Art and Design Commons^™

A New Unit For Study And Research The Textile Museum And The George Washington University In Washington, D.C, Sumru Belger Krody

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

France, so renowned for its fashion, has only recently begun to consider it as a subject of theoretical study; and French historiographical projects, when they dealt with fashion, were primarily concerned with the history of dress and the work of the designers, but hardly took the textile fabrics into account. The stuff of which fashion is made, its particular materiality, its history and its impact on the history of dress and fashion were too often overlooked.

In 2012, the President of the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) decided to start a program for the study of dress, textiles and fashion at …

Who Were Joanne Segal Brandford And Lillian Elliott? The Brandford/Elliott Award, Catherine K. Hunter

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Joanne Segal Brandford and Lillian Elliott were key innovators in fiber art and basketry for 30 years. They were colleagues along with Ed Rossbach in the Design Department of the University of California, Berkeley, in the late ‘60s, when the contemporary basket movement began. Brandford’s foundation was in textile history and Elliott had a broad background in art. Drawing on different backgrounds and philosophies, they represented and encouraged creativity and experimentation in fiber art. Subsequently, Brandford and Elliott influenced several generations of students, curators, collectors and artists. Following their deaths in 1994, the Brandford/ Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber …

Textile Materials And Techniques In Central Europe In The 2nd And 1st Millennia Bc, Karina Grömer

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

For over a millennium, the site of Hallstatt, located in the Austrian Alps, was a meeting point between north and south, east and west, serving as a melting pot of new ideas and innovations. About 300 textile units (more than 700 single fragments) from Bronze and Iron Ages are known from the prehistoric salt mines, dating from 1500-300 BC. They display a wide range of textile techniques and provide insight in different aspects of textile craft. Their outstanding preservation allows us to investigate many crucial steps in the chaîne opératoire of textile production. The 2nd millennium BC is a time, …

Redefining Borders And Identity: Ethnic Dress Of The Lolo/Yi Across The Vietnam-China Border, Serena Lee

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This innovative work explores several intriguing topics new to the field of textiles. Based on multiple field studies conducted from 1999-2013 in the northern Vietnam provinces of Cao Bang and Ha Giang and the southwestern China provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan, this paper is unprecedented in its approach as a comparative study of ethnic dress among kinship groups living along both sides of the Vietnam-China borderline. It is also unique in its focus on the Flowery Lolo, Black Lolo, Red Lolo and White Lolo, small subgroups of ethnic minorities who remain unknown to outsiders. The identities and histories of these …

The Fabric For A City: Development Of Textile Materials During The Urbanization Period In Mediterranean Europe, Margarita Gleba

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Ancient literary sources indicate that, by the beginning of the Common Era, different textile types and qualities were available to Roman consumers and many of the best fibres were produced in Italy, from where they spread throughout the Roman Empire in the form of sheep, raw materials or finished textiles. The variety observed during the Roman times reflects a long period of evolution, based on selective breeding and cultivation, as well as development of new and more effective processing, spinning and weaving technologies. Recent investigations demonstrate that major changes in fibre development and processing took place in the Mediterranean Europe …

Before There Was Pinterest: Textile Study Rooms In North American “Art” Museums, Sarah Fee

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the roots and future of textile museum collections, display and curation in North America. The first half looks back, to the origins of dedicated textile galleries, museums, museum departments, and curators, and examines why this one medium was systematically singled out for special attention in early museums, who the early audiences were, and the methods for communicating textile collections. The history of textile curation and display at the Royal Ontario Museum, of Toronto, Canada, founded in 1914 as an encyclopedic museum, is examined as a fascinating and classic case study in point. The second part of the …

Innovation And Preservation Of Manichaean Textiles In Southern Costal China In The 17th – 20th Centuries, Gloria Granz Gonick

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

For over five hundred years a group of wool tapestries created in China have been stored in Japan. The tapestries are woven of soft wool, their surfaces hand painted with unusual motifs on backgrounds dyed the soft orange-red hue produced by the safflower plant. Their motifs are identified with the ancient Manichaean religion, considered extinct since the seventeenth century. The motifs and the layout of the tapestries’ design suggests that they functioned as mantles used by religious leaders. The Chinese government outlawed the Manichaean religion and prohibited its trappings, the laws strictly enforced as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) became firmly …

Reflecting On Collecting: My Romance With African Textiles, Joanne B. Eicher, Diana Eicher

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

As an academic arriving in Nigeria on a three-year university leave, I became fascinated by a wide variety of handcrafted textiles and began collecting them for personal use. I saw them everywhere as I traveled and found that little documentation seemed available By the end of my stay, the collection had burgeoned. My paper provides an account of the intertwining of collecting and my academic curiosity,resulting in an introductory volume followed by unexpected depth of fieldwork related to a specific and unusual specimen that also led to a bigger project.

