Turkish Textile Arts in Transition: A Brotherhood of Carpet Sellers

by Catherine Salter Bayar
Catherine is a regular contributor to Fiber Focus.
Click on her name to see all of her posts on one page.

The Carpet Merchant, Jean-Léon Gérôme

The occupants of the cavernous room, with walls of hewn stone punctuated by arabesque carved doorways and filled with a soft light from above, are rapt with attention. Three men in flowing robes and large turbans watch while a barefoot carpet seller with a long beard works his best sales techniques on a fourth potential buyer, while the second, white-bearded carpet seller gauges the reaction of the group. The two sellers – one perhaps Persian, the other Afghan - gesture as they point out the unique qualities of a vast Heriz carpet, hanging from a balcony above the room and enormous in scale, even in the huge space. Other Persian and Turkish carpets are strewn around the floor behind the men in rejected heaps. Around the periphery of the room, several young men and boys watch and await instructions from the carpet sellers; the most attentive assistant is an African, perhaps a slave. A woman veiled in blue brazenly peeks from the corner doorway, ready to completely cover her face if the buyers, one of whom is a European wearing a dashing red coat, happen to glance her way. The question “Will the visitors buy?” tangibly pervades the scene.

It’s possible that French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme accurately captured what a carpet shop was like more than 100 years ago, when he painted this Orientalist scene, The Carpet Merchant,while visiting the rug market in Cairo. The nostalgic setting this 1887 painting portrays, a mysterious market place full of colorful carpets from all along the Silk Road, with Egyptians, Turks, Persians and Europeans vying to purchase the best pieces, is still much what visitors to Turkey expect to find today.

Though there are a few places in Turkey that replicate this exotic environment, buying carpets to resell these days is not that experience, though this painting appears on countless carpet shop walls, even ours. Perhaps because we trade in weavings from the past, we’d like to recall those days, however romantically portrayed, in which such magnificent, authentic carpets were highly sought after by every visitor to our region.

Carpet district, Nurosmaniye near the Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

I’d never seen The Carpet Merchant before I moved to Turkey, though the idea of wading through deep piles of those vibrant rugs in alabaster rooms greatly appealed to my sensuous nature. At least I didn’t have to be that woman peering from the doorway, excluded from participating in the business proceedings. Or so I thought when Abit and I first started buying for our shop in the Western Turkish town of Selcuk in 1999. No novice to textile commerce worldwide, I was not surprised to find myself once again in a business completely dominated by men. Those in power in the carpet trade here, at least the traders with whom Abit, my husband, had developed the essential relationships, were very traditional, very powerful men with origins in Van, a region in Eastern Turkey, on the Iranian border.

These men were not the chic, European-educated business owners I worked with when I first visited Istanbul in the early 1990’s. Dealing with those men – whose offices and factories were almost completely run by extremely bright and well organized Turkish women – gave me a favorable impression of Turkey as a modern place to work. But I’d also shopped the Grand Bazaar and surrounding lanes on my own during my early trips enough to have discerned that carpet dealers were not cut from the same progressive cloth.

During our first season of purchasing in the Turkish carpet trade, I immediately realized that the exotic stroll through an ancient marketplace my romantic mind’s eye pictured had little basis in reality. Visits to the wholesalers we used when we first started our business were in the old quarters of Nuruosmaniye within the walls of Istanbul’s old city near the Grand Bazaar (with one palatial entrance to this enormous complex pictured above), or along the cramped narrow lanes of Kemeralti in Izmir. These districts have a certain seedy charm, with their greyed, unpainted wood exteriors concealing vast warehouses of colorful carpets within. And like the painting, the men we visited were eager to fill our shop with their wares, spending hours unfolding kilims and unrolling carpets to convince us that they had the finest rugs on offer. But other than our dealings also being among people from several ethnic groups – Kurds, Turkmen, Uzbeks, and me, the solo ethnic European - the resemblance to the painting ended there.

Upon a first visit to a wholesaler, I might be completely ignored after the initial greeting, and sometimes even then. Just like my clothing industry visits to China and other countries in the Far East, I could not possibly be the person in charge of finances, so was of no importance, until the surprised men discovered otherwise. We drank endless glasses of tea while the men chain smoked cigarettes. Obviously, business dealings required constant supplies of nicotine, no matter what harm all that smoke may do to the fibers.

