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The loopy swirls, not so angular squares and the amoeba shapes running amok on the latest rugs look familiar. They resemble the doodles inked in on the end pages of your high school algebra book. Only now these shapes reign in their full glory in a spectrum of color, fleshed out with high-quality wool on a canvas larger than any textbook. But it turns out that today’s rug designers aren’t the first ones to resurrect their lowly scribbles for high art. Our parents and grandparents beat them to it, darn it. “In the mid-1950s, you saw big patterns on the floor, solid colors on the sofa,” says hand-weaver Vincent Carleton. “Then it was vice versa,” he says. “Now there’s a new acceptance for color and design on the floor.”