Stitches Of War: Women’S Commentaries On Conflict In Latin America, Deborah A. Deacon

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In the past thirty years, new forms of women’s textiles began appearing throughout Latin America. The techniques used were not indigenous to the region, yet they were used as forms of self-expression of the horrors and sorrows the women experienced as the result of warfare in the region. In the 1970s Chilean artist Violeta Parra Sandoval introduced arpillera-making to women living in Santiago who experienced first hand the agony of having family members tortured, killed or “disappeared” at the hands of the government. Arpilleras use embroidery and appliqué to create scenes of repression, violence and loss. Banned within Chile and …

Natural Dyes And Aesthetic Search, María Dávila, Eduardo Portillo

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

We´re interested in presenting and transmitting our personal experiences through processes and materials which carry the imprint of peoples and places, which show us the relations between humankind and its environment. Color guides us, the route to follow is discovered through color.

Understanding the geographical and cultural context where the natural dyes come from is our guide and inspiration to interpret the geographical and cultural environment in which the textile work is done.

A vision to enhance a better understanding and appreciation of natural dyes as an element in textiles, its importance as a means to preserve and disseminate cultural …

The Obiko Archive, Jean Cacicedo, Ana Lisa Hedstrom

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This presentation will discuss the origin and development of a digital archive documenting the Art Wear movement in the Bay Area during the 80s and 90s. The co-producers, Jean Cacicedo and Ana Lisa Hedstrom, members of the Board of Directors of The Textile Art Council of the De Young Museum Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco will share visuals from the archive and address the issues in constructing this project.

It was decided that parameters were necessary, and the archive focuses on the designers for OBIKO, a boutique/ gallery founded in the 70’s by Sandra Sakata.

She was a creative …

Substitute Innovation: Rethinking The Failure Of Mid-Twentieth Century Regenerated Protein Fibres And Their Legacy, Mary M. Brooks

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Politicians and planners in Europe and America in the 1930s and 1940s were increasingly anxious about the availability of wool for military requirements and actively encouraged research into substitute fibres. Innovation energised by the needs of war informed the development of processes to transform proteins normally used for food (milk, soya, corn, and fish) or perceived as waste (egg whites, chicken feathers and slaughter-house products) into fibres. This paper explores both innovative technology and conceptual models of innovation as applied to substitute fibres which were intended to result in both technical and cultural shifts. Substitute innovation was used to modify …

Highland Complementary-Warp Weaving And The Lima Style In The Central Coast Of Peru, Ca. 200-650 C.E., Sophie Desrosiers

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

For more than a century, the geometric interlocking fish or snake designs appearing on Lima style artifacts - painted ceramics and walls, engraved gourds and wooden sculptures - have been considered as reproduction of designs created through textile means. An analysis of their characteristics shows that they fit well with designs obtained with weaving techniques still practiced today in the Peruvian highlands. This discovery allows reconstruction of the models of the interlocking designs. Then, comparing the reconstructed models with the small group of textiles with similar designs excavated in Lima sites, it becomes possible to understand better the mechanism at …

The Refining Of A Domestic Art: Surayia Rahman, Niaz Zaman, Cathy Stevulak

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Kantha or, as it is increasingly referred to now, nakshi kantha, is an important women’s domestic art of Bengal. Layers of old garments such as saris, lungis and dhotis are stitched into objects of functional, ritual, or ceremonial use. In Bangladesh, kantha was revived as a commercial activity to provide work for women left destitute after the 1971 war. In the mid-1980’s, it was further developed as a public art. One of the key players in this revival was Surayia Rahman, who refined a domestic art, for private use, into fine art, for public display. Initially an artist who painted …

Chitenje: The Production And Use Of Printed Cotton Cloth In Malawi, Sarah Worden

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A number of recent exhibitions and publications have discussed the pan-African production and use of factory print cotton cloth, for example, ‘Social Fabric. African Textiles Today’ at the British Museum (14 February -21 April 2013). However, there has been no substantive published research on the subject of the production and use of this cloth in Malawi. Historically cotton has been an important crop in Malawi, whilst imported cotton cloth a hugely significant trade commodity. The paper will contextualise the current trend in factory made cloth (chitenje pl. zitenje) within the longer run history of cotton in the country and will …

Textiles And The Virtual World Broadening Audience Engagement At The Textile Museum Of Canada, Roxane Shaughnessy

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Museums with textile collections face challenges in providing meaningful public access to these cultural objects. Textiles can only be displayed for limited periods to minimize damage from light and exposure, and the fragility of most textiles requires careful handling to prevent deterioration. Textile exhibitions and special visits to storage areas provide opportunities for public engagement with textiles. However until recently, the close study of materials and techniques required direct access to the object.

