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Textile Society Of America Newsletter 26:3 — Fall 2014, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Newsletters

Letter from the President
Exciting Collaborations Lead to New Membership Benefits Valued at Over $110
Save the Date: Announcing Textiles Close Up 2015
Introductions & Welcome: New Members of the 2014–2016 Board of Directors
Symposium Highlights: Individuals' Reflections on the 14th Biennial Symposium
2013 Recipient: R. L. Shep Ethnic Textile Book Award
Founding Presidents Awardees at the 14th Biennial Symposium
Andrea Donnelly Honored with 12th Brandford/Elliott Award at Textile Symposium
Post-Symposium Tour Review: Kay Sekimachi Retrospective & Asian Textiles at the Mingei, Balboa Park, San Diego
TSA's Inaugural Juried Exhibition, Hosted by the Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los …

Laurus: After Dark. Fall 2014, Daley Eldorado, Sarah Benal, Emily Burns, Kirsten Clawson, Eric Holt, Sam Greenfield, Sean Stewart, Lori Nevole, Kayla Punt, Alexa Horn, Nicole Mosby, Abie Rohde, Michael Page, Dizzy Roberson, Samuel Lee, Emily Tran, Leonardo Casabella, Scott Sampson, Katie Cooley, Alec Kaus, Hannah Eads, Madeline Cass, Nicholas Wilkinson, Haley Heesacker, Mina Holmes, Evan Pillle

Laurus: Undergraduate Literature Journal of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Contents

Dizzy Roberson
“The Devil Is Just Left of the Spleen”...6

Samuel Lee
“Sonnet - To Punk”.....9
“Sonnet, Again”......26
“Sea of Trees”......42

Emily Tran
“Bloody Eyeballs”.....10

Leonardo Casabella
“The Broken Frame”.....11

Scott Sampson
“Packed”.......18

Katie Cooley
“Shades”.......19

Alec Kaus
“Warrant”......20
“Waiting”......25
“When the Night”.....44

Hannah Eads
“Blessed Be!”......21

Madeline Cass
“Scrimshaw”......23

Nicholas Wilkinson
“The Hunt”......27

Haley Heesacker
“The Lonely Pink Flower”.....35

Mina Holmes
“Sugar and Spice”.....36

Evan Pille
“To the Desk of Edgar L. Brandbum”...45

Contributor Bios......59

Editor Bios......62

Adinkra And Kente Cloth In History, Law, And Life, Boatema Boateng

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Adinkra and kente cloth have changed significantly in the course of their history first as markers of Asante royal power and then of Ghanaian cultural distinction. Once handmade and reserved for the exclusive use of the Asante ruler, cheap mass-produced reproductions now proliferate in Ghanaian markets. In attempting to use intellectual property law to regulate their appropriation, the Ghanaian state has set the conditions for further changes in these fabrics, their designs, and their sources of authority. This paper examines the implications of changing political and regulatory contexts for the past present and future meanings of adinkra and kente cloth …

Textiles And Museum Displays: Visible And Invisible Dimensions, Ruth Barnes

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The paper discusses changing attitudes towards textiles and their displays in museum collections. As a curator of textiles who has worked in two major university museums, at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Yale University Art Gallery, over a stretch of more than twenty years, I document a change in attitude to textile history and collections. Much of it is positive, as textiles have moved from a Cinderella role into a position where they are taken seriously both in art and social history.

