Art and Design Commons^™

Disconnecting The Tais: Responses To Trade, Training And Tourism, Mary F. Connors

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the responses of Tai speaking groups in Laos and Vietnam to outside influences and their increasing awareness of the commercial value of their handwoven fabrics. Based on the author’s field work in Luang Namtha Province, Laos, Nghe An Province, Vietnam and Vientiane and Luang Prabang cities, Laos, the weavers in the three regions are compared and their responses to challenges presented such as the availability of yarns and dyes and access to input from the target market and outlets for their products are examined.

In northern Laos live the Tai-speaking Lue, Tai Dam, Tai Khao and Tai …

Evidence Of The Individual In The Cultural Material Of Tapestry, Joyce Hulbert

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In research for support material for a presentation on my conservation of an important Pre-Columbian tunic of the Huari people of Peru, I came upon a statement that intrigued me as an artist and conservator. The statement comes from Rebecca Stone Miller in her PhD thesis on Huari tunics, completed at Yale in 1987:

The sheer elaboration of imagery made possible through material and technical choices bespeaks both an investment of importance of the images depicted and a corollary investment of labor in their creation. The importance of the woven images takes place in the realm of beliefs and ritual, …

Tapestry Translations In The Twentieth Century: The Entwined Roles Of Artists, Weavers, And Editeurs, Ann Lane Hedlund

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Historically, European tapestry making involved collaboration among artists, designers, draftsmen, cartoon makers, spinners, dyers, weavers, patrons, dealers, and other professionals. This specialized system of labor continued in modified form into the twentieth century in certain European weaving studios. This paper explores the negotiations involved and results achieved in the design, creation, and marketing of a group of twentieth century tapestries, in which painted imagery was translated into the handwoven textile medium.

A case study based on the Gloria F. Ross Archive of unpublished letters, contracts, sketches, invoices, photographs, and other materials is presented. Serving as editeur (analogous to a film …

Appropriation, Transformation And Contemporary Fiber Art: An Artist’S Perspective, Claire Campbell Park

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Although founded on European assumptions of fine art, fiber art is equally grounded in textile traditions from around the globe. Issues of appropriation have evolved since fiber’s critical formative years in the 1960s and 70s, when an explosion in awareness of diverse cultures was reflected in the curriculum of California universities. The desire to mainstream into the fine art establishment gave rise to a trend in the 1980s and 90s, for some fiber artists to distance themselves from these traditions. It is this artist’s contention that the most appropriate of appropriations is a renewed appreciation of cultural values evident in …

Tradition And Innovation In Contemporary Lao Textiles, Rebecca Hall

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In this presentation I assess the physical changes that have transpired in Lao textiles within a context of tradition and commercialization. Through understanding of the characteristics of both “traditional” and commoditized textiles, I found that multiple changes are transpiring at once. The most important elements of this research are the textiles themselves, with the perception that textiles reveal the context and intention of their makers. Examination and comparison of over 100 Lao textiles from select U.S. museums and private collections and market observations conducted in Laos resulted in the material cultural analysis presented here. Salient aesthetic and symbolic elements of …

The Jicarilla Apache Woman's Ceremonial Cape The Making And Re-Genesis Of A Cultural Icon, Joyce Herold

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Women of the tiny Jicarilla Apache tribe of north-central New Mexico have one of the most vibrant and distinctive poncho traditions of any contemporary American Indian group. Based on the yoke of the early 1800s deerskin “tail dress” design, the Jicarilla cape became a separate item of apparel. that was decorated in a classic mode with scallops and fringes, yellow paint, and striped beadwork edges. The cape design signifies woman’s origins and fruitfulness connected with the moon and its phases; thus it functions as necessary raiment and a powerful symbol at a Jicarilla Girl’s Coming Out Ceremony and Feast, a …

Carson Colcha Embroideries: From Ersatz To Orthodox, Suzanne P. Macaulay

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In the 5th century BCE, Heraclitus wrote, “Everything in time begets its opposite.” The history of the Carson colchas of New Mexico appears to follow that axiom. Under a range of epithets from “fake” to “authentic,” these embroideries evolved during the 1930s as marketable (alternately enigmatic) replications or copies of 19th century Spanish colonial textiles to finally emerge as a distinctly recognized, legitimate genre of traditional Hispanic needlework in the late 20th century. These pieces were originally associated with the Carson community dominated by a clan of Mormon brothers married to Hispanic sisters, which created a complex intermingling of Anglo …

