Tribal Tales: Every Rug Tells a Story

Prayer rug from Turkey northern Capadocia

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Susan Gomersall will share her experiences and the knowledge that she gained from travelling throughout Central and South Asia from the 1970s until the early 2000s. She developed a love of kilim carpets by buying, selling, touching and, in some cases, smelling thousands of them in small villages throughout the region. In the course of her travels, she learned that rugs made by families with yarn from their own sheep and goats were essential not just for income but for the comfort of the home – to sleep on, eat off and to pray on. Often, the identity of the Tribe could be discovered by their designs – their size, shape, patterns and the weaving technique. All tell a story.

Susan was born in England and received a post-graduate degree in Fine Arts from the University of Reading in Berkshire. She was then awarded a two-year scholarship to study sculpture at the Polytechnic in Greece where she acquired her longstanding love of kilim carpets and, from there, forged a life that brought together people from opposite sides of the world through carpets. She relocated to USA in the 1980’s and opened Tribal Rug Gallery in Brooklyn NY in 2001. Her current gallery – Kea Kilims and Carpets – is located in Hudson NY. Susan is the author of Kilim Rugs: Tribal Tales in Wool.