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View from Tom Cole's 'Baluch' exhibition in San Rafael

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26 January 2010

In the second themed display to be held in his new ‘by appointment’ gallery space in San Rafael, north of San Francisco, Tom Cole is featuring so-called ‘Baluch’ rugs, bags and trappings, both knotted pile and flatwoven, from Khorasan, Sistan and western Afghanistan, from 26 January through to 19 February 2010, overlapping the period of the Arts of Pacific Asia and Tribal and Textile Arts Shows at Fort Mason and the Marin Art of The Americas Show.

Cole has more than three decades’ experience with ‘Baluch’ rugs, starting from the years he spent in a free Afghanistan, when he developed a familiarity with varied types of weavings, most of which were gathered in the western part of the country and brought to the bustling Kabul marketplace. Among them were types similar to those seen in this exhibition, including prayer rugs, animal trappings, and saddle-bag or khorjin faces. Palette, and the manner in which certain designs have been handled, seem to distinguish the weavings of the tribes inhabiting western Afghanistan from those of their ‘brethren’ in northeastern and southeastern Iran (Persia).

Although bazaar vernacular in Asia includes tribal names such as Taimani, Aimaq, Timuri, Jehan Begi, Salar Khani, Mushwani, and so on, all of which are consistently linked to certain design types, local dealers based their attributions on 20th century tribal names, not all of which were in use or documented as distinct tribes in the 19th. For this reason, among others, Cole has, over time, become much less interested in specific attributions for rugs woven in the ‘Baluch’ style, but prefers to focus on the art, the use of colour and space, once practiced by these skilled weavers.

Thomas Cole Tribal Rugs, San Rafael, California.

Telephone + 1 415 499 1652 or email thomascole@earthlink.net to arrange a visit.