Abit (center in the photo above) and I would select the pieces we wanted. The men were clearly intrigued and sometimes quite mystified that Abit would consult me at all about what I liked. Though he had explained my textile background and ability to know quality when I saw it, the men were not at all convinced that I, a foreign woman, had any idea what I was doing. As the meetings went on though, sometimes for hours late into the night or even several meetings over days, the men grudgingly began to understand that I knew what I was doing. Not that this was stated, and in those early days my Turkish was not sufficient to know what they were saying. And the men were also speaking Kurdish in their negotiations, since that was most often the mother tongue to everyone in the room but me. Nonetheless, I understood the looks of admiration I eventually got from some of the dealers, and Abit was told more than once how lucky he was. I was sure however they were convinced Abit had caught a wealthy American fish and they were eager to reel in as much of our cash as they could.

In the early years of our business, the semi-annual visit to the wholesalers was still a treasure hunt, with dealers emptying never-ending black bags crammed with perfect suzanis, or leading us through rooms stacked to the high ceilings with old rugs from all over the Near East. Today, buying merchandise from these same dealers would be like going to Pasadena’s Sunday Rose Bowl flea market on a mission to find the genuine vintage handmade textile buried under heaps of machine-made odds and ends. In the decade since we started our business, wholesalers have become merchants of newly woven goods. In traditional Turkish patterns, yes, though they are imported from countries such as Pakistan, Nepal or China.

Interior, Grand Bazaar

Working with only a few main wholesalers, each specializing in different regions, therefore differing types of textiles, was logical for 1999. In the barter system used here, the more we bought, in “American cash dollars”, the phrase always used, the better the wholesale prices got. Ten years ago, that meant that we could buy a wonderful assortment of vintage rugs – those kilims and carpets woven decades before as dowry pieces with no concern for what a Westerner would buy, with nothing newly made, and all of it woven in Turkey or Central Asia – for amounts of money that seemed very reasonable to me. Now, in 2008, it would be impossible to buy the same goods for three times the price, if you could find them here at all.

Thankfully, we bought so much when prices were good that we have some of those original purchases in stock. Selcuk does not often get buyers who are looking for collectors’ pieces; frustrating for income but fine in the long run since these vintage rugs do not lose, but increase, in value if they are well taken care of. Investing in dowry kilims and carpets in the late 1990’s turned out to be a wise decision, since they are truly a vanishing market in Turkey. These days, we buy very few pieces, and only from trusted older men who scour the villages looking for rugs no one wants any longer. Like all things vintage, once these weavings are sold, we will be looking for a new business.

Our shop in Selcuk, with most of the carpets and kilims kept inside
these days to protect them from the hot summer sun.
The minaret behind to the left is the oldest in town, from the 14^th Century Seljuk Empire.
One stork is just visible on top – Selcuk’s high places host
enormous nests where the storks live from May to October.

Next post: Though a brotherhood of wholesalers and sellers control the carpet trade in Turkey, it is a sisterhood of weavers that is very much affected by this weaving art in transition.


Catherine Salter Bayar lives with her husband Abit in Selcuk, near Ephesus, Turkey, where they own a vintage textile shop and a water pipe & wine bar. Visit them at www.bazaarbayar.com or www.bazaarbayar.etsy.com.

Turkish Textile Arts in Transition: A Brotherhood of Carpet Sellers

Our Feathered Friends: Wear Them or Free Them?

It all started with Charlie (named after my brother who is a pilot), my little one-legged, parakeet. I had no control over the heat in my apartment in Chicago, so even on the coldest days, I had a couple of windows cracked open a bit. Charlie flew in through the kitchen window on a frigid winter day. Mitchie, my dog, cornered him. I knew nothing about caring for birds, so I got Charlie a cage, bought him some food, went online and read about parakeets. I took him to the gallery. Soon, one of our customers who knew a lot about birds, brought Charlie a companion. Then she brought two more. I got a bigger cage. She brought a box and told me to put it in the cage. Babies came. Another customer was moving and had a cockatiel with a broken wing, Pecky. She couldn't take him. Did I want him? Pecky was 14 years old at the time. Sure, why not? So, Pecky came. The bird lady felt sorry for him and brought a young female. The female turned out to be a male, Sebastian. Without ever intending to, I now have 9 parakeets (I took the box out. Enough is enough!) and two cockatiels. Although I feel a bit weird about having birds in captivity, none of these would survive in the wild. And, it seems like we will have to put most Nature behind bars to keep it alive.

