I traveled to Morocco a little over five years ago (make that SIX when I'm finally hitting publish). This post has been sitting in my drafts for such a long time, mostly unwritten, as I have been trying to muster the wherewithal to do it justice.

From a young age, I had an inexplicable fascination with Morocco—I couldn't say exactly why, but something about the fusion of French and Northern African cultures was fascinating to me. I watched Hitchcock's classic, "The Man Who Knew Too Much," at a young age and the intrigue of the plotline involving Morocco was one such source of my piqued interest. In my study of interior design, I have always loved textiles and particularly the craftsmanship and culture imbued in them. The prospect of visiting Morocco and witnessing firsthand the process of creating such textiles was thrilling. It was also exciting to consider that so many pieces are vintage wares and have their own years of histories and stories.

Indeed, the decorative arts of Morocco did not disappoint. I loved every aspect of zellij tilework, every cloistered gardened courtyard, and seeing the different types of textiles unique to the different geographic areas and regions of Morocco.

One of the reasons for which I was most excited about going to Morocco were the textiles. In this respect especially, this trip was a dream come true. When I was in college, I took many design and architecture-related classes as part of my major (home and family living with an interior design emphasis). One of the most difficult, challenging, and rewarding classes I took was my textiles class. I loved it so much, and I learned so much—there are still so many things I use on a daily basis (from knowledge about fiber content and the chemical properties of different fibers, to types of fabric, how they are constructed, and their tensile properties). My brief time in Morocco was fascinating in this regard. It was so amazing to see so many beautiful textiles firsthand, to see artisans and weavers at work, and to learn firsthand about the Moroccan textile industry and its history.

This post has felt a little daunting to write, because there is so much to know. I jotted down notes and sketches in my notebook during our trip, but my memory of the textile intricacies of which I learned have been dulled somewhat, simply by the time which has elapsed since then. Like many goods of artisan origins, there are regional and geographic variations and specialties—Morocco is no exception. In each of the places we visited, we saw different skills and arts on display. In Fez, we visited the famed leather tanneries of UNESCO World-Heritage-Site-renown. We also walked the streets of the medina and saw a man spinning cactus fiber (vegan silk!)! In the mountain regions of Chefchaouen, the textiles took on a more rustic quality with heavier wool fibers in rougher (but still stunning) weaves. We also took in the sights of a tile shop, with intricate shapes and colors meant for detailed zellij tilework.

The rug pictured above is one of the two rugs I purchased in Morocco. This rug was from a rug shop in the medina in Marrakesh. We flew in and out of Marrakesh for both directions of our trip. Upon our arrival in Morocco, we had a few hours to spend in Marrakesh before we boarded our overnight sleeper train for Tangier. We lugged our suitcases around with us and went to get a bite to eat in the medina. We had just crossed the Jemaa-el-Fna and followed the walkway into the opening of the medina. As we passed the first couple of shops, we noticed a young Moroccan man wearing, of all things, a UTAH JAZZ BASEBALL CAP! Tippe and I exchanged surprised looks, and we approached him and told him we had just traveled from Utah! As it turned out, he had spent some time during high school as an exchange student with a family in Texas. He fell in love with the Utah Jazz during his time in the states and it was a stroke of fate that we happened to run into him. He ran a clothing shop, and when he heard we were interested in looking at rugs, he told us his uncle owned a rug shop in the medina. He got a friend to cover the store for him and then he led us through several twists and turns to his uncle's shop—I could never have found the shop on my own. We entered and they took us to the back, where they served us mint tea in a sitting area. An international soccer match played on the tv and we chatted and enjoyed the tea. It was nice to have a place to sit and relax after a long stretch of traveling. After some pleasantries and after the conclusion of the soccer match, we stepped into the warehouse area bordering the sofa-and-tv-enclave where we had been. The walls were lined with towering stacks of thick wool rugs, folded and piled (no pun intended) high. The workers removed rug after rug from the stacks and laid them out on the ground, unfolding them in a layered living palimpsest of carpeting, edges and corners peeking through from the lower layers.

