Art and Design Commons^™

Byzantine Influences Along The Silk Route: Central Asian Silks Transformed, Anna Maria Muthesius

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Silks traded along the ancient Silk Route were precious, light, and easily transportable commodities that served as ideal vehicles for cross-cultural exchange. The survival of several hundred Central Asian silks, variously datable between the seventh and the eleventh centuries, presents an opportunity to trace patterns of trade, diplomacy and cross-cultural developments at the heart of the Silk Road. These silks perfectly mirror contact, cross over, and change fostered under the auspices of Mediterranean/Near Eastern economic and diplomatic exchange.

This paper will ask three questions:

1. What lay behind Byzantine influence in Central Asia along the ancient Silk Route?

2. What …

Raphael’S Acts Of The Apostles Tapestries: The Birth Of The Tapestry Reproduction System, Marjorie Durko Puryear

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

As a younger fiber artist at the beginning of my teaching career, I rarely found European tapestries of the 16th through 18th centuries to be more than copies of paintings in a woven mask. The weaver's hand and spirit were only apparent in finite details which were resplendent with meticulous hatching, shading, and delicate slit work, unchanged from the Medieval past. But it was against my art school training to separate art concept from process. I wasn't ready to accept that the weavers were not the artists, and that tapestry was in fact an industry.

More recently, my point of …

The Assimilation Of European Designs Into Twentieth Century Indian Saris, Linda Lynton

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Although so-called "Indian" designs of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chintzes influenced Western European [Western] textiles almost from their introduction, Western patterns did not impinge on indigenous Indian fabrics, such as saris, until the last half of the nineteenth century.

They were superimposed upon an already complex mix of textile ornamental styles, which can be briefly categorized as: (i) Mughal, (ii) Hindu, and (iii) adivasi (aboriginal). The Mughal style consists of the elaborately patterned prints and brocades typical of western India. It shows strong Persian influences, such as the kalga (Paisley motif); intertwining floral vines (bel); and life-like depictions of …

New Twist On Shibori: How An Old Tradition Survives In The New World When Japanese Wooden Poles Are Replaced By American Pvc Pipes, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The subject of my talk is arashi shibori or pole wrap resist Although at times it is hard to recognize some arashi effects as such, technically arashi shibori is one of many forms of tie-dye. After thirty years of its exploration through art-to-wear, dyed and painted tapestries, three dimensional sculptures, and mixed media in the United States, various forms of tie-dye have now become part of the lexicon of American fabric design and fiberarts vocabulary.

On the one hand, there has been much effort by textile specialists to circumvent the term "tie-dye," due to its association with the Grateful Dead, …

From Bohemian To Bourgeois: American Batik In The Early Twentieth Century, Nicola J. Shilliam

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In 1919 Pieter Mijer wrote in his influential book Batiks and How to Make Them, "Batik is still a comparatively recent importation; brought here some ten years ago, it was met with absolute incomprehension and lack of interest, but its real merit as a means of decorating fabrics has earned it a place in the industrial art of the nation and year by year it is gaining wider recognition."

This paper briefly considers the rise and fall in popularity of batik in America in the period Mijer indicated: how it changed from being a foreign import chiefly seen in …

Charmingly Quaint And Still Modern: The Paradox Of Colonial Revival Needlework In America, 1875–1940, Beverly Gordon

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Despite the self-conscious modernism of the early 20th century, American needlework was filled with images of flower baskets, cozy cottages, spinning wheels, and women in hoopskirts. It was dominated by seemingly old-fashioned and "quaint" techniques, such as cross stitch, patchwork, crewel, and rug hooking. In an era with teeming cities, radio, and cars pouring off the assembly line, needlework came to stand for a romanticized, seemingly simpler and nobler American past. And in an era when women were winning the vote and re-entering the professional work force, needleworkers, in turn, became identified with the domestic homebody of the past. In …

Paracas Cavernas, Paracas Necroplis, And Ocucaje: Looking At Appropriation And Identity With Only Material Remains, Ann Peters

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Paracas Cavernas, Paracas Necropolis, and Ocucaje are groups of burials made some 2000 years ago on the south coast of Peru. The Peruvian coast is a desert, and textiles, basketry, and other artifacts made from plant fiber and animal fiber and other organic materials are preserved there in ancient tombs. The Andes is known for funerary traditions that emphasize the dressing of the dead, with documented preservation of mummified ancestors or funerary bundles, and in some cases their participation as ancestors in kin group and community ritual.

. . .

It is clear that there are continuing relations of contact, …

(Re-)Fashioning Identity: Late Twentieth-Century Transformations In Dress And Society In Boliva, Elayne Zorn

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The members of most of Bolivia's large indigenous ethnic groups, such as the nearly 22,000 people of ayllu Sakaka of northern Potosi, continue to wear a distinctive daily dress. Such dress nationally and internationally is emblematic of the Sakaka's separate, and to many inferior, identity as Indians. To the wearers also, or perhaps fundamentally, such dress marks a division between clothed indigenous humans (runa) and naked foreign outsiders (q'ara). This interpretation coincides with hegemonic non-Indian evaluations of Indian separateness, but reverses the hierarchy.

Yet most members of these large indigenous ethnic groups, whom I refer to …