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Symposium Program- Contents

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Plenary Session

Handwork

Costume

Trade

Power of Pattern: Textiles, Politics & Persuasion (Panel)

Individual Papers—South America

Symbols of Influence

Threads of Change: The Transformation of Textiles in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Panel)

Mexico and Guatemala

Weaving

Embroidery

Traveling Stitches: Origins Of Fair Isle Knitting, Deborah Pulliam

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The beginnings and "invention" of knitting has long fascinated knitters and amateur historians. Only recently has it come to be studied seriously, and there is still much folklore and fantasy repeated and published as history.

This paper (and discussion) considers some of the best known and most popular stories about the origins of Shetland and Fair Isle knitting and compares those with more recent considerations of color patterning in northern Europe, especially in the Baltic states and eastern Europe.

Fair Isle color patterning has been explained for many years as having been inspired by a wreck of the Spanish Armada …

Javanesque Effects: Appropriation Of Batik And Its Transformations In Modern Textiles, Abby Lillethun

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

American batik practice emerged in the early twentieth century based on traditional techniques from Java and those filtered through Dutch Nieuwe Kunst. The promotion of batik through the Arts and Crafts movement in North America fostered egalitarian endorsement from artisans, individual practitioners, and consumers, across geographic locales, social milieu, and skill levels. Encouraged by manuals, magazine articles, and exhibitions, enthusiasm for batik grew across the nation and in the avant-garde enclave of Greenwich Village. While practitioners were cautioned to avoid excessive veining or crackle in their works in emulation of fine tradition, commercial enterprises helped to transform the aesthetic …

A Ping-Pong Example Of Cultural Authentication And Kalabari Cut-Thread Cloth, Joanne B. Eicher

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The concept of cultural authentication was first introduced to analyze the check and plaid textile called Indian madras used by the Kalabari people of the Niger Delta of Nigeria to produce a design by subtraction on the cloth which they subsequently call pelete bite (Erekosima, 1979; Erekosima and Eicher, 1981). Although the Kalabari are part of a much larger group of Niger Delta peoples, this cut-thread cloth is original and peculiar to them. They depend on the supply of madras from India to produce pelete bite to wear as men’s and women’s wrappers, to cover the face of a masquerader, …

Pattern Power: Textiles And The Transmission Of Knowledge, Carol Bier

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

If one makes an ontological distinction between patterns and textiles, an argument can be developed to assess the potential role that textiles may have played in the transmission of mathematical knowledge, concerning the spatial dimension. This paper seeks to address early Islamic textiles within the context of contemporary advances in the history of mathematics from the 8th – 10th centuries, which may have influenced, or been influenced by, technical developments in the production of pattern-woven textiles.

In particular, this paper explores patterns in woven textiles ascribed to the Sasanian Empire and its aftermath in Iran and Central Asia, with a …

Appropriation, Acculturation, Transformation, Janet Stoyel

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Investigation of high-tec processes for the manufacture of decorative materials for use in contemporary textile and fashion design. Photon Laser and Ultrasound techniques explored via engineered substrates to create patinated colour, structural surfaces, repetitive pattern, etched detailing and modernistic construction possibilities. Keywords: Photon Laser, Ultrasound, Ecological, Environmental, Sustainability, Substrates.

‘Rafoogari’ Of Najibabad, Priya Ravish Mehra

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper will discuss the still continuous and centuries old skill of “Rafoogari” or the Darning and Maintenance of Pashmina Shawls by the Rafoogars or Darners of Najibabad, an historical town in western Uttar Pradesh. It is the home of several ‘Rafoogar’ families and the hub of the kani shawl trade. While Kashmiri pashmina shawls have been elaborately researched, the important role of darners in the maintenance of these priceless shawls has not yet been recognized. Although darning is a highly intricate and laborious task necessary to the maintenance, restoration, and renewal of the shawls, the role of the darners …

Dissolving The Objective Grid: Cultural Excavations In The Work Of Sharon Marcus, Mary Lane

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Sharon Marcus’ tapestries reflect her training in anthropology and archaeology. Her investigation into the notion of site and the human traces that remain within a site reveals the complex, layered and inherently ambiguous nature of the meaning embedded in fragmentary remains. Her artistic exploration also involves a critical investigation of the methods of scientific inquiry that underlie the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology. Her tapestries examine the notion of objectivity and the ordering system of the grid. In exposing the limitations of those paradigms, Marcus has adopted a subjective and multifaceted approach to representation that rejects the notion of transparency, …

International Textile Works: A Laboratory For Experimental Artists From Around The World To Create Cutting- Edge Design, Grounded In Textiles, Wendy Weiss

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Located at the University of Nebraska, our textile department launched the International Textile Works (ITW) in 2002. The department built on existing resources of a Mimaki Textile Jet Tx-1600S direct inkjet 65” fabric printer and an industrial steamer. The competitively awarded University’s Arts and Humanities Enhancement Fund provided start-up funds to invite an artist to design and print on this equipment. Internally we began applied research to test the best use of this technology for artists.