As they laid out more rugs, you would indicate which style you liked better, and they would choose the ensuing pieces based on the visual cues and similarities, narrowing in on styles you liked. There were many similar styles with this trellis-like design in black on a cream base. But when they unfurled the rug pictured above, I instantly loved it and it was unlike any of the others I saw. I wanted to buy it, but I wasn't prepared to buy it that night—we had just barely arrived and within hours would board an overnight train for Tangier, winding our way through the country as we visited different cities. It would be at least a week until we were back in Marrakesh and I would be ready to make my final purchases. I thanked the owner (our new friend's uncle) and his employees for giving us such a kind welcome and rolling out all the (red, as the saying goes, though not literally in this case) carpets for us!

I'll spare you the suspense and fast-forward to a week later when we visited our Jazz-fan-friend again and he took us back to his uncle's shop. His uncle knew that I had my heart set on one rug in particular, so he sneakily had his staff bury it in the piles so it would still be there when we came back! What luck! (And seller's intuition!) I was so happy to spend my hard-earned cash on this beautiful piece and it sits in my living room today and makes me happy every time I see it. This began a now-favorite tradition of buying local goods such as textiles or ceramics or candles when I travel—practical objects that carry their own stories and memories but serve very useful functions in my everyday life.

Every action film that has a scene in the medina has hit the nail on the head—it's so easy to get lost in these twists and turns. It's also utterly mesmerizing.

These photos, with their telltale blue backgrounds, are both from Chefchaouen. The more rustic wool textiles in the photo above remind me a lot of some of the ponchos and other woven items my Dad brought back from the Andes mountains when he went to Chile in 2000. They share something of the same mountain-region heartiness. I love that in two entirely different parts of the world, there is something of a resonance between the artisan wares which have been so influenced by their natural environs.

Walking through the marketplaces of Chefchaouen was a singular experience. The feel of the town changed dramatically based on the time of day. During the daytime hours, vendors are open for business, their wares spread and sprawling at the thresholds of the shops. A small plaza was flanked with rugs hung on plastered walls, the corners just barely flapping in the breeze. The canyons of the narrow streets and tall buildings reminded me so much of Siena. The sunlight caught the rug fibers at an oblique angle, adding further texture to these beautiful weavings. In the evening, the shops closed up for the day, with their wares packed tightly inside and the streets left feeling bare without so much movement and texture filling their echoing spaces.

These gorgeous (silk?) thread spools were also in Chefchaouen.

in Chefchaouen - a local textile maker's loom, paused in the midst of work.

The rugs in the photos immediately above and below are silk pieces for sale at the rug co-op in Fez. The colors and textures were absolutely gorgeous—though silk rugs are typically intended for display or wall-hangings, fiber properties being much more fragile as they are. In Fez, we had hired a local guide to take us around, which we organized through the place we stayed (originally we had booked fairly regular/low-budget accommodations at a local hostel—upon arrival, they informed us they were overbooked and did not have space for us. So the proprietors put us up at one of their nearby properties at no extra cost—the upgraded digs ended up being a very nice resort property, where they also connected us with a local guide. He showed us through the medina in Fez and could point out minute observations we would have been oblivious to otherwise. Fez was the only city where we did that but I loved the experience and it was a wonderful moment of cultural exchange in hearing our guide's experiences being raised there and his insight into some of the cultural traditions and customs, such as communal bread ovens, processing olives, and local industry like the leather tanneries). He recommended we visit the local rug co-op, as we were sure to get fair prices there for high-quality pieces—the prices at the co-op were set by the government and were more fair as there wasn't a bartering process in place. We also had the benefit of hearing from employees of the co-op how the rugs were made and seeing more behind the scenes.

above: cactus silk threads/fibers

vegan silk - the process of spinning cactus silk as seen in Fez

The small white parcel above is the rug I bought at the co-op in Fez—the red rug pictured below. It was truly impressive how tightly they wrapped it up—it was small enough (but still dense and heavy!) to fit into my carry-on suitcase, also pictured above. My larger wool rug from Marrakesh came home in a large duffel bag I had brought for the purpose—I was worried the rug would cause the duffel bag's zipper to burst, so I tracked down a hardware store and bought a roll of duct tape which I used to reinforce the seams and zipper of the duffel bag. I was nothing if not committed to bringing my rugs home in one piece! I was also careful during my trip not to purchase anything that exceeded the customs limit of $800 total (I declared my items and their value, but did not have to go through any additional steps upon arrival back in the States because my items did not exceed the $800 limit. I had planned this in advance and so I was very intentional with my purchases).

above and immediately below: wool rug from the Fez co-op

pashmina in a traditional Berber motif

The photos of the pashmina scarf above are one of my other favorite textiles from Morocco. I found several scarves in this style at the clothing shop of the man I mentioned earlier, who Tippe and I met because of his Utah Jazz baseball cap. I asked him about this style of pashmina, because the pattern was so different from the usual paisley pashminas I was used to seeing. He told me that this was a traditional Berber motif! I loved hearing that so much and I bought one of those scarves to memorialize another Moroccan textile tradition in my closet.