The two museums mentioned above were recently the subjects of dramatic building projects, and I was …

Wikispaces: Technology, Textiles, And Public Engagement, Blaire O. Gagnon

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In a world where technology is constantly changing and cultural institutions such as universities and museums are being asked to do more with less, the question becomes how to improve efficiencies but also expand access. University based museums and collections, have, perhaps, an even greater challenge because their faculty and staff may focus on teaching, service, and publication in ways that do not directly support or integrate their collections or their collection/object related projects are turned primarily inward, through such projects as student papers. On the other hand, they have the opportunity to engage students in object-based research that can …

Conversations Between A Foreign Designer And Traditional Textile Artisans In India: Design Collaborations From The Artisan’S Perspective, Deborah Emmett

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Contemporary textile designers are part of a cultural shift that has brought into the mainstream a sense of ecological and social responsibility. Some are challenging the way the textile industry is conducted, questioning the existing business models. International media coverage has exposed the poor and unsafe working conditions of many of the people employed in this industry, cruelly demonstrated by the collapse in April 2013 of Rana Plaza, a garment manufacturing complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where 1127 workers died. This awareness has developed a social consciousness in many design communities, and as a result the development of ethical design practices. …

Flax Fibre: Innovation And Change In The Early Neolithic A Technological And Material Perspective, Susanna Harris

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Flax (Linum sp.) was one of the first domestic plants in Neolithic Europe, providing a potential cultivable source of fibres for the first farmers. As the plant provides both oil and fibre, it is a matter of enquiry as to whether the plant was first domesticated for its seeds or stem. Through examining new data collected by the EUROEVOL Project, UCL it is possible to chart the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for flax species in Europe. This provides the basis on which to consider the origin of fibres from the flax plant (linen) as a basis for change and innovation in …

Traditions, Tourists, Trends, Tracy P. Hudson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In many areas of the world, traditional textile cultures are being ‘kept alive’ or revived through the marketing of products for export and tourism. In some cases, marketability seems to be synonymous with the idea of a living textile tradition, as if a tradition cannot survive without participating in the global marketplace. This raises the question of whether marketing innovative, modern designs based on traditional skills is actually preserving traditional heritage. This question will be examined from a variety of angles in this presentation. Transformation and adaptability are certainly signs of being alive, but what of the original contexts and …

Traditional Innovation In Oaxacan Indigenous Costumes, Hector Manuel Meneses Lozano

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Many different indigenous communities from Oaxaca have been exposed to trade routes that have been active even before the first Europeans came to the continent. Such exposure has led to a “global market” that has influenced the way in which these communities behave. Textiles (from fibres and dyes to yarns and finished cloths) have been a part of this very active exchange. What could be considered “traditional” now, was in fact very avant-garde at the beginning.

Silk is one of the products that has transformed the appearance of Oaxacan textiles: it is soft, it is easy to dye, it offers …

The Aegean Wool Economies Of The Bronze Age, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper will explore the importance of wool in the emergence of complex societies during the Bronze Age in the Aegean. The 2nd millennium BC Aegean witnesses the emergence of a highly particular system of wool economy, beginning with the Minoan and followed by the Mycenaean centralized palace economies with strict administration of flocks, herders, wool, and textile production by thousands of women and children. This system monitors annual production targets and surplus production, and production strategies ensuring that the palaces’ needs are met. Textile production is the largest sector of the palace economy and employs the highest number of …

Finding Binding Points: Design Development And The Digital World, Wendy Weiss

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A master weaver at work is in a state of exchange with the material, the design, the craft and the process. The artisan at work is so fully engaged words and photographs alone cannot capture the action. Digital video can bridge that gap. Complex weave patterns published centuries ago are housed in rare book and manuscript libraries. Digital archives make them widely available. Jute fiber thrives in Bangladesh and India and factories in Patterson, NJ processed it until the 1950’s when the synthetic fiber market began to dominate the traditional jute trade. On-line research allows rapid access to historical and …

New Directions In Australian Aboriginal Fabric Printing, Louise Hamby, Valerie Kirk

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Missionaries, teachers and art advisers during the 1970s introduced the process of fabric printing to Aboriginal people, particularly in remote areas. Printing was a means to encourage productive work and income generation. Early forms included lino block and stencil prints, followed by screen printing. Bima Wear, was the earliest cooperative to established a business initially producing fabrics for their own clothing and then to sell to others. Historically men were the primary producers of artistic works dominating the production of carvings, sculpture and painting. Designing for fabric printing opened up a new space for men and women to work freely …

