There are kilims that seem to have captured a flight. On this one, woven in Adana some 55 years ago, several butterflies layer on either side of the field, each rendered in a different palette, pink and orange, grey and peach, their serrated wings vibrating against a slate grey ground like a swarm frozen in mid-flight. At the centre, a raspberry pink column rises like a spine, carrying two interlocking diamonds connected by cream zigzags, those stylised eagle heads that nomads wove to keep an eye on the horizon and on what mattered most.
The pink of the central band is never quite the same from one end to the other, deeper here, more powdery there, that abrash which betrays a wool dyed in several stages, on a narrow loom laid flat on the ground of a encampment. Across its 126 x 108 cm (4'2" × 3'7"), this kilim holds a rare palette, powder pink, ochre and grey, far from the deep reds one usually expects, proof that a weaver once chose to follow her instinct rather than a fixed tradition.
