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Textile Society Of America Newsletter 24:3 — Fall 2012, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Newsletters

Textiles & Politics: Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium, September 19–22, 2012, Washington, DC
From the President
TSA News
TSA Member News
Textile Community News
In Memoriam: Ghanian Weaver Bobbo Aghiable
Conference Reviews
Exhibition Review
Calendar-Conferences & Symposia, Exhibitions, Lectures, Workshops

The Parenthetical Notation Method For Recording Yarn Structure, Jeffrey C. Splitstoser

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Until now, describing yarn structure has been more art than science, especially for complex yarns and cordage like those encountered at Cerrillos, a Paracas (ca. 900-100 B.C.E.) site in the Ica Valley of Peru, where yarns and cordage frequently involve multiple colors, sub-structures, and materials (e.g., Image 1). My early attempts at describing yarn structures using notation were essentially undecipherable to others. Likewise, narrative methods proved too wordy and no less confusing. (For instance, a narrative description of the structure of specimen 2001-L185-B1654- S001, a rope-like yarn pictured in Images 2 and 3, would be: Twelve Z-spun-singly-ply yarns Ztwisted with …

The Twenty-First Century Voices Of The Ashanti Adinkra And Kente Cloths Of Ghana, Carol Ventura

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Craft production and use are continually adapting to meet the needs of consumers and the market in order to survive. The Adinkra and Kente cloths of Ghana are no exception, having maintained their visibility and viability by addressing changing and challenging economic and political realities. Fabric strips are sewn together to produce rectangular Adinkra and Kente cloths that are wrapped around human bodies in styles determined by gender and rank. These cloths are not only beautiful, but communicate as well. Old and new symbols representing proverbs, beliefs, and politics are woven into Kente and printed onto Adinkra cloths. Commemorative fabrics …

Samplers, Sewing And Star Quilts: Changing Federal Policies Impact Native American Education And Assimilation, Lynne Anderson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Illustrating the U.S. federal government's changing policies on the assimilation of Native American children is the role of needlework instruction in the schooling of Indian girls. Described and discussed are three examples of 19th and 20th century policy, with emphasis on the textiles resulting from those policies. Early 19th century policy supported mission schools for Indians. Learning to sew was a valued domestic skill in 19th century female education, culminating in the making of a needlework sampler. This focus was adopted in mission schools, illustrated by Christeen Baker's 1830 sampler stitched at the Choctaw Mission School in Mayhew, Mississippi. Shortly …

Queen Alexandra’S 1902 Coronation Gown, Donald Clay Johnson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Queen Victoria's wearing black mourning clothes for 40 of the 63 years of her reign prompted much discussion between fashion-setting Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra about what should the new queen wear for her coronation, the first state occasion in which they, as king and queen, could define taste and fashion for what was to become the Edwardian era. With such a long interval of time since the last coronation there were no strong expressions of traditional attire for such a ritual occasion which prompted the new king and queen to think expansively about the roles and functions the coronation …

The Mamluk Kaaba Curtain In The Bursa Grand Mosque, Sumiyo Okumura

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A Kaaba curtain is a door curtain which covers the door of the holy Kaaba, the most sacred site of Islam in Mecca. Upon the occasion of the conquest of Egypt and Hejaz by Sultan Selim I in 1517, Selim I donated a Kaaba door curtain to the Bursa Grand Mosque, one of the five most important mosques in the Islamic World. This Mamluk curtain is very different from Ottoman Kaaba curtains in both its shape and design motifs. It is noticeable that five fragments, including a piece of inscription, hang down from the upper border. We see a similar …

Money Painting And The Duplicitous Multiple: The Interdependence Of American Copyright Legislation And Artistic Production, Jaclyn N. Siemers

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis I investigate the interworking and influences of the United States’ federal copyright legislation, specifically its relationship to the history of artistic production from the late nineteenth-century to the present. A detailed analysis of the evolving copyright statute, the social and legal impact of the multiple (including the counterfeit copy), and the progressive recurrence of representational money paintings will reveal the mutually dependent relationship of copyright legislation and artistic production. The progression of styles in America art—nineteenth-century trompe l’oeil illusionism, mid-century Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, and contemporary appropriation art—provides an illustrated roadmap of the complex relationship between the …

Framing Cultural Capitalism: William Wilson Corcoran And Alice Walton As Patrons Of The American Art Museum, Kelsey E. Tyler

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In 2011, Alice Walton opened what is now considered to be among the most important American art collections in the country, in a museum called Crystal Bridges, in Bentonville, Arkansas. What is remarkable is not only the exorbitant amount of money spent to open the museum - over $800 million dollars - but also that she was the primary financier. William Wilson Corcoran, a mid-nineteenth-century banker, in many ways is a better comparison than Morgan or Gardner, as like Walton he intended to found a museum dedicated specifically to American art. His museum, which he hoped would become a national …

Nebraska Art Today: A Centennial Invitational Exhibition, James B. Schaeffer

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Anniversaries make suitable opportunities for summing up - appraising past progress and looking forward to a better future. Hence, in Nebraska's 100th year as one of the United States of America, it is appropriate that we trace activity in the arts during pioneer days and the period of expansion, pausing perhaps to offer congratulations for past accomplishments or to wish that achievement had been higher.