Restoring Navajo-Churro Sheep: Acculturation And Adaptation Of A Traditional Fiber Resource, Susan M. Strawn

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Factors that contribute to artisan sustainability are of critical importance to the world’s artisans who depend on hand-produced textiles for income and livelihood, and for whom textile production is closely intertwined with cultural identity. For Navajo (Diné) weavers, outside influences on their traditional fiber resource, Navajo- Churro sheep, have proven one critical factor in the quality, characteristics, and sustainability of Navajo handwoven textiles. The Diné acculturated a pastoral lifestyle and adapted wool for weaving from the desert sheep introduced into the American Southwest by Spanish explorers in the 1500s. Sheep proved critical to Diné weaving, cultural identity, and …

The Fashion For Small-Patterned Textiles In Nineteenth-Century Japan, Keiko Kobayashi

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses on the Japanese fashion for small patterned designs on textiles during the late Edo (Edo: 1615-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) periods. The trend was influenced by Western textiles produced using technologies developed during the European Industrial Revolution, including roller printing and the Jacquard mechanism. These Western textiles reached Japan through the port of Nagasaki, open to trade with the Dutch and the Chinese between 1634 and 1868. By the end of the Edo period, Japanese weavers and dyers had become familiar with them.

Albums filled with small fragments of European imported cloth were put together and collected by …

Nets, Bags And The Transformation Of Headdress In The Southern Andes, Ann H. Peters

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Anne Paul opened the pandora’s box of Andean headdress history in “The Symbolism of Paracas Turbans: A consideration of Style, Serpents and Hair” (Ñawpa Pacha 1982). Mary Frame’s work on the multiple textile significations of twisted strands, looping, diagonal interlacing and other techniques used to create headdress bands has led to new insights on the relationships among textile practice, visual design, and concepts and philosophical premises encoded in many forms of Andean material culture.

This paper looks at the associations of form, practice, and textile history embodied in netted and looped head coverings preserved in burials on the desert …

Transformations In Tapestry In The Ayacucho Region Of Peru, Elayne Zorn

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This article examines contemporary Peruvian tapestry in its historical context. Though tapestry production represents a significant source of income for weavers in Ayacucho, Peru, the contemporary industry has not yet been studied in the context of long-term Andean textile traditions and their historical transformations. Ayacucho is home to numerous crafts traditions, but also terrible violence during Peru’s undeclared civil war (1980–95), which started there. The paper provides an overview of contemporary Andean textiles, emphasizing differences between textiles woven on the pre-Hispanic type Andean loom, and those such as tapestry woven on the Hispanic-type treadle loom. The technology of Andean textile …

The Fate Of The Xam Nuea Healing Cloths, Patricia Cheesman

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The healing cloths of Xam Nuea, Laos P. D. R. were once used in ceremonies conducted by shamans who traveled to the other realms in trance to seek cures. These textiles embodied powerful symbols of the animal and supernatural world, beliefs that held strong despite the invasions of the Chinese Ho, the Siamese, and even the establishment of French Indochina. However, during the American-Vietnam war weaving was made impossible in the northeast region and many people, including shamans, fled to Vientiane. Here new communities flourished, weaving elaborate textiles in the Xam Nuea style, which later became the newest fashion after …

Contemporary Phuthai Textiles, Linda S. Mcintosh

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the hand-woven textiles of the Phuthai ethnic group made in the last thirty years or after the Communist Revolution of 1975. If one asks a Phuthai woman to describe Phuthai dress, she will answer, “sin mii lae suea lap lai,” or a skirt decorated with weft ikat technique and a fitted blouse of indigo dyed cotton, decorated with hand-woven, patterned red silk. Despite the use of synthetic dyes that are readily available in the local markets, many Phuthai women still grow indigo and cotton, and indigo-stained hands and the repetitious sounds of weaving are still …

460 Years Of Silk In Oaxaca, Mexico, Leslie Grace

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The origin of cultivated silk in Mexico can be traced to Cortez’s first shipment from Spain of Bombyx mori eggs in 1523. For the following 60 years three urban centers, Mexico City, Puebla and Oaxaca City were exclusively awarded the right for Spanish weavers to create silk satins, velvets and taffetas to be worn by the recent invaders. The indigenous people did the field work required for production of the fiber but were forbidden to weave on the newly introduced floor looms.

