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Textile Society Of America Newsletter 22:3 — Fall 2010, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Newsletters

Reflections of a Symposium Co-Chair [Textiles and Settlement: From Plains Space to Cyber Space, 12th Biennial Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, October 6–9, 2010]
From the President
TSA News
TSA Member News
In Memoriam: Elayne Zorn, 1952–2010
Symposium Exhibition: Binary Fiction: Digital Weaving 2010
Conference Reviews
Exhibition Reviews
Book Reviews
Featured Collection [Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Durham, England]
Collection News
Textile Community News
Publication News
Calendar-Conferences & Symposia, Exhibitions, Lectures
Call for Papers

Non-Traditional Lightweight Polypropylene Composites Reinforced With Milkweed Floss, Narendra Reddy, Yiqi Yang

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Faculty Publications

Lightweight composites are preferred for automotive applications due to the weight restrictions and also due to the presence of inherent voids that can enhance the sound absorption of these composites. The density of the reinforcing materials plays a crucial role in such lightweight composites. Milkweed is a unique natural cellulose fiber that has a completely hollow center and low density (0.9 g cm−3) unlike any other natural cellulose fiber. The low density of milkweed fibers will allow the incorporation of higher amounts of fiber per unit weight of a composite, which is expected to lead to lightweight composites with better …

Lost Channels, Joshua P. Johnson

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

LOST CHANNELS Josh Johnson, M.F.A University of Nebraska, 2010 Adviser: Mo Neal My current body of work derives from notions of an inward nature. Things that are difficult to put your finger on for very long are my focus. Sensations as obscure as the lump in the pit of your stomach or the itch in the back of your mind that turns sleep into a game, conditions that both stifle and propel an individual. These hazy passengers churn within, coating themselves with the residue of memories, concerns, desires and other intangible features of the body; waiting to be released from …

Breathe... Keep Breathing., Shaun C. Kiel

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

I work with short-duration seamless video loops. My work simultaneously depicts and emulates the material composition of time, specifically how action composes time and how time can compose or construct objects.

My work is self-reflexive. Self-reflexive means that a product actively considers or examines its own production. In video this means breaking either the illusion of depicted time as real time or the illusion of the depicted image as real space. Video loops are self-reflexive by function. Their periodic recurrence points out the artifact of the medium.

The periodic recurrence of video loops also changes the narrative quality of the …

Uova, Elisa N. Di Feo

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

UOVA

Elisa N. Di Feo, MFA

University of Nebraska, 2010

Adviser: Peter Pinnell

The word uova is the plural form for “egg,” in Italian. Eggs represent potential for new life and growth, as well as being vessels themselves. Uova, as a word, functions well in the exhibition for the relationship of its sound to the pieces. The sound gives the word a broader sensibility and significance beyond its definition. There are also formal and surface relationships between this work and eggs, including the satin surfaces and rounded curves of the forms.

I have always been attracted to volume, and its …

Maelstrom, Gertrude L. Teijink

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

My work is a confrontation with the conflict between our everyday activities, and the fleetingness of our existence. We are dragged through time and through space, but ultimately we are unavoidably lost in a swirl of oblivion. Given this dissonance, I question the meaning of our everyday activities. Can we find satisfaction with what we do? And why are we compelled to do it? The case I try to make for the meaning of life’s repetitive or renewal actions is made largely in reference to myself, which gives my work an undeniable autobiographical component.

For my thesis work, I photograph …

Abstention And Opposition, Ryan D. Labar

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

ABSTENTION AND OPPOSITION Ryan LaBar, M.F.A. University of Nebraska, 2010 Adviser: Peter Pinnell

Working with clay, I fabricate individual wheel thrown elements, these, together with other clay parts, are carefully stacked on top of each other to compose a layered and woven structure. Each element counterbalances the position of another. These precarious constructs are placed in a kiln, and the heat of the kiln melts and moves the clay and glaze. The clay parts deform as the material softens. Tensions are released, causing the system to undergo a domino effect best described as a cascading failure where the failure of …

Once-Removed (And Other Familiar Relations), Emily Newman

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

Conventional perceptions of space rouse my investigation of images as stand-ins for an objects reference. Removing the context of an object changes the once tangible form. No longer able to be touched, used or relate to its original environment, an object transformed into an image exists solely for our visual and psychological perceptions.