Middle Western culture is a transplant and a product of the times. The newly-opened territory offered opportunities for material advancement, and settlers either brought with them an acquaintance with genteel living or a desire for …

You Are Some Other Thing, Victoria Hoyt

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

There is only one book I reread on a regular basis. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, published in 1980, is a story about drifting and loss and longing, of women existing in the world in an uneasy, awkward way. The idea of living in a house is foreign to the transient Aunt Sylvie and when she suddenly has to take care of her nieces, she manages to bring all her homeless habits indoors. She eats in the dark and sleeps on top of her covers and throws rocks at the neighbors’ dogs. My favorite is her collection of tin cans and …

Transcendent Materiality, Lauren E. Mabry

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

I make painterly, abstract, ceramic objects. My obsession with surface and materiality compels me to investigate the relationship between images and objects through the inherent qualities of ceramic material. Primarily my work communicates directly, through its formal and aesthetic qualities, but it may also be understood in relationship to abstract painting, minimal work, and process art. I exploit the intrinsic qualities of ceramic material producing works that are warm, seductive, and surprising. Ultimately, my work is a synthesis of intuitive, expressive surfaces and elemental forms.

In this body of work there are two main forms: cylinders and curved planes- as …

Changsha: Photographs By Rian Dundon, Rian Dundon

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Rian Dundon, whose photographs have previously appeared at China Beat, will soon be releasing a new book of photography on China, Changsha. Dundon’s book will feature a forward written by friend of the blog Gail Hershatter and includes his photos of and essays on the Hunan province city of Changsha. For more information, and to pre-order a copy of the book, see the book’s website (pre-sales of the book are part of a crowd-funding campaign raising funds for its first run with the publisher, Emphas.is). Below is a special teaser of Changsha material that Dundon has prepared for China Beat …

Artland, Spring 2012

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Director’s forum, Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Sheldon Museum of Art

CIVIC MINDS: Governor Dave Heineman, Interview by Jorge Daniel Veneciano

Regional news: Nebraska City, Omaha, North Platte, Scottsbluff, Falls City

People on the move: Dana Fritz, Marjorie Maas, Chris Sommerich, Brigitte McQueen, Matthew Sontheimer, Heather Thomas, Bob Reeker and Lorinda Rice

ARTIST: Binh Danh, Interview by Sharon Kennedy

Sheldon Celebrates with Tet Festival

COLLECTOR: Phillip Schrager, Janet Farber interviewed by Michael Krainak

PORTFOLIO: Victoria Goro-Rapoport, Text and interview by Rhonda Garelick

CONVERSATION: Kenneth Bé, Interview by Genevieve Ellerbee

AUTHORS: Janis Londraville and Richard Londraville, Interview by Russel L. Erpelding and Audrey …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 24:2 — Spring 2012, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Newsletters

Textiles and Politics: Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium, September 19-22, 2012, Washington, DC
From the President
TSA Member News
Textiles and Cultural Context: Ecuadorian Artesanía Vendors and Transnational Markets
The Mola: Imagery of Culture and Politics
Taiwan Aboriginal Textiles: Translations and Transformations: Background of Yushan Tsai's Exhibition
Book Reviews
Textile Community News
Featured Collection: Denver Art Museum Textile Art Department Expansion
Call for Papers
Calendar: Conferences & Symposia
Exhibitions: United States
Exhibitions: International
Lectures, Workshops, Tours

All That We See(M), Alison H. Vanvolkenburgh

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Born open-eyed, ready to take stock of our surroundings from the first breath, no other sense so largely informs our understanding of the world as sight. The ability to visually process our environment may seem extremely straightforward to those long accustomed to its instinctive use. However, there is more to seeing than the pure mechanics of visual perception. Since we live, not in a static environment, but one of constant change and motion, our knowledge of the world around us comes in fragments, shifting flashes of color, shape, and movement that coalesce through the active process of vision. In these …

Someone/No One, Jamie L. Fritz

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

I am obsessed with the pieces of existence; the memories, experiences and emotions that make up human identity. Our lives are defined by entropy that causes these pieces to fragment and become distorted over time. Looking back at the pieces they become almost unrecognizable, and it becomes unclear if they are something or if they are nothing. My work centers on a compulsive desire to put these pieces into something that makes sense. The photograph serves as a representation of the memory and experience, broken down into parts that remove them as a piece of an identifiable whole. The photographs …

Media Revolution: Early Prints From The Sheldon Museum Of Art, Gregory Nosan, Alison G. Stewart

Zea E-Books Collection

In the digital age, when videos are streamed and books can be read electronically, it is hard to fathom the revolutionary impact that printed images had when they first appeared in Europe around 1400. Their introduction changed forever the traditional practice of manually crafting images one by one, creating a world in which pictures could be reproduced almost without limit on a new material called paper, expanding the possibilities and audiences for images and texts of all kinds. This publication, which brings to light little-seen masterpieces from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s collection, explores the three major print techniques of …