I don't have photographs in this post, but some other textiles I bought in Morocco were kilim pillowcovers—I gave some as gifts but kept one which I still need to buy an insert for and use! Kilim are a type of woven textile made from cactus silk. I loved the fact that we saw a man spinning cactus silk and then also saw the finished product in the form of kilim. I bought kilim pillowcovers, but there are also many styles of kilim rugs that are really beautiful. I also bought a Moroccan wedding blanket (visible in the background of this photo) which I use as a cover of sorts on my velvet armchair in my bedroom. The sequins on it are made from real silver and have the loveliest tinkling sound! I also got a couple smaller Moroccan wedding blankets which I gave as Christmas gifts to friends.

Around the time that I went to Morocco, I found a book on clearance called "Marrakesh by Design" that featured many traditional arts and crafts from Morocco (not just Marrakesh). I read the book in its entirety and in that way learned a lot about many different artisans whose work in traditional mediums is seen all over the country. Between this book and what I learned while on my trip, I felt as though I had experienced a masterclass of sorts in Moroccan textiles and tilework. I hope this post is helpful if you find yourself similarly drawn to the gorgeous wares of Moroccan artisans, and hopefully it helps illustrate the regional differences apparent in their work and specialties. I know I barely scratched the surface during my week visiting Morocco years ago, but it was a wonderful experience nonetheless and one that I will never forget.

If you have read or followed my blog for any considerable length of time, you may know that I am in a (losing?) battle of playing catch-up with my photos and related writings of the last several years. I remain undeterred, so without further ado—this, the latest installment of my blog backlog.

In late July 2017, I was visiting my parents and we went to the Brandywine River Museum to see "Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect," a show in honor of the artist's 100th birthday. I have always loved the Wyeths and for fellow Wyeth-lovers, the Brandywine River Museum is an essential museum experience. The museum is built in an old mill on the Brandywine River in Chadds Ford, PA and the modern museum architecture has multi-story panoramic windows looking out over the river. A summer visit to the museum is incredibly lovely, with the lush greenery of the gardens outside and along the riverbanks. Standing on an upper story of the museum, you can look out directly into the treetops and watch as boaters on kayak or canoe pass by on the waters below.

When I was in high school, my art teacher, Mrs. Mortimer, did the most incredible job of connecting and interrelating so many artists and periods of art history, including a great deal of local artists. In hindsight, I see how amazing our class field trips were—we visited the Brandywine River Museum, saw the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and visited the Delaware Art Museum after studying the PRB (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) and Dale Chihuly (an installation of his "Persians" is on view there). In her class is where I learned about and fell in love with the work of Maxfield Parrish (that Parrish blue!) and so many other artists.

Back to the Brandywine—the museum features the works of three generations of Wyeths—N.C., Andrew, and Jamie. N.C. was part of the contingent of artists and illustrators in the area during the "Golden Age of Illustration." Among them, Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parrish were others from the Philadelphia region and some of their work is included in the museum's holdings as well. My favorite pieces by N.C. are the monumental illustrations for books like "Treasure Island." My family has a copy of "Treasure Island" with Wyeth's illustrations and the endpaper is so menacing and perfect. I remember my Aunt Julia visiting when I was a kid and she read aloud to us from "Treasure Island" and we pored over the illustrations together. It is fascinating to walk through the museum and see the original paintings for the book, which are enormous and filled with incredible texture, use of color and light, and detail. It is also amazing to see the artistic influences passed from father to son and to note where there are obvious overlaps in the Wyeths' technical training and subject matter. Of the three artists, I certainly have a fondness for N.C.'s work, and it is always interesting to consider that Jamie was a contemporary of Andy Warhol, but Andrew Wyeth remains my favorite. His landscapes and scenery are spare but rich with texture and detail. I bought several postcards from the exhibit and have rotated them through among my art hanging on my bedroom walls. Following, some of my favorites from the exhibit, in photos.