This initiative enables our design faculty, in collaboration with our scientific faculty, to create a fertile environment for developing innovative applications of digital technology. …

Transformative Prospects: Textile Structure And The Social Organization Of Pre-Columbian And Colonial Andean Production, Blenda Femenías

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The pre-Columbian Andean material culture record is especially crucial for trying to understand social organization because Andean societies apparently did not employ what Europeans recognized as “writing.” The evidence contained in the objects themselves thus bears a larger burden in helping scholars analyze how social life was structured to enable a huge volume of cultural production. For pre-Columbian textiles in particular, the analysis of embroidered figures and their relationship to the ground fabric on which they were positioned has played crucial roles. In effective and original ways, Anne Paul used the evidence in textile objects, especially from the Paracas culture, …

Changes In Nomadic Arab Weaving Due To Outside And Internal Influences, Joy May Hilden

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Centuries of tradition in the weaving of the Bedouin, using sheepswool and goat hair, has changed dramatically in the last fifty years. With the decline of nomadism, due directly and indirectly to the discovery of oil, techniques and products have fallen to disuse or have been transformed with new materials and put to new uses.

Bedouin weaving was formerly used for tents, rugs and animal gear by nomadic Arab tribes in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine/Israel and Egypt. Lifestyles among and influences on the bedu vary by region, but the decline of nomadism is common to all. …

The Distribution Of Cultural Identity A Canadian Case Study, Jennifer E. Salahub

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A banner like this, hung in the central passage of a training institute … cannot fail to impress itself on the character of some, giving their tastes a bent in those directions which you would desire to push them into.

Albert Henry George, 4th Earl Grey (b.1851-d.1917). Letter, National Archives of Canada, Dated 13 March 1906.

This illustrated presentation introduces a series of early twentieth-century embroidered and appliquéd banners that were the inspiration of Lord Grey, Governor General of Canada between 1904–11. The medium – needlework – was specifically chosen because of its historic connotations. By literally fabricating material memories …

Copyright Statement

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

appropriation • acculturation • transformation

Proceedings of the 9th Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, Inc.

© 2005 Textile Society of America, Inc.

Copyright of individual papers remains with each author.

All rights reserved. Published 2005. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, except brief excerpts for the purpose of review, without written permission from the Textile Society of America. Students and researchers wishing to cite the work of specific authors are encouraged to communicate directly with those individuals, as many of these papers represent work in …

Churchill Weavers 80 Years Of American Handweaving, Philis Alvic

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In 1922 Eleanor and David Carroll Churchill founded Churchill Weavers in Berea, Kentucky, and it still continues as a unique American handweaving company over 80 years later. While a missionary in India, D. C. Churchill tackled problems within handweaving, the country’s second largest industry next to agriculture. He put to use his MIT education, adapting the loom’s fly-shuttle attachment for greater efficiency. After abandoning his short teaching career at Berea College, the Churchills began a business to employ local people that had few job opportunities. D.C. manufactured the loom he had designed in India and compartmentalized weaving tasks. Eleanor designed …

Piecing Together A New Home: Needlework In Kvinden Og Hjemmet Magazine, Laurann Gilbertson, Karen Olsen

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Kvinden og Hjemmet was a magazine for women published in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, from 1888 to 1947. “The Woman and the Home” contained patterns for clothing and fancywork, as well as household hints, recipes, serialized novels, short stories, and poetry. Everything was written in, or translated into, Norwegian.

