howe version4ahendersonrev
TRANSCRIPT
On March 29, 2014, Jim and Connie Henderson
Gave a Rug and Textile Appreciation Morning program entitled “The Benefits and Pleasures Documenting Your Collection.”
Jim and Connie are well-known members of the U.S. textile community. They were among the founders of both the Cleveland Rug Society and the American Conferences of Oriental Carpets, and have been long-time members of both the NYC Hajji Baba Society and the Washington-area International Hajji Babas.
In their professional lives, Jim has been a physicist, initially working to invent and develop new GE lighting sources and systems, then various technology management positions. Connie managed non-profits and public libraries, and currently serves on a regional library board. They live on a farm in a rural area near Smithfield and Williamsburg, Virginia .
Jim and Connie began by indicating that the roots of their documentation of their textile (and textile book) collections can be traced to a suggestion by Russell Pickering when he talked to the Cleveland Rug Society in the early 1980s.
Russ was, and is, a pioneer in the study of flat-woven Islamic textiles as well as those from Morocco.
Russell credits his own move to document his collection (in the 1960s) to a remark by his first wife who, after Russell had bought a few pieces, asked “What are you going to do with the things in the maid’s room?”
This led him to an initial effort to document (Russell tells this story in more detail below).
Now you need to remember that this was in the 60s and not much was known or published about oriental textiles, so Russell was left pretty much on his own in this effort.
He has shared with me a paper he published among members of the NYC Hajji Baba members in which he undertook to document the pieces he had. I’ll share his introductory remarks and a few instances from this publication to make his effort concrete.
Here we go. This is Russell talking, now.
Howe comment:
If this piece is, in fact, in sumak, it would be very rare indeed.
One would like to have it in hand.
Now this is John Howe, talking, again. Joe McMullan established a kind of foundation to encourage and support research and publication efforts focused on Islamic textiles. It is called the "Near Eastern Art Research Center." McMullan appoointed Russell, first as its treasurer and then to head it, and he has, until he recently passed the reins to Bruce Baganz.
This foundation recognizes folks who have practiced and exhibited particular qualities in their oriental rug and textile collecting and scholarship by awarding them the "McMullan Award.“
Russell often says that it is not sufficient just to assemble an array of even high quality material.
One should also organize, analyze and write about it, even if only for oneself, and this standard is reflected in the criteria used to determine who is deserving of the McMullan Award.
Recently over lunch in his apartment, Russell tore off part of an envelope and wrote these elements down so that I wouldn't forget them.
“Search and seizure” is very much a part, but then one needs to “organize” and I think the question mark is for “documentation.” But the third (and top point) of the McMullan award triangle is “stewardship.”
“Stewardship” is “what you do with what you’ve got, and points toward some kind of writing about your collection.
Russell Pickering has not only practiced and exhibited "stewardship" in his rug and textile collecting and writing. As this line of folks who have earned the McMullan Award demonstrates, he has been a force for propagating and recognizing it.
So that's the background that Jim and Connie Henderson explicitly credit as triggering their own documentation of their collection.
The producers of The Textile Museum's RTAM solicited this program because Jim and Connie have done one of the best jobs of such documenting that we have seen.
Here is the most recent line-up (at the ICOC in 2010 in Stockholm) of rug devotees and scholars who have been given the McMullan Award.
Michael Jim Mike Dennis Danny Tom Wendel BruceFranses Burns Tschebull Dodds Shaffer Farnham Swan Baganz
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