In substituting one for the other, image for object and vise versa, a hierarchy occurs. Its previous existence now establishes a mental presence, shifting the future recollection of such an image to precede or replace the actual object in memory. Proxy of image for object and object …

From Baa To Eye: Language As Images, Yinghua Zhu

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

From Baa to Eye: Language as Images

Languages, as I understood, are the most direct confrontation of cultures because of their inherent culture iconicity. My approach to employ the English language as a subject matter is to interpret the culture it represents. I use language as a metaphor to address the boundary, the inadequacy, the longing, the contradiction, the adaptation, the curiosity, and the frustration that one encounters when different cultures clash. These clashes are valuable because they help me recognize and appreciate the differences, or in other words, the otherness. Otherness is a fundamental category of human thought. It …

Cut, Bryan Drew

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

The act of cutting is to sever, to divide an object or even an idea into separate parts of its original state. Non-tangibles can also in a sense be ‘cut’, like gaps in memories or modifications of beliefs or ideas. My work encompasses these definitions of cutting. Working mostly from photos, I use imagery from personal experience, such as meat from my hunting experience, patterns from nostalgic blankets, or photos of people in my life. Other times, I choose imagery simply because I feel compelled to paint it, or it feels somehow needed within the composition. My process begins by …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 22:2 — Spring/Summer 2010, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America Newsletters

A Feast of Options Awaits Symposium Attendees in October [Textiles and Settlement: From Plains Space to Cyber Space, 12th Biennial Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, October 6–9, 2010]
From the President
TSA News
TSA Member News
In Memoriam: Natalie K. A. Rothstein, 1930–2010; Patricia J. Williams, 1944–2010; Stephen M. Beal, 1939–2010
Collections News
Textile Community News
Exhibition Reviews
Book Reviews
Publication News
Calls for Papers
Calendar-Conferences & Symposia, Exhibitions, Tours, Lectures & Workshops

I'Ve Fallen In Love With Every One Of You..., Kayleigh L. Speck

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

Photographs best show and describe the world, capturing a split second in time without necessarily providing the viewer with any sort of explanation or answer as to why something looks the way it does. Although the camera captures images of the “real,” it has the ability to tell lies. It changes our perception of space, the color of light, and the way things look overall. This is the reason I have chosen this medium; I want to see what my world looks like in a photograph.

Through these photographs of the every day lives of my subjects and myself, I …

Am I Here?, Carla M. Potter

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

My interest in art and figuration has its roots in a childhood where ballet classes and performing were my first love. This work is about an accumulation of experience that relates to that rich formative time in my life, so I choose a format of presenting the figure that reflects that stage of my life. I make small-scale narrative sculptures that show me at various ages with objects that are emblematic of my experiences at those times. These items, ranging from a child’s car seat to the lacy veil from First Holy Communion, additionally represent those societal institutions intended to …

Black, White, Brown, Aisha S. Harrison

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

BLACK, WHITE, BROWN Aisha Shani Harrison, M.F.A University of Nebraska, 2010

Adviser: Gail Kendall

I address emotions and perceptions that are complex and multifaceted. My goal is for the work to communicate these emotions in a way that makes them accessible to others. Most people have felt disconnected, longing, anticipation, relief, anger, frustration and have experienced internal conflict. While this work touches on these emotions, there is, because of who I am, a set of questions I am asking regarding racial identity.

This autobiographical work is a series of ceramic figures that are engaged with symbolic objects which together form …

Textiles And Tradition In The Marketplace, Philis Alvic

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Textiles and traditional textile techniques have been part of economic crafts development in many countries for a long time. Many of the schemes for helping the poorest of the world’s poor involve using or adapting textiles and creating products to appeal to the tourist and export markets. Individual styles become marketing tools because they are unique to a particular culture. In coming up with items that will sell, rarely does the product honor the culture that it came from.

