Weaving Up Close with Babajan

Tara Young at Etsy recently got a behind-the-scenes look at the Pets with Fez weaving shop in Los Angeles in this charming video:

Master weaver Babajan of the Los Angeles weaving shop, Pets With Fez, wove his first rug at the age of six, a lovely tapestry sampler populated by frogs and turtles. He grew up in San Francisco, the son of a Kurdish shepherd who fought in World War I as a teenager before emigrating to the States. Baba’s father worried that in America there were no programs where his sons could learn the cultural traditions of his homeland. So the extended family came together to run an after-school program modeled on their villages. Aunts, uncles — whomever knew a technique — would give lessons in traditional weaving, music, and languages. Baba and his brothers all studied weaving but it became clear that it was only a calling for Baba.