Dragons in My Dungeon – Antique Soumac Rugs

A dungeon is a place where one might hold creatures captive and administer torture.

Now that a sufficient number of dragons have gathered together in the collection, I am ready to create a dungeon to house them in.

In this case though it would be the dragons that are captive, it would be me that would be tortured and tormented.

How, one might ask?

By the sheer beauty of the pieces.

Every one of the elements in every one of the pieces makes me think about the creative process – and I am tormented by the dozen questions that have no answers.

Here are some of my tormentors:

See more of each of these pieces here on WOVENSOULS.COM

Sitting by oneself, how would one come up with such complex designs & such motifs? How did these evolve? Did they mean something? Many more unanswered questions here and much to look at and stay entertained by the imagery!

The simultaneous use of symmetry and asymmetry, make these dragon carpets hard to assimilate visually at first glance. The pattern may appear repeated but upon examination, there is always one major variation of the order in which the wings are laid over each other and several minor variations such as color or position of elements. Since such variations are standard across examples, it is likely that these are carefully planned in rather than errors that crept in.

Further, when we look at a number of these, the variance in character is obvious. 1460 & 1402 are similar and 1424 & 1403 are similar while 1379 is completely different. What accounts for these variances?

They say one has understood a subject well if one is able to explain it well. The layout plan of a dragon carpet is possibly the most difficult to explain verbally. And so it looks like the soul of this rug will always elude capture by the mind …….and that probably is the reason for the enigma and allure of a Dragon Soumac!

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jm

* Title inspired by the game ‘Dungeons & Dragons’