Stitching As Knowing: Mapping Nebraska With Textiles And Thread, Elizabeth Ingraham

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Mapping Nebraska is a drawn, stitched and digitally imaged cartography of the state (physical, social, cultural, sociological) where I live. The interrelated components of this on-going project are:

• A 15 foot wide hand-drawn “Locator Map” of Nebraska, with every city, town, park, railroad, river, lake and creek drawn to scale on 95 Tyvek sections which were then stitched together.
• Terrain Squares, quilted and embroidered fabric relief forms of the physical topography of selected locations, using software to be able to see the terrain at a much larger scale (1 inch = 596 feet) than the Locator Map.
• Surveys, or on-the-ground …

Viet Nam, Nebraska, Sharon Kennedy

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

The Sheldon Museum of Art is pleased to present Viet Nam, Nebraska, an exhibition of photography by Sinh Danh. The artist's chlorophyll prints of Vietnam War imagery and footage of the plight of Vietnamese boat people are displayed alongside his contemporary daguerreotypes and color photographs, and the multigenerational snapshots he collected from Vietnamese American families in Lincoln.

Together this body of work creates, in Danh's words, "a history of the land" and a "self-portrait" of our city's Vietnamese community. Danh came to Lincoln in April 2011 as a Sheldon artist in residence. He met with senior citizens at …

The Studio Glass Movement: Selections From The Esterling-Wake Collection, Jorge Daniel Veneciano, Sharon L. Kennedy, Therman Statom, Gregory Nosan, Ashley Hussman

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Foreword and Acknowledgments -- Jorge Daniel Veneciano

Celebrating the Studio Glass Movement -- Sharon Kennedy

The Language of Glass: Material, Method, Meaning -- Therman Statom

Selections from the Esterling-Wake Collection -- Sharon Kennedy

A Conversation with Steve Wake -- Gregory Nosan

Checklist of the Exhibition Compiled by Ashley Hussman

Selected Bibliography and Notes

Contributors

Copyright

Upon visiting the glass collection housed in the Esterling-Wake home, I began to imagine these remarkable works on display in Sheldon’s Great Hall. I pictured them in translucent splendor, imbibing the natural light that sweeps through the space daily. Few works in our collection can …

2012 Final Program

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Final Program

Tuesday September 18, 2012

Wednesday September 19, 2012

Thursday September 20, 2012

Friday September 21, 2012

Saturday September 22, 2012

PRE-SYMPOSIUM WORKSHOPS

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

POST-SYMPOSIUM TOURS

Sunday, September 23, 2012

SITE SEMINARS

Friday, September 21, 2012, between 1:00 and 4:00 PM

Partners And Adversaries: The Art Of Collaboration, Christin J. Mamiya, Brandon K. Ruud, Jonathan Stuhlman, Jorge Daniel Veneciano

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Drawn largely from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s permanent collection, Partners and Adversaries: The Art of Collaboration explores the productive and often ambivalent partnerships that coalesce around artistic practices. These include familial and romantic relationships, where ambitions and successes may clash and collide at the expense of one partner; the mutually dependent yet divergent interests of artists and their dealers; the dance of imitation and distinction between student and teacher; the official sanction of government support, everywhere shadowed by the threat of moralizing censure; and, increasingly in contemporary art, new processes and technologies that empower fabricators whom artists must collaborate …

Commemorations: Art From Sheldon's Permanent Collection, Sarah Feit

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

A Brief History of Sheldon Statewide

Commemoration-the theme of this year's exhibition-is particularly appropriate, as 2012 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Sheldon Statewide. The program began in 1987 as a joint effort of the Sheldon Museum of Art and the Sheldon Art Association, then known as the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and the Nebraska Art Association. Conceived as a project of the association's Statewide Committee, chaired by Lois Roskens, it was part of the group's centenary celebrations. From its first exhibition, Miniature Masterworks, Sheldon Statewide has provided opportunities for communities throughout the state to gain access to original works of …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 24:1 — Winter 2012, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Newsletters

Provocative Speakers Set for Symposium 2012
From the President
TSA News
TSA Member News
In Memoriam: Mary Hunt Kallenberg, 1940–2011
Textile Community News
Conference Reviews
Ceremonial Tai Textiles and Their Uses
Publication News
Featured Collection: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Decorah, Iowa
Exhibition Reviews
Book Reviews
Calendar-Conferences & Symposia, Exhibitions, Lectures, Workshops, Tours

Material And Motion: Phenomenology And The Early Work Of Carolee Schneemann 1957-1973, Regina M. Flowers

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Carolee Schneemann is a multidisciplinary artist known for using her body in her artworks in order to engage with issues of sexuality, gender and identity. Best known for her 1975 performance Interior Scroll, Schneemann’s work is most often theorized in connection with the emergence of Feminist, Performance and Body Art, yet Schneemann has always considered herself primarily a painter. In this thesis I address the disconnect between Schneemann’s repeated insistence on her status as a painter and the scholarly discussion of her work solely in relation to the integration of her body in her performative works. The period covered …