The painting pictured above is titled "Goodbye" (2008) and was Wyeth's last painting before his death in 2009. The text panel below shares more details of the painting, depicting one of the Wyeth's familiar Maine locales. 

The painting above is titled "Hoffman's Slough" and is a view of a Brandywine Valley landscape familiar to and frequented by Wyeth. The horizon just barely dips below the top of the frame and once again, I am stunned by Wyeth's landscapes and the enveloping presence he imbues them with. The detail shot below illustrates further the dramatic sense of scale at play here—the only apparent structures being a tiny house and barn just below the horizon near the top edge of the painting. I love the light from the unseen sky reflected in the water of this shadowy landscape.

My postcard souvenirs from the exhibit feature the paintings above and below. <3

I think another of the reasons I love Wyeth's work so is that so much of his subject matter resonates in its familiarity and nostalgic qualities. Because I grew up so near to where he lived, his subject landscapes and structures carry such a feeling of home for me.

so much gorgeous texture and light in this exterior photo of the museum. I love the warm red brick juxtaposed against the greenery. Rustic vernacular architecture with its use of found stones remains one of my favorite types.

"Trodden Weed," which has something of the ethos of Albrecht Dürer's "Great Piece of Turf" (another piece which was the subject of my high school art class's study).

The millstones from the mill's operational days are embedded in pavement and stone walkways throughout the museum complex. The museum's logo also features one such millstone and I love it so.

above and below: the gardens outside the museum, ft. cosmos and sculptures

the lace curtains!! and worn roller shade! So exquisite.

This is the view of the river outside the museum. It's such a beautiful valley, and Terrain and Longwood Gardens are both very closeby!

above: a beautiful stone barn located near the museum. My dad obligingly pulled the car over so I could get out and take a photo, as I am wont to do.

It's been so long since I have been to the Brandywine (my last visit was in late August 2019) and I hope that I get to visit again soon (post-pandemic, naturally), as it remains a longtime favorite. If you ever find yourself in the Philadelphia area, I promise it is well worth the trek outside of the city to see it.

. . . . 

on a related note: this 2017 piece in the NYTimes Arts & Design section (written at the time the retrospective exhibit opened) is a fascinating read on Andrew Wyeth's treatment of race in his art. I think the ethos of the piece is really important—Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, an art historian and professor, sought to identify and acknowledge the power dynamics and disparities at play in Wyeth's work. I think this is a very important perspective to consider when viewing art (of any kind) that addresses race and considering the creator or writer and what claims they have, or don't, to making such depictions, as well as whether their representation is clouded or colored by an imbalance of power or authority. An interesting read with so much practical implication as well.

I have wanted a tote bag like this for a long time, so I finally decided to make it myself! I used my own photos from many a past summer hike as my reference points for all of these wildflowers.

the varieties enumerated: coneflowers, mountain blue bells, scarlet gilia, forget-me-nots, arrowleaf balsamroot, columbine, lupines (my favorite), geraniums, sweet pea, indian paintbrush, asters, sego lily, and wild roses. I saw sego lilies in the wild several times last summer and it never ceased to thrill me.

(you can see some of my pencil lines behind the final text—I dramatically changed the direction I was going with the typeface and I love the results so much)

In a later addition to the back side, I added a tiger swallowtail butterfly, as I frequently see them when hiking the Cottonwood Canyons (pictured above, also: a picnic blanket I made from estate sale twin bedsheets).

A progress shot, which incidentally depicts some of the differences of my original design/idea versus its final execution. Often I make small adjustments while working on a project, based on assessments of negative space, balance, and overall cohesion. I love how it turned out in the end and I've already put this tote to good use for many a picnic.

"Far From the Madding Crowd" is a perfect movie for many reasons. One among them is the perfect selection of scarf looks. Here is a sampling for your viewing pleasure and fashion reference points. Bathsheba Everdene forever.

This double bow!! This movie also features many beautiful and exquisite hats; Ms. Everdene's milliner has perfect taste. I limited this post to only scarves, but there are a few crossovers, including this hat-bow look.

(the fern hollow! that hair bow!)

And a scarf look from the final scenes of the movie (spoiler alert). I'm long overdue for a reread of the novel, but an online viewing in tandem with a few friends and a digital chat thread was just the ticket.