The birds molt and drop feathers, which got me to thinking about how feathers have been used throughout history in adornments, clothing, and art. Feathers have had a central place in native ceremonial costumes and ornaments for centuries. Theresa Mitopoulou has a good article on The Decoration of the Head with Feathers that illustrates how feathers have been used throughout history and in different cultures. The photo at the left, for example, is from the Mexico City Museum of Anthropology of an Aztec head gear for emperors and priests. It was made with tail feathers of one hundred male quetzal birds, the national bird of Guatemala. She states, "The arrangement of the colored feathers had astronomic and calendar meaning." I found a traveler who photographed a Hawaiian cape he saw at a museum:


He said that it took five years to gather the feathers and another seven to sew them into the cape. He didn't state where he took this photo, but Sothebys has a similar one from the collection of the Niagara Falls Museum, estimated in worth at over $250,000.

The British Museum states that capes were made for Hawaiian and Polynesian nobility. They were used in ceremonies and in battle and many were gifted in the early 1800's to sea captains and their crews, the earliest outside explorers to the region.

James W. Reid wrote a book, Magic Feathers, Textile Art from Ancient Peru, which is illustrated with beautiful Nazca capes and details on the feathers and techniques used in the region.

Pathways to the Sun
Nazca culture, south coast of Peru, c. 400-800 AD
97 x 76 cm, cotton with applied feathers

The famous photographer, Edward Curtis, was the first to comprehensively document the life of Native Americans in the late 1800's. This photo of a Nez Pierce man with his head dress was exhibited at the Hall of American Indian Collection in the Hotel Astor.
Curtis and other photographers captured the public's imagination. The Bald Eagle had been chosen as the symbol of freedom and became the national bird in 1782. To Native Americans, the eagle is a messenger to the creator and represents endurance. In all of the United States, the eagle and its feathers were treasured. As the media developed, it made its way into books, magazines, then later in movies.

Bird Lady by Cristina Mittermeir
Highlands performer wearing a headdress made with the feathers of the superb bird of paradise. Highlands sing-sing, Papua New Guinea.

To this day, native people around the world continue to use feathers in ceremonies and dress. The Huli warriors of Papua New Guinea are often photographed for their bright face paint and costumes, feathers topping off their beautiful ensemble. Struggling to maintain identity in the face of a globalized world, these groups often are reduced to objects of tourism, but other efforts also seek to both honor and protect them. The above photo, for example, is available for purchase through Art for Conservation, an organization promoting grassroots conservation initiatives.

The fashion industry, of course, also has had a long history with feathers.

Marlene Dietrich wearing a feathered hat.

Victorian hats sported huge ostrich feathers and other exotic feathers continued to adorn hats and clothing through the 1950's. The following catalog is from a 1901 New York Millinery supply company, Fancy Feathers.

Smithsonian Institution Libraries

At some point, demand for all these feathers started creating shortages. Think of the demise of the passenger pigeon. Once the most populous bird in North America, five BILLION birds were killed off between 1870 and 1890. (Wikipedia) They had a high fat content that was used for cooking oil and to light Eastern street lamps. The last passenger pigeon died in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1914. Demand for bird feathers is not only ornamental, but also functional. Down feathers were and are still used for pillows and bedding. People started to worry and speaking up. Societies and organizations were formed. The National Audubon Society started publishing their Audubon Magazine in the 1880's, about the same time the passenger pigeon was getting killed off.

But, the attraction for feathers is powerful and we still continue to use them in our art and in our fashion. Handbags by Daphne offers this peacock feather bag for $85:

Jean Paul Gautier's wild feather dress was dubbed "Miss Turkey" by fellow blogger, Chanteuse. It's something else, isn't it?


