Many, many years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, I was a young, single girl living in a sparsely furnished yet fabulous apartment with my best friend and roommate Jenny.
It was winter, a snowy one, and we were both casting about for something to do in front of the TV in the evenings that did not involve hard physical exercise, or food. I was looking through a catalog, and happened to notice kits for hooked rugs.
"These look kind of easy to do," I said, and Jenny agreed. We each chose one as a project.
I do not remember what Jenny's looked like, but I remember that the finished project was to be about one foot by two feet - perhaps the area of a doormat. A nice, reasonable project.
My eye was caught by a replica of the famous tapestry The Unicorn in Captivity. The original is one of a series called The Hunt of the Unicorn; there are seven tapestries in the series and they were created between 1495 and 1505, perhaps in Brussels.
Their original purpose is unclear, but it is thought that they were woven to celebrate a wedding; the letters "A" and "E" are intertwined throughout. The tapestries are full of symbolic objects both Christian and pagan, most notably the unicorn itself. This mythical beastie symbolized many things to the medieval mind, among them wisdom, purity and love; some experts believe that the pursuit, capture and bloodying of the unicorn represents the passion of Christ. The original tapestries are now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The hooked rug, like the tapestry, had a lot of vines and leaves on a black background, and of course the unicorn sitting in a fenced area in the middle. I knew a little about the famous tapestries, and thought the hooked rug would be pretty, plus the symbolic unicorn thing would lend a bit of middle-ages chic to our charming urban hovel.
It also reminded me of one of my favorite James Thurber fables.
What I did not realize was that the completed rug would be seven feet long by four feet wide.
When the kit arrived and I unfolded the monster of a canvas, I realized that this was more than a little project for a few evenings. But, undaunted, I started working away at it.
It took more than two years to complete.
When it was finished, two apartments and several roommates later, a testament to my folly and perseveration, I could not bring myself to put it on the floor and walk on it. So, I took it to a framer, and had it clapped between two endposts of wood, to hang it on the wall. A very large wall.
It was winter, a snowy one, and we were both casting about for something to do in front of the TV in the evenings that did not involve hard physical exercise, or food. I was looking through a catalog, and happened to notice kits for hooked rugs.
"These look kind of easy to do," I said, and Jenny agreed. We each chose one as a project.
I do not remember what Jenny's looked like, but I remember that the finished project was to be about one foot by two feet - perhaps the area of a doormat. A nice, reasonable project.
My eye was caught by a replica of the famous tapestry The Unicorn in Captivity. The original is one of a series called The Hunt of the Unicorn; there are seven tapestries in the series and they were created between 1495 and 1505, perhaps in Brussels.
Their original purpose is unclear, but it is thought that they were woven to celebrate a wedding; the letters "A" and "E" are intertwined throughout. The tapestries are full of symbolic objects both Christian and pagan, most notably the unicorn itself. This mythical beastie symbolized many things to the medieval mind, among them wisdom, purity and love; some experts believe that the pursuit, capture and bloodying of the unicorn represents the passion of Christ. The original tapestries are now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The hooked rug, like the tapestry, had a lot of vines and leaves on a black background, and of course the unicorn sitting in a fenced area in the middle. I knew a little about the famous tapestries, and thought the hooked rug would be pretty, plus the symbolic unicorn thing would lend a bit of middle-ages chic to our charming urban hovel.
It also reminded me of one of my favorite James Thurber fables.
What I did not realize was that the completed rug would be seven feet long by four feet wide.
When the kit arrived and I unfolded the monster of a canvas, I realized that this was more than a little project for a few evenings. But, undaunted, I started working away at it.
It took more than two years to complete.
When it was finished, two apartments and several roommates later, a testament to my folly and perseveration, I could not bring myself to put it on the floor and walk on it. So, I took it to a framer, and had it clapped between two endposts of wood, to hang it on the wall. A very large wall.
And hang it I did, in my single-girl townhouse that I liked to call "Eclecticon."
Not everyone shared my enthusiasm for the piece. One soon-to-be-erstwhile suitor took a look at it and laughed, "Where did you get that? A medieval garage sale?"
Heh, heh.
Eventually, after Norm and I married and I left my single, bohemian lifestyle behind (for a married, bohemian lifestyle) I retired the unicorn, and it has been in captivity, rolled-up in the attic ever since, a mythical symbol of my carefree and foolish youth.
It had a brief moment in the sun two years ago, when it graced the set of Spencer's seventh-grade play about Eleanor of Aquitaine.
This year it will turn thirty years old, and is becoming an actual antique (not unlike its owner). Lately, I have been thinking about getting it out and hanging it once again, fifteenth-century kitsch or not.
I am sure James Thurber would approve.
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