While any TSA member would realize the value of traditional textiles, most customers prefer that the fabric be used to make …

Natural Dyes, Our Global Heritage Of Colors, Dominique Cardon

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In the past, each civilization throughout the world has selected its own specific range of plant and animal sources of color, each from their respective natural environments. These included dyes and colorants that were used for the hair and skin, for everyday or festive food, for clothing and furnishing textiles, matting, etc. Scientific research into the colorants present in historical and anthropological textiles and objects have revealed a common empiric logic for this selection, and astonishing parallels can be found in the technical processes developed by ancient and traditional dyers of all continents. This lecture will consist of a discussion …

Kyrgyz Felt Of The 20th And 21st Centuries, Dinara Chochunbaeva

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Kyrgyz people, representing the ancient nomadic civilization of Central Asia, manufactured felt from time immemorial and utilized it in all aspects of their lives. The portable house of Kyrgyz tribes, the yurt, was covered by felt, while the interior decoration and richly ornamented rugs, household goods, clothes, and toys were felt as well.

Felt also had sacral meaning and played an important role in the social life of the tribe. The elected leader was lifted up by tribe members on a piece of white felt, symbolizing public acknowledgment of his power; in funerary traditions a piece of felt was used …

Contemporary Interpretation Of An Unusual Navajo Weaving Technique, Connie Lippert

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

I am not Navajo and, therefore, I do not practice Navajo weaving. I do use the wedge weave technique that was practiced by the Navajo for a period in the late 1800s. A Navajo wedge weave is easily recognizable because of the colors used and the shapes consistent with other Navajo weaving. Although I use the same technique, my use of color and shape transforms wedge weave into a contemporary weave.

Wedge weave is an unusual form of tapestry. Pictorial imagery is not its goal. Instead, the weft is woven in such a way that the actual horizontal-vertical structure of …

Low Tech Transmission: European Tapestry To High Tech America, Christine Laffer

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

European tapestry techniques reached the U.S. in several waves of cultural transmission, starting in the late 1800s when the first tapestry studios were established on the east coast. The differences between the two continents and their focus on different types of technical knowledge appeared almost instantly. In Europe, institutions guarded the logic and purity of their techniques through systems ranging from educational programs to state-run tapestry studios over several hundred years. In the U.S., tapestry existed primarily as a commercial enterprise serving a small sector of the population over a few decades. Further, the lack of an educational component prevented …

Colcha Embroidery As Cartography: Mapping Landscapes Of Memory And Passage, Suzanne P. Macaulay

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Stitching is one of the oldest forms or technologies of textile craft – if we regard technology in its elemental sense as artistry, process, invention or method. This presentation explores the notion of embroidered maps as creations of a cartographic visionary imagination. In terms of the Symposium’s theme promoting new links between traditional textile-based concepts and contemporary digital processes, these cartographic embroideries are viewed as compositions of space-time in which landscapes are rendered as illusions of three dimensions (space) with an implied fourth dimension (time). In these pictorial embroideries, time melds with memory in order to transcend the physical division …

Synthetic Fibers, Showy Cars And Sportshirts: Liberating The Fashion Spirit Of “The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit”, Diane Maglio

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

We want to sing the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the earth, along the circle of its orbit. F. T. Marinetti Futurists of 1911 celebrated technology, the beauty of speed and racing cars with “great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath.” They integrated their philosophy with a Manifesto of Men’s Clothing extolling comfort, joyful practicality and illumination –light even in the rain. In the 1950s, American men followed the path of the Futurists driving dream cars with spectacular tail fins and fashionable synthetic jacquard upholstery while dressing in sport shirts of expressive fibers …

Velvetweaving Today: A Worldwide Overview, Barbara Setsu Pickett

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Velvet is a luxury cloth. Fashioned into garments, it dresses the elite. In interiors, it covers walls and upholsters furniture. Its sumptuous display denotes status, power, privilege and wealth. For the past twenty-eight years, my research and art has focused on learning its traditions and handweaving practice.

Besides studying textile archives, I have more importantly visited the few remaining ateliers and have interviewed the artisans to learned about their training, methods and activities.

How do they control the tension of the pile warp?
How do they prevent crushing the woven velvet while it is on the loom?
How do they …

Metalling With Fibers: A Design Series Exploring The Reuse Of Metal Findings Through The Use Of Technology, Eulanda A. Sanders

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

When analyzing “socially responsible” along the supply-chain of apparel production, there has not been an emphasis on the purchase of findings used in production of clothing and how surplus items are used or discarded. Hawley (2006) describes the mechanical sorting of findings to assist in the post-consumer recycling of apparel to aid in reclaiming fiber from products. Her research raised the following questions: 1) What happens to these findings after they are removed from the garment? 2) Is it possible to use these items in wearable or fiber art projects? 3) Where are additional sources for obtaining or reclaiming surplus …

Hooked: Between Personal And Public Space, Patricia Tinajero

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper explores the proliferation of sculptural forms made exclusively by crocheting. Crochet is explored as a tool and medium that create sculptural forms and installations of grand scale.