So, there is that famous saying that "birds of a feather flock together"... Actually, we are destroying these feathered friends habitats all over the world. More and more, the chance for their survival will be as pets. Some African Grey parrots have become famous for how much they can learn, how cute they are and for their performance abilities. Here is Einstein performing on a TV show:



Menino, a Brazilian parrot, sings opera. My dogs came to watch him when I was playing his video:



And, Cody, a beautiful macaw, likes to be blow dried after his shower:



As with all of our natural resources, animal and plant life, care for these creatures and their feathers is in order. However, feathers are a renewable material. They do fall off naturally and birds do die. There is at least one organization that distributes molted feathers. Wingwise works specifically with Pueblo Indians and donates collected feathers for ceremonial purposes. Unfotunately, they have such a huge backlog of requests, that no new requests are taken at this time. The San Ildefonso girl at the left is wearing donated macaw feathers in her head dress.

It seems to me that this is really the solution for those of us who would like to continue to use feathers in art or garments. Bird sanctuaries, zoos, and pet owners should come together in some kind of a distribution system.

I also found some interesting trends in the green textile industry which is working on a fabric they are calling "chicken wool". The Independent reported that millions of tons of chicken feathers from chickens who are processed for the food market are disposed of yearly. They are working on a fabric which they consider will be superior to wool. Who knows what the next new trends will bring? We can only hope that they will address the needs of our fair feathered friends. Should we continue to wear them? Should they be freed from their cages and returned to the wild? Each of us has to answer these questions for ourselves. I know that my little companions wouldn't have a chance out there, so they are going to stay here. And, if any of you out there want some little parakeet feathers saved up for you, let me know and I'll start an envelope for you!



History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has
passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the
world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.

-Joseph Conrad

Our Feathered Friends: Wear Them or Free Them?

Ralli Quilts: The Book & New Arrivals on Rayela Art

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I wrote a post early on about how I fell in love with ralli quilts, patchwork and appliqué quilts from Pakistan and India. I have been buying as many as I can afford and have a bunch of new ones available for sale in my Etsy store and a couple on eBay. They arrive filthy and I machine wash them in a big industrial washer at the laundromat, testing to see if they will fall apart. Most are between 20-50 years old, ranging in price from $60-$200, depending on the workmanship, condition and how much I paid for them. All the ralli photos in this post are ones that I recently posted. Click on the image and it will take you to the listing with more photos, dimensions, price and other info.

I also purchased the book, Ralli Quilts by Patricia Ormsby Stoddard. This is THE resource for ralli quilts, comprehensive in documentation of photos, techniques, symbolism and historical roots. I believe that ralli quilts will be the next Quilts of Gee's Bend craze. They have the same organic, spontaneous, naive appeal that brought so much attention to the women of Alabama.

I have not had time to read the book in depth, but would like to highlight some interesting ralli info Patricia Ormsby Stoddard speaks about in her book. The intro itself is fascinating as Patricia describes her trip into the harsh and remote areas where the quilts are found:

"We were accompanied by Pakistani friends and a police escort. I'm sure our arrival was quite an occasion in some of the small villages where we stopped. In one place, a woman asked, through a translator, where we were from. I answered, "America," and she asked "What's that?" Later, I thought maybe I should have said Islamabad or just a city north of here. With little transportation or knowledge of the outside, her world was only the limited area she knew." (page 6)

She continues,
"As I traveled throughout the ralli region, I, a stranger, was greeted warmly by the women. Their willingness to share their quilting tradition and handiwork was obvious. Their smiles came quickly. Their flair for color is obvious in their work. They painstakingly continue the textile crafts that has been handed down for generations. They carefully form patterns and symbols from cloth, some simple and some complex. The women making these quilts rely on their own memories and the memories of their mothers and older women to teach them the patterns. They do not use paper or any tools to make their patterns. I remember on one occasion giving a woman a pencil so she could draw a picture of a pattern she was trying to explain. She apparently had never used a pencil and just made a big circle on the paper. The ralli compositions are in the women's minds and memories and they execute them with great skill in needlework." (page 7)

When I read this, I thought, "Oh, my..." I always sketch out what I am going to do to at least have a general idea of where I am going in my quilts. I can understand having a pretty simple image in your head, but in some of the more complex ones, I would have gotten completely lost if I were doing it. On the other hand, others, uh, could use some guidance... Some of the ralli quilts I have purchased have been pretty shocking in the fabric selection or choice of colors, but somehow this also adds to the freshness of it all.

