Gray Abstract Hand-Knotted Wool and Silk Rug, Aren Series

Something like light falling on a stone wall at the end of a day: an abstract gray rug from the Aren series, hand-knotted in wool, cotton and silk, 242 × 303 cm (7'11" × 9'11"), the gray broken by orange, gold, green and earth tones.

01From the hand of the weaver

Woven in small numbers. Nothing here resolves into a motif. Gray supplies the calm and the warmer colors are scattered through it in patches rather than in any figure, so the rug behaves more like a surface than like a pattern.

02The Wool on the surface

Silk carries the change: in morning light the colors are soft and low, and by evening the same passages have gone deep and the golds have come forward. The whole piece is one thing at nine in the morning and another at nine at night. Wool, cotton and silk are worked together, and the knots are set close — close enough that the pile stands upright and holds its shape rather than splaying at the corners over time. Density is what this series is bought for, and reaching it takes months of hand work.

Aren rugs are made in small numbers, so a second one to match this is not something to plan around. Daily vacuuming is fine; washing is for a professional and for nobody else. Hand-knotted at high density in wool, cotton and silk. A gray ground broken by orange, gold, green and earth tones, with no motif. Silk in the pile is what makes the colors change between morning and evening. Months of hand work go into a rug of this size and density. 242 × 303 cm (7'11" × 9'11") — a large sitting room, a gallery wall of a room, an office floor. Only small numbers of each Aren design are woven, so a matching second piece is unlikely. Vacuum daily if you like; leave washing to a professional. Rugs without a pattern are the ones people keep looking at, because there is nothing in them to finish reading.