The Republican journal., 1901-02-14
"REALu PERSIAN RUGS
Made in Maine. An Industry Established
by Mrs. Douglas vOlk.

Made in Maine. An Industry Established
by Mrs. Douglas vOlk.
Real Oriental rugs-real in color,
texture, artistic finish and permanent
cy, and real in the price asked and paid
for them-are made down in Maine"
Heretofore wealthy Americans have
turned to the Far East for the costly
rugs with which to embellish their
houses. The rich, enduring colors, the
significant, simple designs, the patient,
perfect work, have been the exclusive
property CT the Orientals and the des-
pair of the commercial peoples of other
lands who sought to copy them. But
now there has fbeen established in re-
mote down east locality rug industry
that is attracting the favorable atten-
ton of connoisseurs. No attempt is
made to reproduce the old patterns, but
artistic principles that are true through
out the world are employed, and the work
is done as slowly and as painstakingly
as if the world wagged as slowly from
one generation to another in our busy
land as in the old Asiatic countries. In
deed, in Oxford county, Me-, where this
new work is being done, the hustle and
the tumult of the world are hushed,
says a writer in the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, and conditions tend to favor
the turning out of work that will have
a permanent value.
But when months of skilled hand
work goes into rug it cannot be sold
in competition with the cheap machine
produced domestic rugs. 1t appeals to
the tastes and purses of the cultivated
and the rich, and thus enters into COM
III r.
from India and Persia. A small rug
costs $50 or more, according to the de-
sign, and larger ones in proportion.
Already, although the industry is in
its infancy, the value of the rugs has
been discovered by those who are able
and willing to pay for them, and Ok
ford county rugs are displayed with the
same pride in their possession that the
owner feels for his artistic finds from
other lands.
The avowed purpose of Mrs. Douglas
Volk, the wife of the artist who is pro-
noting the enterprise is to establish
dignitied, artistic and renumerative
form of handicraft among people of
pure American blood, to preserve some
of the best American traditions and
customs, and to revive a process that
has lapsed almost to extinction
The Nolks have a country place in
that remote country far beyond the
disturbing influence of railroad traffic.
commercial hubbub and confusing
marts. Their house is century Old
and its furnishings are the accumula-
ton of its hundred years of occupancy
by one family. Primitive simplicity
prevails throughout the locality, and
the artist and his family bring in no
new ways from the larger world. Tn
fortunately, with the simplicity there
exists lack of prosperity among the
natives. Many of the old sources of
income have fallen into desuetude, and
few new ones have been devised to take
their place.
The women are capable, Industrious,
and intelligent, and many of them still
Use the spinning wheels and looms that
once were found in every farm house
throughout the country. Gradually,
however, they were being banished to
attic, cellar. or clubhouse, or even left
exposed to the out-of-door weather, and
the homely arts of Eye olden time"
were being forgotten. The young wo-
men were ignorant of the weaving of
which their grandmothers were SO
proud.
But there were few elderly women
who retained knowledge of carding,
spinning, and weaving in all their
branches, and to them Mrs. Volk ap-
pealed for instruction. She learned
everything they could teach her, and
then she set herself to teach others.
She encouraged all kinds of weaving,
but her chief interest and endeavor
centred upon the rugs, the making of
which she is seeking to develop into an
industry that shall prove a value to the
community.
The country women had a way of
pulling rags of yarn through burlap
and trimming off the ends SO as to make
an even surface. She utilized this
principle, but varied it so that it be-
came practically a new industry. A
material of greater strength and dur
ability than burlap was hand woven to
serve as the foundation for the rugs,
and the yarn then was prepared by
hand, drawn through and double knot
ted securely. Mrs. Volk looked after
every detail, beginning with the wash
ing of the wool direct from the sheep.
She experimental until she got salts
factory vegetable dyes, in which she
old-fashioned kettles The only process
spinning, which was carried on in a
picturesque old mill run by water pow
er. Here the owners of the wool wait
ed while the miller put the wool through
the prescribed process and then carried
it home with them.
In her own home Mrs. Volk began
the work of manufacturing the rugs.
The conservative country folks looked
on wonderingly and obviously at first,
but her enthusiasm could not fail to
have its effect, and soon she went from
house to house showing the neighbors
how to get the best effects and setting
designs for them to copy.
Last winter she did not come to town
at all, but stayed with her work in the
quiet, snowbound country. This year
she has left several women working in
their homes on the rugs that she plan
ned before she left in the fall. In the
early spring she will return to Maine to
carry forward the industry more active
ly The work is slow and painstaking,
but the results justify it.
Some of the rugs have been shown at
art exhibitions in New York this win
tor and bavo hanp tho Obiaofc of biUb