Polychrome Nets Italian Lace From The Collection Of The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Chiara Romano

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

If you think that white is the only color for lace...think again! My research focuses on a group of polychrome Italian laces dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The category I have identified in the MMA lace collection is known as “embroidered laces” and includes the techniques of Filet and Buratto. These early lacemaking techniques are often characterized by the use of different materials for the foundation and for the embroidery (textile and metallic threads). Despite the visual variety represented by these Italian laces, they all share the same basic structure of a net foundation, making them a particularly …

Beyond Wool: New York’S Diverse Fibershed For Textiles And Clothing, Helen Trejo, Tasha Lewis, Michael Thonney

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Sustainable fashion expert Rebecca Burgess introduced the notion “fibershed” in 2011 as an allusion to “watershed,” which refers to bodies of water that pass through several geographic regions. “Fibershed” includes not only fibers like wool, but also mills and fiber studios within a particular region. Little is known about the diversity of fiber resources available in New York’s rural communities. Assessing New York’s fibershed can be beneficial to textile/ apparel production within the state. Resources within the fibershed can support economic growth in New York’s rural regions through both agro-tourism and linkages with New York City’s fashion industry. To assess …

Deliberate Entanglements: The Impact Of A Visionary Exhibition, Emily Zaiden

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The medium and metaphors of fiber have a history imbued with gender-based associations, predominantly tied to femininity. Although men have historically participated in the creation of textiles throughout the course of time, the role of women often overshadows them in proliferation and ubiquity of activity. In the 1960s, fiber as an expressive material became intertwined with and politicized by the feminist movement and fiber was frequently employed by artists to address socio-cultural hierarchies. The Men’s Movement also emerged in that era, having its own potential impact on the field of fiber. The layers of historic and cultural hegemony that have …

Virtually Crafting Communities: An Exploration Of Fiber And Textile Crafting Online Communities, Theresa M. Winge, Marybeth C. Stalp

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Ravelry.com was founded in 2007 and as of March 2013 it had more than three million members for its social networking website. The Ravelry.com motto is: Ravelry is “a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and communicate with others for ideas and inspiration” (Forbes, Ravelry.com/about, Aug 22, 2013). Members share images of their handcrafts and discuss their recent projects. The site serves as more than a social media platform for handcrafters; however, it also provides members with a means of commerce, such as selling yarns and patterns. This …

Changes In The Way Of Traditional Cloth Makings And The Weavers’ Contribution In The Ryukyu Islands, Toshiyuki Sano, Yuka Matsumoto

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Japan’s western-most prefecture, Okinawa-ken can be called a textile lover’s “paradise” because twelve of fourteen government-designated traditional crafts are in the area of cloth and textiles. However, as needs of Kimono have continuously declined, as spinners are decreasing their numbers due to aging, associations of traditional cloth weavers in the Ryukyus have been facing difficulties to sustain their activities. This time the difficulties are more multifaceted than the ones when the fine cloth they made was used as tax in kind. We want to understand current status of individual and groups’ activities of making traditional cloth by visiting communities of …

Touch And Technology: An Individual Perspective, Vibeke Vestby

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The development of the Single Thread Control Loom (TC-1) resulted from my fascination with ancient Chinese silk fabrics featuring detailed motifs of flowers, dragons and clouds. I wanted to be able to weave designs of similar complexity and remember to my disappointment that my introduction to weaving provided no connection to the silks I admired. I realized then that what I wanted to explore would be very difficult and time consuming to achieve on a shaft loom. But I had no idea how this interest would affect the trajectory of my life and career goals.