Ida Hanson, the editor of Kvinden og Hjemmet, had emigrated from Norway in 1870. She knew first-hand the trials of adjusting to a new way of life and she wanted to ease the transition for other Norwegians by providing information on how to make clothing and household textiles in the American …

From Rags To Riches To Revolution: A Social History Of 19th Irish Lace, Shiralee Hudson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Cultural theorist Daniel Miller writes, “The deeply integrated place of the artefact in constituting culture and human relations has made discussion of it one of the most difficult of all areas to include in abstract academic discourse” (“Artefacts in Their Contexts,” Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Oxford 1987, p. 130). This is, however, the very task this discussion of nineteenth century Irish lace undertakes. This paper outlines the establishment of the lace industry in Ireland in such centers as Carrickmacross, Limerick and Youghal. It also examines both its makers and users, revealing how artefact can indeed provide a powerful …

Pleated Skirts Of Miao In Guizhou Province, China, Tomoko Torimaru, Tomoko Torimaru

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Miao of Guizho China are a people with no written script and therefore no written historical record. Of their pre-history, scholars are certain of only one thing: "…that the Miao were in China before the Chinese, for it is the latter themselves who indicate the presence of the Miao in the land, which they, the Chinese, were gradually infiltrating" (J. Mottin). With no written scripts, textiles are at once the Miao’s cultural identity, their history of migration, and a communication tool. For these reasons, Miao textile traditions survive to this day.

Although it is true the Miao have hundreds …

Textile Exchange And Cultural And Gendered Cross-Dressing At Palmyra, Syria (100 Bc—Ad 272), Cynthia Finlayson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

For millennia, textiles have been utilized by human civilizations to define gendered identities as well as ethnic and political affiliations. Textiles have also been utilized as lucrative objects of trade. As such, their utilization in societies foreign to their origin of manufacture presents an interesting study in the power of trade textiles to transform the very essence of both gendered and cultural manifestations of identity through the absorption of foreign clothing styles and textile motifs.

Perhaps no society utilized the influence of trade textiles with more eclectic creativeness than the ancient citizens of the Palmyrene trade oasis of Tadmor, Syria. …

West Anatolian Carpet Designs: The Effect Of Carpet Trade Between Ottoman Empire And Great Britain, Elvan Anmac, Filiz Adigüzel Toprak

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

West Anatolia is a region that holds diverse precincts of carpet weaving in terms of colour, motif and composition features the carpets display throughout history. The carpet weaving tradition of West Anatolia till the middle of the 19th century had continued as a home industry which was manufactured by the villagers. The weaving style followed a sample rug called “örneklik” (a sampler with many motifs on it); the weaver was selecting the type of design she wanted to use. It was not the custom to draw the design of the carpet on a design paper.

Together with the increase in …

Cultural Authentication And Fashion In The Global Factory: A Panel Of Four Papers, Hazel A. Lutz

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Erekosima and Eicher (1981) first published a cultural authentication (CA) analysis. Of the Kalabaris’ adoption of Indian madras cloth, they asked four questions. Selection: how was the new cloth selected by society members? Characterization: what is the adopted cloth now called? Incorporation: how has the cloth’s use changed vis-à-vis categories of persons who wear it, occasions of wear, and its meaning? Transformation: how has the cloth been physically transformed?

Lutz (2003) incorporated the four CA questions into her study of the producers and traders of Indian cloth exported to the now transnational Kalabari market. She found …

The Ubiquitous T-Shirt And Fashionable "Islamic Dress" Cultural Authentication In Turkey, Marlene R. Breu

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

From both rural and urban traditions, the dress of Turkey is rich in historical forms that have been transformed over the years. Transformation occurred as individuals and groups reacted to the external influences of trade, technology and political events. With the incorporation of the global market economy and a greater variety of inspirations and products available in rural and urban areas, individuals and groups combined elements of traditional dress with modern forms to create dress that is distinctively Turkish. These multi-layered cultural authentications are incorporated into use with meanings that function to maintain a social order and act as a …

Fashion, Tradition, And Cultural Authentication: Change In Hmong American Ethnic Textiles And Aesthetics At Hmong New Year, Susan J. Torntore

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper discusses the concepts of fashion and tradition as they relate to the process of cultural authentication. Historically, in the context of Laos and Thailand, Hmong textiles were used to create distinctive ensembles worn as everyday dress. They were handwoven and embroidered by women, and specific patterns or color combinations in the cloth denoted membership in regional language groups. Today, Hmong ethnic textiles are used in the United States to express ethnic identity and display cultural heritage in a more general context, worn instead at festive occasions such as Hmong New Year. Significant changes in “traditional” Hmong textiles have …

Culture On A Platter: Politicization Of Central Asian Ikat Patterns, Victoria Z. Rivers

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Textile patterns and motifs are powerful cultural markers conveying much more than mere geographic origin. Businesses and even governments have harnessed the meanings conveyed through the visual construct of textile patterns by adapting and interpreting them into products. This resulting, distinctive "otherness" has been used to express geo- and sociopolitical interests, ethnic identity and unity.

