The NERS Blog

The Three Grouchos Baluch

Bob Alimi — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:20:16 +0000

Nothing says “Baluch” quite like the Baluch “bird” motif. Found on bags and rugs ranging from funky to elegant, and featured on the covers of numerous books exploring “Baluch Group” weavings, the Baluch bird is the quintessential Baluch design element. A prayer rug I recently purchased sheds some light as to why these birds are (almost) always drawn in profile.

Who would have guessed that, viewed head-on, these birds bear a fairly remarkable resemblance to Groucho Marx! I’ve christened this rug “The Three Grouchos Baluch”.

MFA Caucasian Carpets

John Clift — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:28:14 +0000

There are four 18th Cent. Caucasian carpets on display at the Huntington Avenue entrance on the 2nd floor. They include the “Gohdar” carpet, which has an Armenian inscription at one end.

NERS Website – Some Facts and Figures

Bob Alimi — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:35:49 +0000

The NERS website went online in the early part of 2002. In the past 8 1/2 years, the website has grown substantially, mostly in the area of online exhibitions. Here’s a look at the current number of files in place on the NERS site as well as the average monthly visitor count.

Visitors find the NERS website in a number of ways, including links from other sites and as the result of search engine queries. The website logs include the search terms that visitors have used to find the site. Here’s a look at the top 20 search terms that were used to find the NERS site during the week of Aug 1, 2010:

Visitors are located in a wide variety of countries, but the vast majority come from the US. For the week of Aug 1, 2010, we had visitors from 52 different countries. Here’s a look at that data, sorted by megabytes consumed in bandwidth, by country.

The hosting service we’ve used since day-one is downtownhost.com and they’ve consistently provided excellent support. The costs have gone down as the bandwidth and storage allotments have increased substantially. The website costs are currently less than $100 annually for the hosting service. Annual domain name registration is a separate nominal fee. Overall, it’s a pretty good bargain.

Website updates for 2010 include the following:

new online exhibition ( Small Weavings of the South Persian Nomads )
adding member dues payment via paypal
adding Google Maps into the Meeting Directions page
adding Google Calendar link to the Meetings page for Google Calendar users
adding a Facebook “Like” button for Facebook users (for the NERS Facebook page)
adding the WordPress blog software

It’s hoped that the NERS website helps members keep informed about NERS activities and provides non-members with some useful information regarding antique rugs and textiles.

-Bob

2009 NERS Picnic Photos

Bob Alimi — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:08:35 +0000

The 2009 NERS Picnic and Moth-Market took place on May 16th. For the second year in a row it was held at The Gore Place in Waltham, MA. The weather cooperated nicely, although it got a little chilly when the sun disappeared for a bit during the show and tell portion of the program. You may notice some folks with rugs and textiles wrapped around their shoulders in the photo gallery images.