“How can you tell if it’s handwoven or if it’s fake?”
We were standing in the middle of a kaleidoscope of authentic, handwoven carpets at a women’s cooperative in Ait Benhadu, Morocco.
The women who operate and manage this incredible cooperative had just finished giving us a tour of their facility. We saw thousands of stunning carpets, and were given a demonstration of how they create them – from washing and carding the wool to weaving the colourful, intricate designs.
I was in absolute awe of the artistry that went into creating these carpets. Each one was like an exquisite painting, and it felt almost sacrilegious to put them on the floor and step on them.
These creations represented months of work and some took up to a year to complete. No two carpets are the same, and all are created solely from the weaver’s imagination without the use of patterns or guidelines. The carpet takes shape and comes to life as the artist weaves it.
I think my jaw hit the floor multiple times while we were there.
We had already seen hundreds of carpets for sale in roadside stands and shops during our time in Morocco, and I wondered how a Canadian tourist could tell whether they were truly handmade or if they were just high-priced, machine-woven knockoffs.
So I asked,
“How can you tell if it’s handwoven or if it’s fake?”
The answer was simple yet truly profound. She picked up one of the carpets and asked me to study it carefully before she said,
“Look for the imperfections. Hand-woven carpets will have imperfections – perhaps there are threads at the end that are hanging off or maybe there is a small variation or mistake in the pattern. Machine-woven carpets won’t have those imperfections.”
To determine the authenticity of a hand-woven carpet, you had to look for imperfections.
Not to fix them or to hide them,
But to determine its value
If it was “perfect” it was machine woven and, therefore, not nearly as valuable as an imperfect, flawed, hand-woven carpet.
We can waste a lot of time and energy trying desperately to fix or hide the imperfections we perceive in ourselves or in those we love.
We can hide our gifts and talents and allow them to remain unused and unseen because we just don’t think they’re good enough.
We may think we have just too many flaws and too many imperfections to be deemed worthy or valuable.
But what if you viewed yourself,
Your loved ones,
Your gifts and talents,
Like a handwoven carpet.
And saw that it’s actually those small variances that authentically increase the value of whatever it is that you’re looking at.
Maybe you’d start to see masterpieces
Instead of mistakes.