My presentation compares and contrasts the connections between personal and private space as they are presented in the artwork of Andrea Zittle “Uniform Project” with the public and collective artwork of artist, Jennifer Marsh, and her “International Fabric Collective” project. The scope and scale in which these artists work present two different methodologies for developing large-scale projects that are based on the use of crochet techniques.

Anna Von Mertens: Azmt & Aura, Concurrent Exhibitions, The Project Room

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Project Room & Dushan Creative
www.projectroom.us www.dushancreative.com
(402) 617-8365 (402) 420-0941

Anna Von Mertens: AZMT & Aura
Oct. 1st, First Friday: 7 to 10:00 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 2nd: noon to 4:00
Special open hours: Friday and Saturday, Oct. 8th and 9th: noon to 4

Anna Von Mertens pays tribute to a pioneer quilter, Anna Zerissa Morse Thurston, who traveled from Maine to California in the 1880s, almost certainly going through Nebraska on the Oregon Trail. Using computer technology to chart the star pattern at dawn on the day the woman was born in Maine and at dusk the day she …

New Material World: Rethreading Technology, Concurrent Exhibitions, The Sheldon Museum Of Art

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Sheldon Museum of Art
www.sheldonartgallery.org
12th & R St.
(402) 472-2461

New Material World: Rethreading Technology
October 8, 2010 - January 2, 2011

From manipulating old techniques in new ways to coupling new tools and digital
processes with traditional methods, this work explores what it means to be an
artist integrating such approaches in the 21st century.

Participating artists: Lyn Carter, Kyoung Ae Cho (1997 Lillian Elliott Awardee),
Sonya Clark (2000 LEA), Ishida Tomoko Hashimoto (1998 LEA), Kyoko Kumai,
Cat Mazza, Janice Lessman-Moss, Geraldine Ondrizek, Jessica Smith, and
Grethe Sørensen.

Review Of Teaching Graphic Novels, By Katie Monnin, Susan Spangler

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

No abstract provided.

Structure And Properties Of Cocoons And Silk Fibers Produced By Hyalophora Cecropia, Narendra Reddy, Yiqi Yang

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Faculty Publications

This paper shows that silk fibers produced by cecropia (Hyalophora cecropia) have similar tensile properties but different amino acid composition than that of mulberry (Bombyx mori) silk. The cecropia fibers are also much finer and have better strength and modulus than tasar silk, the most common non-mulberry silk. Cecropia is one of the largest silk producing moths and has similar lifecycle to that of mulberry silk but is easier to grow and produces larger cocoons than mulberry silk. In this study, we have characterized the composition, morphology, physical and tensile properties, and thermal behavior of the …

Structure And Properties Of Ultrafine Silk Fibers Produced By Theriodopteryx Ephemeraeformis, Narendra Reddy, Yiqi Yang

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Faculty Publications

Theriodopteryx ephemeraeformis commonly known as bag worms produce ultrafine silk fibers that are remarkably different than the common domesticated (Bombyx mori) and wild (Saturniidae) silk fibers. Bag worms are considered as pests and commonly infect trees and shrubs. Although it has been known that the cocoons (bags) produced by bag worms are composed of silk, the structure and properties of the silk fibers in the bag worm cocoons have not been studied. In this research, the composition, morphology, physical structure, thermal stability, and tensile properties of silk fibers produced by bag worms were studied. Bag worm …

Developing Water Stable Gliadin Films Without Using Crosslinking Agents, Narendra Reddy, Yiqi Yang

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Faculty Publications

Abstract For the first time, gliadin films with excellent strength and water stability have been developed without using any crosslinking agents. So far, it has not been possible to obtain water stable gliadin films even after crosslinking. In this research, a novel method of using aqueous urea and ethanol has been developed to obtain highly water stable gliadin films without using crosslinking chemicals. The effects of concentrations of gliadin, urea and ethanol on the strength of the films and the stability of the films in water at high temperatures and various pH conditions has been studied. Gliadin films developed in …