In 1984 as a young …

Bringing Fiber To Art And Art To Fiber, Jo Stealey

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Contemporary basketry has evolved over the last 60 years to be integrated into the art world at large. The panel will address what is new and innovative in this movement, and ask how is the work of this generation influenced by the previous generation of basketmakers? This panelists will illustrate how the movement continues to be redefined due to the influences of Joanne Segal Brandford and Lillian Elliott by looking at innovative artists who have contributed fresh patterns, channels and momentum to this innovative medium. Furthermore, the panel will examine how this confluence influences current emerging artists.

Areas of discussion …

George Washington Carver: Textile Artist, Eulanda A. Sanders, Chanmi Hwang

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Born a slave, George Washington Carver (1864-1943) is one of the most historically prominent African American scientists. Carver was a pioneer as an agriculturalist and botanist by introducing methods of soil conservation for farmers, inventing hundreds of by-products from peanuts, pecans, sweet potatoes, and soybeans, and practicing “zero waste” sustainability. Scholars have recognized Carver’s talent as a painter and his ability to develop paints and dyes from various natural sources; however, there is very little scholarship documenting his work as a textile artist. Holdings at the G.W. Carver National Monument and Tuskegee Institute National Historic indicate that Carver was proficient …

Rethinking Material Culture: Ugandan Bark Cloth, Lesli Robertson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A textile is more than its physical nature; it has the ability to embody history, culture, and through its use, meaning. One of the most unique examples of this comes from the bark of the mutuba tree from western Uganda. This bark cloth originated centuries ago through the process of stripping an inner layer of bark from the tree and pounding it by hand into a supple cloth, tripling its size and developing a signature rust color. The tree is able to re-grow its bark for another harvest in one year, yielding 30-40 cloths during its lifespan. The making of …

New Textiles In A New World: 18th Century Textile Samples From The Viceregal Americas., Elena Phipps

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The age of global exchange began in the 16th century with the sea trade established by the Spanish and Portuguese as they navigated east and west. The Americas, with their wealth of natural resources that included silver, textile dyes and fibers, were both a supplier as well as a recipient of the goods carried along the trade routes. Archival records, ship manifests and other documents, as well as paintings from the period record the vital role that trade textiles played in this exchange, but few actual extant fabrics have been preserved.

Some 34 sets of textile samples sent with official …

Changing Of Kudzu Textiles In The Japanese Culture, Tatsuhiko Murai, Ryoko Murai

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Kudzu is one of archaic textiles in human experiences. In Japan, kudzu has been used not only daily products and clothing, but also court costume, samurai costume, wall paper, crafts and kimonos. A local community in Shizuoka has dealt with kudzu for a long time ago and I am one of them who succeeded to produce kudzu products. In this presentation, I will explain how the local community has preserved tradition and techniques of producing kudzu products. In addition, I will present how my family business of producing kudzu products has played a role in the local community in the …

Chronology, Mythology, Invention: John Bevan Ford’S Maori Cloak Images, Suzanne P. Macaulay

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Symposium’s theme linking past actions to future creations implies a linear and sequential correspondence between them - one precedes the other yet offers possibilities to be realized at some future point in time. A different model for time sequencing where past, present and future are conceptually more integrated is the New Zealand Maori view of ancestral presence manifest in the past, but also present in the future. To paraphrase a Maori proverb, “the ancestors stand behind a person, but also stand ahead.” Thus, within this non-European concept of time, the ancestors are simultaneously regarded as both progenitors and future …

Painted Clouds: Uzbek Ikats As A Case Study For Ethnic Textiles Surviving And Thriving Culturally And Economically In The 21st Century, Shannon Ludington

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

We are in a place of flux in the textile world, finding our way between shifting philosophies and new technologies. Uzbek warp ikats, or Abr is a traditional textile succeeding in its own culture and becoming a viable cultural import. Abr has a complex and ancient history, and it is important that we learn from it, for the wisdom it can give us in our own textile traditions and for its own beauty. This paper will discuss the changing cultural purpose, production methods and appearance of Uzbek ikats over time, as well as using historic models to question our modern, …

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 …