mischer’traxler

day-by-day rug for Nodus is a system for hand knotted rugs which is designed to visualize human labour and the working time of one, respectively, two carpet makers to produce one carpet. The resulting rugs are always unique pieces, since the pattern incorporates the working rhythm of the makers into the final design.
Depending on the size and ‘resolution’ of a carpet, it takes several weeks up to several months to produce a hand-knotted rug. This amount of labour is often underestimated and unnoticed. day by day-rug makes this labour visible and values it by incorporating it into the design.
A polygon shaped carpet is using a cell structure pattern as a basic grid which is filled day by day with a pair of colours. Every working-day, the worker is using two different colours to fill the pattern. This generates a coloured stripe, – an abstract record of one working day. Day by day the carpet fills up with more stripes for each day. Some stripes will be thinner and some will be thicker, depending on the rug’s shape, the working hours, and also the daily condition of the worker – a working diary, manifested in the rug. Each working day is translated into the pattern of the rug and by doing so, each piece becomes as unique as its maker while at the same time unveiling the exact amount of working days per carpet. To underline this, the carpet carries a label with the name, age and gender of the worker(s) and the start and finishing date.
day by day-rug is a production method which can be applied to nearly any size. The rugs are made from naturally dyed wool and are hand knotted in Nepal. So far there is a green and a red version.