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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.222.1, Connecticut Historical S ...
Tibetan Weavers: Warping the Looms at Kebabians
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.222.1, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

Tibetan Weavers: Warping the Looms at Kebabians

Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan)
Subject (Tibetan)
Date1997 June 14
MediumPhotography; color slide on plastic in cardboard mount
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.222.1-.19
Description2015.196.222.1: Slide showing Tsultim Lama at loom

2015.196.222.2: Slide showing Tsultim lama seated at loom, with Phurbu Kyipa, John Kebabian, and Tsering Yangzom

2015.196.222.3: Slide showing Tsering Yangzom, Phurbu Kyipa (seated) and Tsultim Lama

2015.196.222.4: Slide showing Tsering Yangzom separating yarn on loom

2015.196.222.5: Slide showing Tsultim Lama and Tsering Yangzom preparing warp thread

2015.196.222.6: Slide showing woman working on loom

2015.196.222.7: Slide showing Tsering Yangzom working at loom

2015.196.222.8: Slide showing Phurbu Kyipa warping the loom

2015.196.222.9: Slide showing Phurbu Kyipa and Tsultim Lama warping the loom

2015.196.222.10: Slide showing Phurbu Kyipa and Tsultim Lama warping the loom

2015.196.222.11: Slide showing close-up of Tsering Yangzom hands as she weaves

2015.196.222.12: Slide showing Phurbu Kyipa prearing the loom

2015.196.222.13: Slide showing Phurbu Kyipa and Tsultim Lama adjusting the warp

2015.196.222.14: Slide showing Phurbu Kyipa using the beater

2015.196.222.15: Slide showing Tsultim Lama adjusting the warp

2015.196.222.16: Slide showing Tsultim Lama holding a finished carpet, Phurbu Kyipa and Tsering Yangzom preparing the warp

2015.196.222.17: Slide showing Tsultim Lama standing, Phurbu Kyipa adjusting the warp

2015.196.222.18: Slide showing Tsultim Lama standing, Phurbu Kyipa adjusting the warp

2015.196.222.19: Slide showing Tsultim Lama standing, Phurbu Kyipa adjusting the warp
NotesSubject Note: John Kebabian of Kebabians Carpet House in New Haven, who had previously built a loom for a Tibetan weaver in New York, built a loom in his shop for carpet weaver Phurbu Kyipa, whose carpet was displayed in the "Auspicious Signs: Tibetan Arts in New England" exhibit in 1996. After the loom was built, Phurbu Kyipa from New Hampshire and two other weavers living in Connecticut – Tsultim Lama and Tsering Yangzom (plus Dawa from Connecticut) traveled to New Haven on June 14, 1997, with CCHAP Director and exhibit curator Lynne Williamson to warp the loom and start weaving on it. They also presented a demonstration at Kebabians on June 28 during the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven.

Tibetan carpets are woven by hand on a large frame loom. Traditionally, carpets are used to cover seats and beds, as wall hangings, and in monasteries as cushions, back rests, drum covers, or pillar covers. Tibetan carpets are made from three kinds of sheep's wool: chemically dyed Indian wool, naturally and chemically dyed Australian wool which is softer, and naturally dyed coarser Tibetan wool.


Biographical Note: Tsultim Lama is a skilled designer and weaver of carpets in the traditional Tibetan hand-knotted style who learned her craft while living in Nepal.


Biographical Note: Tsering Yangzom weaves belts with traditional designs on her backstrap loom as well as wool material for blankets, aprons, jackets, and bags on a larger loom. Her skill, learned from her mother in a remote village on the Nepal/Tibet border, is one traditionally shared by rural women. When she was seven years old Tsering Yangzom's family fled Tibet, settling in a remote Nepali village near the Tibetan border. It was difficult for Tibetan exiles to make a new life there as they were foreigners, bringing few possessions and little money with them. One way for families to generate both income and necessary household furnishings was to utilize women's traditional weaving skills. Tseyang's mother made blankets, bags, warm coats - chupa, and married women's traditional striped aprons - pang-dhen out of cloth she wove from dyed sheeps' wool, as well as small carpets and seat coverings. These were also sold in shops in the town.

Tseyang and her younger sister were taught to card and spin yarn from sheeps' wool, and weave it into cloth, a common practice for Tibetan women. In school all children learned to make the patterned belts that Tibetans tie around their chupa. Later Tseyang worked in a factory handweaving Tibetan carpets as this industry grew in Nepal.

Tseyang brought to her new home in Old Saybrook the traditional narrow loom she used to weave belts, although she could not bring with her the larger loom for cloth. Belts are made on a thak-ti, a tension loom which uses a process called tablet weaving to create quite complex designs on belts up to six inches wide. Pierced thin leather cards, or tablets, are strung side by side onto individual vertical warp threads. Tension on the warp threads is provided as the weaver pulls against the threads attached to a backstrap tied around her waist. As she pulls, she rotates all the tablets at once, an action which moves some warp threads up and some down to create a space between them, in the manner of a heddle. She passes a thread horizontally through this space in a weaving motion, pushes it down tightly with a wooden beater, then rotates the tablets again to lift another set of warp threads before weaving again. The pattern is determined by the number of tablets strung onto certain colors of warp threads. In another photograph of this loom Tseyang has seven tablets strung with dark threads on either side, with twenty-four white thread cards between them, to make a simple two-color belt. Tseyang moved to Torrington CT then New York City to live.

"When we took refuge from Tibet and had no farms to grow things, to make a living, to survive we had to do this kind of thing...there was nothing we could do but making and selling cloth, blankets, bags, belts...the first thing is to keep the traditions of our culture. Second thing is when we lost our country Tibet, when the Chinese took over, there's no way to do other business. To survive we did this...the same things in Nepal as Tibet."



Biographical Note: Phurbu Kyipa can weave a 6 x 3 foot carpet in twenty days. She learned this skill from senior weavers in the Tibetan Women's Association in Dheradun, India, where she settled after fleeing with her family from Tibet after 1959. She immigrated to New Hampshire in 1993, and her family followed a few years later. Although Phurbu made her living in India from carpet weaving, she is presently working in a medical services company in New Hampshire. Her carpet made from Australian wool, featuring round mandala-like motifs within geometric borders, was loaned to the 1996 "Auspicious Signs: Tibetan Arts in New England" exhibit by Sonam Lama.


Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists.


Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
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