Art and Design Commons^™

Indian Basketry In Yosemite Valley, 19th-20th Century: Gertrude “Cosie” Hutchings Mills, Tourists And The National Park Service, Catherine K. Hunter

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Basketry is the highest art form of Native Americans in California. I will focus on Yosemite Valley starting in the 1850s when Native Americans adapted progressively to contact with miners, settlers, and tourists. As a Research Associate at the Peabody Museum, Andover, Massachusetts, I inventoried the Native American Basket Collection. The unpublished Hutchings Mills Collection, acquired by Gertrude ‘Cosie’ Hutchings in Yosemite prior to 1900, caught my attention. In 1986, the Department of the Interior requested the collection be loaned, exchanged, or purchased as “the single most important assemblage from that period.” The collection did not leave Andover; however, one …

Tinctorial Cartographies: Plant, Dye & Place, Anna Heywood-Jones

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

We live in a plant-dominated biosphere, and yet the relevance and meaning of vegetal life, beyond its contribution to human existence, is rarely considered. This way of thinking has led us to see nature as external to ourselves, as “other,” as that mysterious realm beyond the human sphere of being. As in visual culture, plant life possesses signifiers and coded meanings in its contextual configurations. Botanical literacy offers insight into environmental, sociocultural, and historical narratives of place, as the forests and herbaceous margins of our communities speak of complex past, a parallel history of survival and adaptation. Plants and textiles, …

Ancient, Indigenous And Iconic Textile Motifs In Contemporary Fashion Case Study: Defining Concepts Through Textile Designs: Appropriation, Collaboration, Provenance And Identity, Kristin Scheel Lunde

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper investigates the material and visual characteristics of certain ancient and historical textile motifs with roots in Chinese and African culture, and their sudden appearance in new geographical and cultural context. Appropriated into western contemporary textile and fashion trends, this paper examines the new roles of these designs in context of foreigness, identity, and hybridity. Their consumption and reception both within and beyond their original cultures is a central theme, and it is evident that their reception in both locations, although different, exhibits some similarities. Exploring the transcultural consumption and reception that occurs in various cultural locations this paper …

Embroidering Paradise: Suzanis As A Place Of Creative Agency And Acculturation For Uzbek Women In 19th Century Bukhara, Shannon Ludington

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Central Asian women have long been a point of fascination, written and sung about by others. Exoticized as an oriental “other,” there are many legends but only few historic details known, and then recorded not by themselves but by foreign men. A number of excellent books on women in Uzbekistan under the Soviet Union, and on Uzbek craft and culture in general have been published but most authors conclude there simply is not enough evidence to say anything more about Uzbek women from their own perspective before Soviet times. In Embroidering Paradise: Suzanis as a Place of Creative Agency and …

Occam’S Razor: Origins Of A Classical Turkish Carpet Design?, Sumru Belger Krody

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This case study will explore the origins of a Turkish carpet design by discussing a thirteenth century Mamluk textile cover in The Textile Museum’s collection. Seemingly little connected textile types help us understand how textile motifs and designs moved from one to another, from one to another type, from one culture to another, from one part of the world to another, and from one period to another through the old trade routes. Examining these factors and looking beyond a single type of textile are of paramount importance for understanding and evaluating textile design traditions. The first section of the paper …

Containing Tradition, Embracing Change: Weaving Together Plant Materials In Northern Latin America, Kathryn Rousso

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

From southern Mexico to northern Colombia, palm fronds, wild pineapple fibers, agave fibers, wild bamboo and cane have been woven into bags, baskets, mats, hats, and brooms for as long as anyone can remember. These items carry great historical and cultural value to many Indigenous people including the Otomi (Mexico), Maya (Mexico and Guatemala), Lenca (Honduras), Ngobe-Bugle (Panama), Embera (Panama and Columbia), plus the Guane and Zunu (Columbia) providing a “sense of place” for those who harvest, prepare, weave, and use or sell plant material woven items in each of their unique environments. Spanish colonization, civil wars, modern politics, tourism, …

The Rayed Head And Stepped Platform: A Core Symbol Of The Southern Andean Iconographic Series, Nancy B. Rosoff

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper will explore various manifestations of the Rayed Head motif that is found on textiles produced by the Nasca, Sihuas, and Pucara cultures during the Early Intermediate Period (200 BCE – 600 CE), in the southern Andean region of South America. The Brooklyn Museum’s famous Nasca mangle, also known as “The Paracas Textile,” features repeating images of the Rayed Head motif on its interior cotton panel. Sihuas mantles also display distinctive manifestations of the motif in the form of a large rectangular head with highly stylized features and surrounded by radiating appendages. The late textile scholar and archaeologist Joerg …