Patricia describes the village life of the different areas she visited. Here is an excerpt from her visit to Kutch, an area which is extremely rich in wonderful textiles besides the ralli quilts:
"The women take care of the house and children and may sell embroidery to add to the family income. Textiles are part of the family treasures. Using quilting, appliqué and embroidery to decorate, the women make quilts and quilt covers, pillows and bags as well as clothing. Women wear tightly fitted, brightly embroidered blouses with full skirts made from ten to twelve meters of cloth and a shawl (odhani). Interestingly, embroidery is prized for its beauty and commercial value but quilts symbolize a family's social position and wealth. Quilts are often seen inside homes piled neatly on tables or chests, sometimes with a special quilted or embroidered cover." (page 25)

My favorite quilts from the ones I have are cotton that have been dyed with what I thought were veggie dyes. Apparently, these are chemical dyes that are available in local markets, but that are not very good and fade over time, a quality which I personally find attractive. I like the softness that time gives the colors. Patricia talks about the history of dyeing and how there is now a resurgence in using veggie techniques again. (page 40)


When the ralli has been assembled and is ready for the quilting stage, the quilter invites the other women from neighboring houses for a "rallee-vijhanu". (page 43) Each woman stitches at least one line to help keep the quilt together, normally a whole morning's activity. Then, the quilter finishes it herself, filling in the quilting between the larger spaces the other women worked on. She will also contribute her time when another neighbor needs help getting her ralli finished. This is such a nice touch, reminiscent of our own historical quilting bees, where a whole community is reflected in one piece.
Patricia has an extensive section in the book that traces ralli designs to ancient pottery shards of the region. She states that the checkerboard patterns are common in both pottery and quilts. (page 118)

Newer quilts, from the 1970's on use fabrics that are colorfast, including rayon, polyester, silk and other synthetics. These can be very bright and bright in color value. Intricate quilts are made for weddings and other special occasions, while simpler ones, using whole cloth or larger pieces of fabric, are for every day use.

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Often times, they are made of worn shawls that have pieces that can be salvaged or commercial fabrics which may be over-dyed.

Ralli Quilts has an extensive section dedicated to appliqué techniques used in different regions. Some are absolutely stunning in their intricacy, almost looking like lace. I have not been able to get any of the good ones, but have one simple quilt available that is at least a sample of that style. The workmanship on it is not the best, which probably means it was made by an older woman with poor eyesight or a young one, just learning. There are many efforts out there which try to help widows and older women use their sewing skills for extra income.
My hope is that these quilts will someday achieve the recognition they deserve and truly become a source of real income for these women, many of whom are extremely poor. This is always the pleasure for me, in working with these textiles- the knowledge that we can help create and sustain a market for people who still live connected to both the earth and to each other, whether they are here in our own neighborhood or in a remote village in Ralli Land.

Ralli Quilts: The Book & New Arrivals on Rayela Art

Cicim Kilim Rugs: Pure Nomadic Art of Turkey

By Catherine Salter Bayar

My favorite kilims are often the most uncomplicated. In the context of Turkish hand-woven textiles however, simplicity is rarely a straightforward square-weave. Simple in this case? Starting with a rustic base of undyed goat hair in its varied natural colors – dark greys, creams, deep browns, and sometimes even beige shades that verge on mauve - then embellishing that base cloth with brightly colored wool yarns in a very simple geometric pattern in an overall repeat.

When Abit and I first started collecting vintage hand-woven ‘kilims’ (the Turkish name used for all types of flat-woven textiles, in contrast to carpets, ‘hali’ in Turkish, which are knotted) nine years ago for our shop in Selcuk, Turkey, this style immediately caught my eye with its naïve and playful simplicity. Called ‘cicim’ in Turkish, the word is pronounced ‘jijim’ and is sometimes spelled that way by non-Turkish speakers. Instead of weaving wool yarns together into solid colored blocks of geometric pattern, cicims employ embroidery to create their colorful raised geometric shapes.