Sometime over the ensuing centuries silk fiber was adopted and used in Oaxaca by indigenous groups. Recent field …

It's In The Bag: Transformation In Guatemala, Kathy Rousso

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Morrales or net bags are an important man’s accessory in rural Guatemala, and many are made from maguey fibers using the ancient techniques of thigh spinning, and simple looping. Adaptations to these styles probably began when neighboring Mayan and Xinca tribes exchanged ideas as they came in contact with each other in times of trade and conflict. With Spain’s colonization, new tools such as spinning wheels, knitting needles, and looms, along with their uses, were incorporated into bag construction. The sailors who transported these early explorers likely introduced the strap methods of braiding, and knotwork, and with the introduction of …

Tapestry Technology 1400-2004, Tina Kane

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

For the past 15 years my practice as a textile conservator and artist has stimulated an ongoing dialog between myself as a textile maker and the weavers of ancient textiles. A human hair caught in the web of a cloth, a weaver’s choice of interlacement patterns and the deliberate manipulation of woven motifs all mark the presence of “the weaver.” Who were these people, why do their creations make us marvel and how can our experience as contemporary weavers add to the scholarship of ancient textiles?

Because of the structural simplicity of tapestry weave, analyzing an intricate design from a …

The Tale Of The Two-Tailed Mermaid A Case Study In The Origins Of The Cretan Embroidery Style, Sumru Belger Krody

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

It is fascinating to trace the style and motifs of embroidered textiles from the Greek islands back to the political powers that held the islands in their control for centuries. Among these islands Crete has a special place in the study of Greek island embroidery. Because of its geographic location among trade routes and its political and artistic history, Crete presents an entirely different embroidery style from that of the other Greek islands. Through focusing on one motif, the two-tailed mermaid, this paper will try to construct a history of influences seen in Cretan embroidery.

The first section of the …

Author Biographies

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Author Biographies A-W

Ping-Ann Addo

Filiz Adıgüzel

Jeni Allenby

Philis Alvic...

Wendy Weiss

Lauren Whitley

Michelle Willard

Keynote Address—Summary Notes, Jack Lenor Larsen

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

San Francisco Bay as the Fountainhead and Wellspring

Jack Lenor Larsen led off the 9^th Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America in Oakland, California, with a plenary session directed to TSA members and conference participants. He congratulated us, even while proposing a larger and more inclusive vision of our field, and exhorting us to a more comprehensive approach to fiber. His plenary remarks were spoken extemporaneously from notes and not recorded. We recognize that their inestimable value deserves to be shared more broadly; Jack has kindly provided us with his rough notes for this keynote address. The …

About Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Textile Society of America, Inc. provides an international forum for the exchange and dissemination of information about textiles worldwide from artistic, cultural, economic, historic, political, social and technical perspectives.

National Office

TSA Board of Directors 2004-2005

Officers

TSA Publications

Shifting Sands: Costume In Rajasthan, Vandana Bhandari

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Rajasthan in Western India has a history of turbulent political conditions. This is an outcome of Rajasthan being a frontier region of India’s borders. Therefore, its people have had a continued interaction with outsiders entering India in successive waves of migration (from the time of Aryans – 1000 BC). Costume of the region is an assimilation of many historical and foreign influences and has evolved to present a unique tradition.

This paper aims to study dress in this region by taking examples of different ethnic groups like Marwaris, Rabari and Rajputs and examine influences that have led to change. The …

Indonesian Fashion Designers-----Transformation From Traditional Textiles, Yuka Matsumoto

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Indonesian fashion designers who emerged in the 1970s have been creating various designs through uniting traditional and Western designs in accordance with the cultural policy of the country. Designs uniting traditional culture with Western culture symbolize Indonesia’s hybrid cultural background which consists of various ethnic cultures. In the 1980s, with the development of the economy, Indonesian fashion design was presented globally. But since 1997, because of the Asian economic crisis and the collapse of Soeharto’s administration, Indonesian designers have begun to present their designs to domestic consumers who have become aware and appreciative of the rich creative potential of this …

Calico Trade Shirts On The Journey Of Discovery With Lewis And Clark, Margo Krager

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In the spring of 1803, Meriwether Lewis traveled to Philadelphia to prepare for his journey west. During a busy month there, he gathered thirty-five hundred pounds of supplies. His shopping list included “Indian Presents”: beads, tomahawks, fishing hooks, combs, and “30 calico shirts.”

Israel Whelan, Purveyor of Public Supplies, purchased from twenty-eight Philadelphia merchants many of the needed items, including the calico shirts. Where did he get them, were they ready-made and what did they look like?

