Gray and Orange Abstract Loom-Woven Wool and Tencel Rug, Zima Series

On a calm gray ground a wide field of orange and cream arrives from one side, like sunlight through a door pushed open: a loom-woven wool and Tencel® rug from the Zima series, cotton in the foundation, measuring 200 × 300 cm (6'7" × 9'10"), woven at Uşak and Kütahya. Every Zima drawing is a version of the same moment, the instant of crossing a threshold, and this is the loudest of them. The gray does nothing at all until the warm block comes in and takes a third of the surface.

01Reading the motif

Nothing contains it — there is no border — so it reads as light rather than as a shape. Beside gray and anthracite upholstery the rug settles down; put copper or brass anywhere in the room and the orange lifts out of the floor to answer it. Two fibers in the pile, and they are not doing the same job.

02What Wool does

Wool gives the surface its body and its matt tone; Tencel®, which is Lenzing's lyocell and comes from wood pulp, gives it the shine that shifts when you shift. Cotton sits underneath as the foundation and never shows.

03At the loom in in Uşak

On the loom the structure is laid mechanically and the finish is hand work, a division of labor that gets close to a knotted rug in the hand without claiming to be one. There is wool in the pile, which is worth knowing if wool is something you avoid. Each piece is numbered as it comes off. Pile of wool and Tencel®; foundation of cotton. Warm orange and cream breaking into a gray field, with no border to hold it. Woven on looms at Kütahya and at Uşak, by women. Wool carries the matt body, Tencel® the movement of light. Measuring 200 × 300 cm, sized to sit under a full seating group. Contains wool; consider it carefully if that matters to you. Halıcızade tree of life, plus an individual weave number. Professional washing. Give it a decade and the orange will have softened by half a shade, and the rug will look more like the thing it was always imitating.