The cicim weaver either brocaded the pattern into the goat hair warp and weft as she wove, or embroidered it in sections as the goat hair base was completed and still on the loom.

None of the cicims we’ve collected are less than perhaps 30 years old. In my 60-something mother-in-law’s generation, women throughout Anatolia and Eastern Turkey still lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Winters were spent in the villages, but summers the families went up into the mountains to take advantage of grazing their animals at higher and cooler altitudes.

Turkish weavers in years gone by had no choice other than to make everything for their homes. There were of course no big-box stores where a homemaker could outfit an entire house at once, like there are today here in modern Turkey. In fact, there were very few shops of any kind outside of large cities. If a woman needed coverings for the floors, cloths to be used for dining, cushions for sitting or containers to carry belongings from place to place, she had to know how to weave.

Because thicker goat hair yarn and large gauge colored wool were used, these pieces were woven fairly quickly, so were favored for all sorts of utilitarian purposes. Goat hair was plentiful, strong and coarse, and had the extra practical aspect of being more waterproof than wool based on a higher oil content. The cicim below was originally folded with sides stitched together to form a ‘donkey bag’, which was literally slung over the back of that hard-working farm animal.

Ends were left in plain-weave stripes, though in this case, the cream-colored goat hair was dyed a vibrant orange and red.

The ends of the cicim below are undyed. This yarn of this cicim is courtesy of those mauve-colored goats I mentioned before, along with their more typical grey cousins!

The goat hair warp yarns were sometimes braided or woven into a beautifully striped natural color twill trim, as seen in the two photos of the same cicim below.

Selvages (the vertical sides of a weaving) were usually bound in a whipstitch of contrasting yarns, as a means to reinforce the edges from fraying, to make the seams of a bag sturdier, as well as to add a decorative touch.

Some cicims were woven on narrow looms, about 12” -15” (30 – 40cm) wide, while others were made on large looms easily 6 – 8 feet (2 – 2.5 meters) wide. This opened bag has wonderful herringbone weave ends to accentuate the central raised triangular motifs representing mountains, and diamond shapes acting as protection for the family against the ‘evil eye’ jealousy of outsiders.

The central geometric theme can get more complex, depending on the skill and imagination of the weaver; or oversized, as in the approximately 7’ x 10’ piece below, which would have covered most all of the floor in a traditional Turkish village salon.

As in all Turkish kilims, symbols have meanings, and the desires of the weaver were spoken though her work. Below, tiny embroidered flowers for abundance outline the letter “S”. In Turkish, “I love you” is “Seni Seviyorum”, so that alliterative phrase was represented frequently in Turkish weavings by that letter.

Though the central ground of a cicim was usually one geometric pattern repeated throughout, there were typically contrasting borders in some form. These borders might be a simple single motif, or a combination of a few. Below, the starburst forms may represent the mountainous terrain, the daily passage of time in sunrise and sunset, or that protective diamond shape which can also mean abundance for the family home.

Below, a striped outline means a rippling stream of clean running water. To the left, the pale green triangle with connected spiral forms is the ‘hands on hips’ symbol of fertility. To the right, the hatchmarks in red (meaning abundance and love) and indigo blue (meaning protection) are the double protection of strong ‘wolves’ mouths’ and diamond ‘evil eyes’.

These are just a few examples of cicims we’ve collected, with the undyed goat hair base weaving common to all the pieces here as the connecting feature. Some of these cicims are for sale on our etsy site: www.bazaarbayar.etsy.com with additional photos. More of my favorite cicim styles to come in future posts, to illustrate the enormous variety of kilims, within just one weaving style, that were woven here in generations past.

Catherine Salter Bayar lives with her husband Abit in Selcuk, near Ephesus, Turkey, where they own a vintage textile shop and a water pipe& wine bar. Visit them at www.bazaarbayar.com or www.bazaarbayar.etsy.com.

Cicim Kilim Rugs: Pure Nomadic Art of Turkey