Perception ~ Interpretation

As in literature and music, rug hooking is also left to the individual for interpretation.  The other day I posted a photo of a folky homestead with a patriotic theme.  

A seasoned rug hooker friend of mine interpreted the piece as a bird house. Until she said that I'd interpreted the design as a house with garden in front and the grey strip below the house and "Y" shapes as walkway and driveway.  How do you interpret it?

Below  is a pattern called Gossip by Woolley Fox.  Excuse the red drawing as those were my personal changes to the design.  But you can see the images along the sides and bottom.

Back in June before starting hooking the pattern I asked my readers if they saw the images as leaves or feathers.  Frankly either way would be okay as the birds are on tree limbs so leaves would be quite normal.  I decided they should be feathers to go with the birds and the dark on all four sides would act as an inside border of sorts.

However, my friend Deb perceived those shapes as leaves.  Note she followed the original pattern and didn't change the bird shapes as I did.

Deb was inspired by the leaf shapes in the antique Domestic Zoo design, a section of which is posted below so you can see those leaves.  

This rug was hooked by me and if you wish to purchase a pattern click on the link just above.

Since we are talking about interpretation there are several elements in  Domestic Zoo which had me thinking as I was pulling loops.  That made this big rug even more fun and fast to hook since it didn't take long to hook a motif and hook a row of background around.  

In addition to the cats, horse, donkey, birds and snakes I saw apples, a pear, leaves, hearts, bird house and cherries.  So even a busy runner like that is up for interpretation.

Seems to me I had another design in my head as another example but forget what it was now.  Happy hump day.

Saundra