderful geometric creations that breathe ancient beauty into moderne spaces. A concept creation by Moroccan French artist, Myriam Mourabit, Fez, a city steeped in cloistered shapes and forms that lift one towards inner-standing patterns.

Highly considered embellishments depicted in matte finish, using an aqua based paint specially developed for the project- reveal contrast … through the brilliance of genuine copper and silver-

acting like an alternative refrain to the existing patterns, the colours like appliqué add dimension, the layers then take on a musical quality and the stars begin to dance. -Monique @space_rugs

Colours are all applied by the hand of the artist.

“Observe, reinterpret, draw matrices, think molds, refine finishes: each step helped to move these heritage geometries to a new language.” -Myriam Mourabit.

A custom project - ZECUBE / Myriam Mourabit
@ceciletreal @myriammourabitdesign
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#spacerugs
#myriammourabitdesign
#artofspace
#zecube
#customartwork by @space_rugs

A woman ,” he writes, “is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked” (Roland Barthes 84).

Ethnography: “Living Draperies”
Towards a Reappraisal of the Moroccan Photographs of Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault (1918-1919), @quaibranly

“A remarkable overview of traditional Moroccan draped costume. Discovered after de Clérambault’s death, they have been variously interpreted in the light of his psychiatric writings and extravagant personality. Annabelle Lacour’s re-evaluation of this singular body of work sets it in the context of de Clérambault’s archives and writings on the subject, decodes his visual language and points up the radical but long ignored consistency of his project. If there is a link between the photographer and the psychiatrist, it lies in his methodology, clinical gaze and analytical precision. Bringing scientific exactitude to bear on Moroccan draped costume, he strove for a grasp of its “anatomy” as part of a broader study and classification of the world’s “ living draperies.” Source: transbordeur.ch

“Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault, a distinguished French doctor of neuropsychiatry, was fascinated by Morocco, which he first visited in 1915. For a study of Arab women and particularly of their clothing he took several hundred photographs, which were recently restored and are now being shown to the public, seventy years after they were made.” Source: http://artforum.com

it’s more than likely the doctor had dealings with the original psychiatric hospital in the Henna Souk, inside the walls of the old medina. I used to rent a room from an Italian artist married to a Moroccan man who ran a small hanout in the Henna souk. I spent considerable time in conversation with the merchants, and learned of the history of this hospital, and how it was known for experimenting with music to heal psychiatric disorders. In keeping with the famous master musicians of Joujouka in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco who are renown for healing peoples mental ailments with their particular music. Clérambault and Lecan’s studies on drapery are fascinating. -Monique @space_rugs
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#spacerugs
#gaëtangatiandeclérambault
#livingdraperies
#softorientalism by @space_rugs

Love happened at last

And we entered God’s paradise,
Sliding
Under the skin of the water
Like fish.
We saw the precious pearls of the sea
And were amazed.
Love happened at last
Without intimidation...with symmetry of wish.
So I gave...and you gave
And we were fair.
It happened with marvelous ease
Like writing with jasmine water,
Like a spring flowing from the ground
-Nizar Qabbani, (1923-1998), Damascus, Syrian poet and diplomat.

Photographs by Ziga Mihelcic, Architectural Digest, August/September issue 2026.

“Inside a beautifully restored 19th-century Damascus home: Beit Al Ajami’s painstaking renovation stands as a testament to Syria’s enduring heritage and resilience.”

“In many ways, Ajami’s restoration of her home feels akin to the ongoing yet slow rebuilding of postwar Syria itself, following years of hardship and destruction. “It needs love. We have a great country, but we need someone to believe in it again. We cannot wait for any entity to do this. We need to do it ourselves,” Ajami states. “If we’re going to keep dwelling on the past, we will never see the light. We have to look ahead to the future, and believe that it will be a good one.” --By Rawaa Talass, Architectural Digest, 2026.

“We loved the house so much that we treated it like a delicate soul. You can’t be aggressive with it. Modification needed to be thought out delicately,” Ajami explains. “I told Michel that I wanted it to be a home, not a museum. I wanted it to be a home that we can live in comfortably as a family, and a place we want to come back to. I wanted my daughters to love Damascus through this home.” - by Lina Attar Ajami who describes herself as a modern nomad. Born in Syria, she spent her childhood in Lebanon and France.
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#spacerugs
#architecturaldigest
#beitalajami
#damascusartisans
#ottomanbaroque by @space_rugs