The North American marketplace of 1803 offered a wide variety of fabrics. Canoe manifests from the customs house at Michilimackinac in 1802 listed …

Something Borrowed, Something Red –Textiles In Colonial And Soviet Central Asia, Kate Fitz- Gibbon

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Turkoman and other tribal groups in Central Asia have used specific textile patterns from carpet weaving and embroidery as identity markers for centuries. Under late 19th century Russian rule, these designs were used as decorative elements on publications to represent an exotic, foreign, central Asian identity. In the Soviet period tribal patterns were utilized as formal symbols of Central Asian provincial sub-identities within the Soviet Union. They were incorporated into in architecture, used in theater set design, in painting, as a sort of tribalidentity- prop in every form of visual artistic expression. Similarly, a standardized “national costume” only superficially related …

Protest To Persuasion: Chinese Textiles As Political Tools In The 19th And 20th Centuries, Diana Collins

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Throughout history textiles have been used to demonstrate dissent towards political regimes and so it was in late 19th century China, when some civil officers expressed their frustration with decay and corruption during the decline of dynastic rule. Defiant modifications reflecting disrespect for the emperor were incorporated into embroidered badges of rank required by strict dress regulations to be worn conspicuously at the front and back of officials’ surcoats. When any insubordination could attract the penalty of death, wearing such rebellious statements against the Son of Heaven was undeniably bold.

With the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911, centuries …

A Berkeley Home For Textile Art And Scholarship, 1912–79, Ira Jacknis

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The work of Ed Rossbach, his colleagues, and students at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s and 1970s was critical in forming the modern movement of American fiber art. What may not be as well known is the continuity of this work with a tradition of textile art and study at UC Berkeley going back to 1912.

Founded as a department of Household Art as part of the home economics movement, it became a department of Decorative Art in 1939, under the leadership of Berkeley anthropologist and textile scholar Lila M. O’Neale (1886–1948). A cultural approach to the …

Lillian Elliott, Pat Hickman

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Whenever she taught, Lillian Elliott (1930-1994) arrived for class carrying bags bulging with historic world textiles–to illustrate a technique, a crazy, unexpected juxtaposition of color, a thread gone wild–all to suggest new possibilities. Abundance and generosity dominated; they fed her visual ideas and those of her students. Elliott valued most her teaching in the Department of Design at UC Berkeley, as a colleague of Ed Rossbach’s. Her curious mind led her in multiple directions simultaneously, as did his. Those of us lucky enough to study with both of them, entered the field as artists and teachers, changed. Their influence spread …

Picturing The Transformation Of A Nation’S Textile Traditions: Meiji Era Woodblock Prints, Donna F. Lavallee

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Woodblock prints, photographs and contemporary sketches will be used to illustrate the rapid change to Western dress in Japan and its impact on the importation and imitation of Western textiles. Between 1853 and 1868, American Commodore Perry forced the opening of Japan to foreign trade. The old fashioned Shogun was overthrown, and young, forward thinking Emperor Meiji took the throne. Under Emperor Meiji, the Japanese government introduced the wearing of Western style clothing for all public occasions, both social and official. These events brought Western textiles to Japanese dress: military uniforms were the first to use both woolen cloth and …

Boro No Bi : Beauty In Humility—Repaired Cotton Rags Of Old Japan, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Using examples from the Nukata Collection of Japanese “boro,” or rags, this paper assesses how such extensively repaired, patched, and pieced utilitarian textiles reflect Japan’s social stratification, agriculture, economy, and trade. These humble cloths, tangible remnants of stories lived by the common people – farmers, fishermen, and lumberjacks – who lived in rural areas along the Sea of Japan and northeastern Honshu Island until several decades ago, point to a material’s aesthetic and functional transformation.

A majority of pieces in the collection are futon, bedding which are made of or patched with various shades of blue fabric …

The Transformation Of Tusser Silk, Brenda M. King

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

India and England enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship through the silk trade during the British Empire. Thomas Wardle transformed aspects of India’s wild silk production, increasing demand for India’s yarn and providing employment for many thousands; this work should be better known.

Wardle was the first to print and dye Indian tusser almost any shade. At the Paris Exposition, 1878 he revealed tussser’s improved potential, gaining great publicity and a gold medal for India’s yarn. Thereafter, India increased exports of tusser yarn and cloth to Europe where it was demanded for furnishing, fashion and embroidery reads.