Place-Based Textiles In Post Wwii Poland, Jane Przybysz

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

When WWII broke out, textile art faculty Stefan and Helena Galkowski left the Arts Academy in Crakow, Poland to take refuge in the countryside. There, they continued their artistic practice, utilizing materials close at hand - undyed sheep’s wool – to make work they regarded as carrying on a distinctly Polish and politically-charged weaving tradition. After the War, even sheep’s wool was scarce. Polish textile artists like Magdelena Abakanowicz seized upon a plentiful local material – sisal – to improvise new textile art-making methods and forms. In the wake of WWII, the nascent Polish communist government saw in pre-WWII artisan …

Local Wear: A Chat About Textiles & The Body, Emily J. Pascoe

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In this presentation, I propose that worn-in garments are a shared aspect of the relationship between humans and textiles, while also being unique to the user. The relationship between natural, cultural, and material forms, resulting in wear on textiles, begins with the human body. The human body is the most universal local. It is the essential qualifier to be a part of the human species. Although it is a biological form, how the body behaves, and the shapes it is molded into, are influenced by culture. The textiles that enclose the body accrue signs of the interactions. Even if the …

Silk Velvets Identified As Byzantine: Were Warp-Looped Silk Pile Velvets Woven Under The Byzantine Empire?, Sumiyo Okumura

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper will examine the possibility of whether warp-looped pile velvets, made of silk, were woven during the Byzantine Empire. This study is a continuation of my research for “Velvet and Patronage: the Origin and Historical Background of Ottoman and Italian Velvets.” Research has been conducted under these five themes: 1. Byzantine silk industry; 2. The terminology of velvet in Greek; 3. Velvets in Byzantine written sources; 4. Historical background: the relation between Byzantines and Latin powers, Turks and the Middle East; 5. Latin trade in the Black Sea and 6. Velvet production in Anatolia in the Byzantine period.

The Untold Story Of Inuit Printed Fabrics From Kinngait Studios, Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada, Roxane Shaughnessy, Anna Richard

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Textile Museum of Canada holds a collection of close to 200 printed fabrics designed by Inuit artists at Kinngait Studios in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, Canada in the 1950s and 1960s. The pieces are owned by the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative (WBEC) and are on longterm loan to the Museum. Building on centuries-old Inuit graphic traditions, printmaking was introduced in Kinngait in 1957 as part of a larger initiative to encourage handicraft production for sale in the Canadian south. By the 1960s, the studio had a number of Inuit artists who contributed to the Kinngait Studios’ print program which …

The Radical Fiber Art Practices Of The Yarn Mission: A Case Study, Lila Stone

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper aims to investigate how The Yarn Mission uses fiber arts practices to challenge racism and sexism through the lens of a case study. The Yarn Mission is a “pro-Black, pro-rebellion, pro-community” knitting collective that formed in St. Louis, Missouri in response to the tragic death of Mike Brown at the end of 2014. It now has chapters in Minneapolis, MN; Atlanta, GA; New York City; and Wilmington, DE. This research draws on a series of semi-structured interviews (with questions that prompt discussion) with selected founders and current members of The Yarn Mission. I will conduct both phone and …

Living Organisms For Living Spaces: Shifting The Function Of Material, Juliana Silva Diaz

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This document explains the creative and analytical processes behind the project Living Organisms for Living Spaces. This art project examines the conceptual considerations around material by analyzing ‘objects’ – specifically fabric and textile ornaments – from Colombia’s material culture. The project explores the symbolic meaning of these objects that have both a Catholic and colonial legacy in society.

Warp And Weft Twining, And Tablet Weaving Around The Pacific, Tomoko Torimaru, Kathryn Rousso, Laura Filloy Nadal, Alejandro De Ávila B

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Warp and weft twining predates loom-woven textiles in the archaeological record. Although it was displaced by other techniques to produce fabric in areas where it is recorded from early times, such as Egypt, this particular approach to building woven structures is still maintained in scattered areas around the world as part of local traditions with deep significance in ritual and festive life, as well in the heavy subsistence work of agricultural and hunting/fishing communities.