In recent years, the advent of the World Wide Web, digitization, and other technologies have afforded global access to museum textile collections, and enabled those interested to …

Embroidery As Inscription In The Life Of A Calabrian Immigrant Woman, Joan L. Saverino

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper explores the intersection of needlework, personal narrative, gender and artistic creativity in one immigrant woman’s extraordinary life in two out of the way places (Calabria and Appalachia) over the course of nearly a century. Anna Guarascio Peluso excelled in embroidered whitewear, the mark of a cultured woman in nineteenth century Calabria. As an immigrant to West Virginia, the art in its traditional form was incompatible with the new culture and life Anna entered. At the end of Anna’s life, narrative and needlework merged to produce one last project. A revival of the embroidery served as a vehicle for …

Interior Textiles And The Concept Of Atmospheres – A Case Study On The Architectural Potential Of Textiles In Danish Hospitals Interiors, Jeppe Emil Mogensen, Anna Marie Fisker, Søren Bolvig Poulsen

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The architecture of modern hospitals in the western world are often criticised of being too clinical and institutional, causing patient stress and general longer hospitalisation. However, in regards to the international focus on constructing new hospitals, new ideas are introduced and focus has shifted towards the design concept healing architecture, visioning an improved healing process supported by stimulating design and architecture.

In this paper we will relate to this future, and by examining the design history of textiles, we discuss how the use of textiles in hospital design can contribute to this vision of healing architecture.

Textiles in architecture has …

Navajo (Diné) Weavers And Globalization: Critiquing The Silences, Kathy A. M'Closkey

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Native Americans, along with the scenery, are primary attractions in New Mexico and Arizona, and tourism brings billions into the region annually. Since the Indian arts and crafts ‘boom’ in the 1970s, unemployment has increased dramatically on reservations where artisanal production provides essential income. Isleta carver Andy Abeita acknowledges that the world renowned recognition of southwest arts and crafts does not reflect what goes on within impoverished makers’ homes. Currently 80% of the 1.5 billion dollar sales annually of “Indian” products is fabricated and imported into the US. ‘Knock-offs’ flood the shelves of hundreds of retailers, ‘trading posts,’ casino gift …

More Than A Footnote Or Bibliographic Entry: Mary Lois Kissell As An Innovator Of Textile Study, Ira Jacknis, Erin L. Hasinoff

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Mary Lois Kissell was a pioneer in the comparative cultural study of textiles and basketry, an art educator, a museum anthropologist, and an intrepid fieldworker. When she died in 1944, no obituary was written about her, and no single study has focused on her contributions to textile scholarship. We have not come to know her through a single collection of personal papers; for as far as we can tell, nothing of the kind was ever deposited in a repository. The scattered correspondence that we have amassed by and about Kissell comes from various museum, library, historic society, and university archives …

Textile Art: Connecting The Virtual And Material In My Work, Janice Lessman-Moss

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

As a textile artist in the 21st century, I continue to aspire to make art objects that are unique and timely, characteristic of my individual sensibility and experience. Using the latest digital tools - including the TC1(2) Single Thread Control loom - I strive to animate my woven forms through material interaction and a distinctive touch built on a foundation of research and practice - based in digital and hand craft.

In my weavings I explore relationships of abstract systems created with traditional and innovative textile coloring techniques, material contrasts, and the generative processing of the computer and digital loom. …

Traditional Textile Design For Social Innovation Toward Sustainability In Japan, Yuko Fukatsu

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Japanese local textiles are too traditional to fit in our time, however they are all earth-friendly materials those of which are significant for the sustainable society in our future. In this paper, possibilities of re-designing traditional textiles made of natural fiber are explored with local weavers at Okinawa and Nagano in Japan. Talking with craftsmen from local communities I realized that not only current issues of textile techniques and products but also those of local communities and environment should be discussed and solved at the same time.

