ing It All
The Carpet

44

kitaitteat,

The founder
of Detroit's
Oriental Rug
Society has
been a rug
aficionado for
as long as he
can remember.

avid Morrison's in-laws had just stepped in
the front door when he asked them, politely
but firmly, to remove their shoes.
His wife, Deborah Roberts, stood beside
him in their Huntington Woods home, where
toy birds sit in plants and tea cups are dec-
orated with bunnies and the three Morrison
girls' boots of various sizes and colors are piled
high, like a bright little mountain, in the front
hallway.
Ms. Roberts was slightly flustered but not
surprised.
After all, she was used to her husband vac-
uuming at least once a day..She had come to
terms with his subscription to a pricey, very
pricey, magazine that virtually no one else
in the world has ever even heard of. And yes,
she had made peace with the way Mr. Mor-
rison reacts when someone spills something
on his treasures.
"It's like I have an out-of-body experience,"
he says frankly.
The source of it all is, in a word, rugs.
Of course it's not just any rugs. Mr. Mor-
rison is cordial when discussing rugs of the
garden variety — those Oriental wanna-bes
from discount stores or the handmade car-
pets produced en masse in China.
But what really gets him excited is Ori-
ental rugs.
"Sometimes I go in a rug store and it's like
I died and went to heaven," he says.
Mr. Morrison is founder and head of the
Detroit Oriental Rug Society, the first of its
kind in Michigan but only one of many such
societies worldwide. The groups' gatherings
are the one place where rug aficionados like
Mr. Morrison can be themselves — where
they can speak, without embarrassment,
about how they vacuum daily and ask guests
to remove their shoes (salt and dirt can
literally destroy a rug) before entering
their home. It is a place where they need not
sweep their feelings under the carpet, so to
speak.
The Oriental Rug Society of Detroit is like-
ly to receive a major boost in membership
this month as the organization has just se-
cured a major carpet coup: Mary Jo Otsea,
vice president and director of the Oriental
and European carpets department of Sothe-
by's, will speak 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30 at the Birm-
ingham Community Center. The event is free
and open to the public.
A Detroit native and member of the Hunt-
ington Woods Minyan, Mr. Morrison said his
interest in rugs began when he was a boy.
"I used to go to my grandmother's house
— she was this outrageous Bohemian Russ-
ian woman who sang and played the piano
and made her own clothes."
She also had a lot of Oriental rugs, which
young David found fascinating. He loved the
colors, the art, the durability.
Imagine the thrill, then, when his grand-
mother gave one of her carpets — a Sarouq,
deep burgundy with floral designs — to
David's mother. Yes, it was right there in his
own home. Paradise.

PHOTOS BY MARSHA SUNDQU IST

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR

David Morrison

That was enough to get David
reading not the usual boy stuff
about ship captains and detectives
and dogs that disappear and then come home
in emotion-packed reunions. His favorite sub-
ject was carpets. "Reading is how you can re-
ally learn," he says. "It gave me a whole new
perspective."
(There are many books on the subject, as

CARPET page 16

Left: There are three carpets on the
floor and three hung on the wall "and
it's not enough."

Above,:The Royal Oak rug showing
Rachel's tomb.