This paper investigates a curious example of textile pattern appropriation and explores its geopolitical and cultural meanings within a particularly volatile time and place. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian embroidered textiles and silk ikats began appearing in markets. Along with these …

Symbolic Defiance: Questions Of Nationalism And Tradition In Middle Eastern Textiles, Jeni Allenby

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

While the historical importance and visual beauty of Middle Eastern textiles have long been acknowledged, their contemporary role as a vehicle for political and nationalist expression has rarely been studied.

How has nationalism been transfigured into historical and contemporary Middle Eastern textile traditions? What new forms of textiles have developed from nationalist/political origins and what other cultures influenced their design and media? To whom was their political message addressed (were these textiles produced for local or foreign markets or as a means of symbolic private protest?) and has their creation altered traditional gender and/or social roles? What specific changes and …

History Of Research On African Factory-Printed Cloth And Current Approaches In The Field, Michelle Willard

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the significance of factory-printed cloth in Africa and its potential to communicate various messages through its use as clothing. Factory-printed cloth also has unintended communicative value when it is displayed outside Africa in museum contexts. I will introduce the topic with a brief history of research carried out on African factory-printed cloth and its appearance in museum and gallery exhibitions. This has led to contemporary forms of art historical and anthropological research. Some of the latter, including my own, has involved field collecting of commemorative cloths in West Africa. My research resulted in a museum exhibition of …

California And The Fiber Art Revolution, Suzanne Baizerman

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The 1960s and 1970s were critical years in the development of American fiber art. One of the major and most exciting centers of change was California. This paper will look at California’s transforming role in the fiber revolution. One noteworthy indicator of change in fiber art was the series of twelve exhibitions entitled California Design. They were held at the Pasadena Art Museum from 1954 to 1971 and at another venue in 1976. Exhibition catalogs were published for the last five exhibitions (1962, 1965, 1968, 1971 and 1976). The catalog pages document the movement within the fiber area - …

Joanne Segal Brandford, Barbara B. Goldberg

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper reviews the creative work of Joanne Segal Brandford. She received her BA in Decorative Art in 1955 and her MA in Design in 1967 from the University of California Berkeley with Ed Rossbach. Her work as artist, scholar, teacher, and curator was fueled by her interest and expertise in ethnic textiles, especially those of North, Central, and Andean America. Her widely exhibited innovative nets and sculptural forms were made by interlacing, knotting, and twining of primarily natural materials, sometimes dyed. Her mastery of handling materials in such a variety of ways was driven by the research and curatorial …

Katherine Westphal And Wearable Art, Jo Ann Stabb

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper traces the influence of Katherine Westphal on the developments in textile design during the years between 1965-1985. As a member of the Berkeley community and wife of UC Berkeley Professor Ed Rossbach, Katherine’s activities were key to incorporating ‘wearable art’ into the dialogue and validating it as a serious component of the ‘textile revolution’ taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area. I trace her career as a painter and free-lance textile designer to when she joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis campus. She revitalized that textile program with her emphasis on surface design and …

Dragon Covers – Mysterious Aberrations Of The Li, Lee J. Chinalai

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Over a million Li people, representing approximately fifteen percent of the total population, live predominantly in the mountainous areas of Hainan, China. The island is rich in silk, hemp, ramie and cotton. The Li, a tribal people, began spinning, weaving and dyeing in ancient times and developed over the centuries a reputation for the quality and beauty of their textiles. Although the clothing and textiles of the various Li sub-tribes span a range of style and design, all – with one exception – clearly emanate from Li religion, culture and tradition, sharing roots with other Daic-speaking groups.

Several years ago, …

Darning: A Visible Thread, Liz Williamson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper documents the transformation of cloth through the repair process by examining the impact of darning on the cloth’s surface. It looks at historical precedents for the translation of a darn into a decorative embellishment and the application of this translation as a concept for contemporary textiles.

Darning is a repair process for cloth, used to prolong the life of a garment out of necessity, sentimental reasons or on principle. Darning aims to make new, re-new and restore by the insertion of additional threads into the warp and weft of a cloth to repair holes and tears. An assumed …