Also, I realized that activities and creativities of young generations are necessary to …

Challenging Tradition In Religious Textiles: The Mata Ni Pachedi Of India, Donald Clay Johnson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A community of block printers and dyers in the Indian state of Gujarat has concentrated upon producing religious textiles for nomadic groups. These unique textiles, known as Mata Ni Pachedi, fulfill the need for a religious representation/environment for groups who have no permanent settlement and thus need to construct temporary shrines for their religious ceremonies. The brilliant red, white, and black cloths portray events from the Mother Goddess tradition. Her depiction as the central and by far the largest representation, as well as the Hindu God Ganesh, distinctively identifies these religious cloths. Since the cloths need to be dried in …

Integrating The Evidence: Historic Silk Production In Context, Julia Galliker

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper presents the results of my PhD research which applies computer-based imaging technologies to examine historic silk production evidence more intensively than was formerly possible. My program combines high-resolution images with a computer vision software application to measure identifiable quality and workshop characteristics for weft-faced compound weave figured silks attributed to Mediterranean workshops between ca. AD 600-1200. For a variety of reasons, research progress for this category of textiles has slowed in recent years. While essential to protect fragile textiles from damage, the consequence of conservation standards has been reduced collections access. Resource constraints and changes in museum practices …

Pulling Strings: Textiles, Community And Diy In Post-Industrial Hamilton, Jen Anisef, Thea Haines, Tara Bursey

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In the city formerly known as Canada’s Steeltown, the economic recession of the 1990s, suburban sprawl, and the collapse of Hamilton’s steel industry had a devastating impact on the city’s vitality. An exodus of commercial retail and corporate tenancy from the core of the city left many buildings vacant. In the last decade, Hamilton’s creative community has emerged as a major force in downtown renewal, neighbourhood building, and civic engagement and pride. How do histories of manufacturing and processes of deindustrialization permeate local maker culture? How does a city’s history of industrial production intertwine with contemporary local craft and textile-based …

Communicating Textiles Within And Beyond Museum Walls: New Directions, Dinah Eastop

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Innovation in the past, present and future will be considered by reference to an extraordinary but little known collection: the textiles and dress preserved in the Board of Trade Representations and Registers of Designs, 1839-1991. This set of records is held at The National Archives [of the UK government] and contains records of nearly 3 million designs, registered by proprietors worldwide (but mostly UK and mainland Europe). Innovation in the past will demonstrated by this registration scheme which encouraged investment in design by enabling copyright control over both ornamental and useful designs, for many materials and products. Recognising design as …

Writing Textile, Making Text: Cloth And Stitch As Agency For Disorderly Text, Catherine Dormor

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses upon means and ways in which knowledge gained through textile practice can be expressed using language and imagery drawn from within that practice itself. In this it draws upon Žcriture feminine to develop a matrix of knowledge upon and within which text and textile intertwine. Here cloth and stitch are considered as co-agents for a disorderly text that dissolves boundaries between theoretical and practice-based concerns through a process that Bracha Ettinger refers to as ‘borderswerving’ (Ettinger 2006). In this paper such disorderly text or working in and through body, cloth and stitch, will be addressed through three …

Interwoven Connections: Examining The History Of Scottish Carpet Design To Inform Future Learning, Teaching And Research, Helena Britt

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

As with much of the textile industry in the United Kingdom, carpet manufacturing in the West of Scotland was once thriving. Powder was ground, paint mixed, design papers painted, yarn dyed, spools set and carpets woven. The history of the carpet manufacturing innovators, Stoddard Templeton, dates back to 1845 when James Templeton, a Scot and then Alfred Francis Stoddard, an American, began to produce carpets from disused Paisley shawl mills. The story is one of growth, expansion, worldwide prominence and unfortunately eventual decline. Stoddard Templeton produced carpets for a highly prestigious array of events and interiors including royal coronations and …

Rethinking The Tiwanaku Phenomenon In San Pedro De Atacama Through The Study Of Textiles Of Solcor 3 And Their Associated Contexts (400-1000 Ad), Carolina Aguero, Mauricio Uribe

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

From San Pedro de Atacama, Chile we examine the alleged relationship with Tiwanaku. Our investigation focuses on elaborate and plain textiles with associated ceramics and recent bio-archaeological data that allow us to question this relationship. We see a heterogeneous and unequal society in San Pedro rather than one that responds to a superior political entity and a culture born from a strong tension between dominant and subordinate groups. Discussing the funeral bundles discovered in Solcor-3 we characterize individuals who wear Tiwanaku textiles with their contextual associations and compare them to others who do not wear such textiles. Solcor-3 presents contexts …

Renoir To Remington: Impressionism To The American West, Anne M. Giangiulio

Anne M. Giangiulio

Catalog designed for the exhibition 'Renoir to Remington: Impressionism to the American West', on display from September 21, 2014 to February 1, 2015 at the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Gallery of the El Paso Museum of Art. Organized by the El Paso Museum of Art in partnership with Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington. 144 pages.