In this roundtable, we propose to describe, illustrate and compare warp and weft twined, and tablet woven textiles from Central America, Mexico, Canada, Alaska, China, Myanmar …

Threading Together Politics And Poetics In Cecilia Vicuña’S Fiber Art, Jacqueline Witkowski

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In 2006, Chilean artist Cecelia Vicuña carried thick knotted red strands of unspun wool to Cerro El Plomo, a glaciated peak outside of Santiago. Done in response to government-sanctioned acquisitions of gold and silver mines sitting under the glacier by a Canadian corporation, Vicuña’s use of her quipu-an ancient mnemonic device-tied the historical disappearance of the Incan empire to an ecological devastation occurring in the new millennium. Her actions also referenced the Pinochet dictatorship, as well as her own exile when in 1979, she traveled to Colombia and with a red string tied to a glass of milk, spilled its …

Sanquhar Gloves: An Exemplification Of Deep Local To Pan Global?, Angharad Thomas

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Hand knitted gloves with unique patterning have been produced in the small Scottish town of Sanquhar for probably 200 years. They continue to be produced there today, demonstrating a “deep local” presence spanning many generations. Meanwhile, knowledge of the gloves has spread globally, including the English-speaking world as well as Europe and Scandinavia. Aided by modern social media they have become “pan global” as exemplified in the author’s blog documenting “The Glove Project” (https:knittinggloves.wordpress.com/), the Ravelry group dedicated to Sanquhar knitting (http://www.ravelry.com/groups/sanquhar-knitting-group) and an ongoing online exhibition for the Center for Knit and Crochet USA (http://sanquhargloves.centerforknitandcrochet.org). …

The Wagga Quilt In History And Literature, Diana Mary Eva Thomas

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Wagga quilt fits squarely into the Australian tradition of ‘making do.’ These quilts were constructed from recycled materials that were available at the time-for the shearer or drover that was wheat sacks, for the poor family on the land it was clothing that could no longer be worn because it was too threadbare, for Depression-era women it was the samples that tailors or fabric salesmen no longer needed. But Waggas are not only the products of hardship on the land. Many of the surviving quilts were used in homes in reginal towns or the suburbs or large cities such …

The Lévite Dress: Untangling The Cultural Influences Of Eighteenth-Century French Fashion, Kendra Van Cleave

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

During the final decades of the eighteenth century, France saw a massive vogue for women’s clothing styles that, while adhering to the fundamental norms of French dress, were directly influenced by Ottoman clothing. One of the most popular of these was the levite, a dress that was introduced in the late 1770s and continued in popularity through the late 1780s. Inspired by costumes worn in a staging of Racine’s play “Athalie,” which is set in the ancient Biblical era, the levite initially mimicked the lines of Middle Eastern caftans. Over time, the style developed into at least three different variations, …

Mashru Redux: From The Calico Museum In Ahmedabad To A Loom In The Great Plains, Wendy R. Weiss

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

A zigzag line of resist dye characterizes a fabric called Mashru. It was produced in several different geographic locations; however, this paper discusses examples from India and my efforts to reconstruct patterns that have not been actively produced in this century. The Calico Museum in Ahmedabad is the first place I saw this style of warp resist fabric. The literature says that it was produced for Muslim clients who were not allowed to wear silk next to their skin. The word “Mashru” means “permitted” in Arabic and its Sanskrit variation “Misru” means “mixed.” A mashru fabric historically has a silk …

Cottage Industry As Social Practice: Sustainability Of Handweaving In The Post-Industrialist Era, Maggie Leininger

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

India to Appalachia: How Cottage Industries Preserve Textile Heritage examines the role of the hand weaver and the cottage industry from India to the American Craft Revival in promoting cultural identity through textiles. The migratory nature of textile production both in the pre-and post-industrial practices has long challenged the notion of a pure textile heritage for any culture. However, with the almost simultaneous appearance of Khadi production in India and the American Craft Revival of Appalachia, the allure of the homespun as a cultural asset became a mechanism to offset the impact of textile industrialization. As urban centers increased in …

The Deep Origins Of Kashmir Shawls, Their Broad Dissemination And Changing Meaning. Or Unraveling The Origins And History Of A Unique Cashmere Shawl, Joan Hart

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Emulation is constant in all forms of art. Debates have arisen regarding the nature of this imitation by Europeans of indigenous Kashmir shawls. The intrinsic Kashmiri aspect was the weave itself: nowhere else was a double interlock tapestry twill technique used. The unique fabric originated in Tibet: pashmina from the underbelly of the mountain goat. The shawl was strong, lightweight, and warm. The earliest Kashmir shawls were simple in design: the double long shawls and moon shawls. The earliest shawls had simple motifs, single floral blooms. By the end of the eighteenth century, this motif was compounded to many blooms …

Common Sense & Pin Money: The Material Culture And Legacy Of Lula Annie Butler 1909-2009, Robin Michel Caudell

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

“Common Sense and Pin Money: The Material Culture and Legacy of Lula Annie Butler 1909-2009” examines local/global contexts of the late Mrs. Butler’s found quilts, her “make do” ethos, which made a way out of no way decades before recycle, re-purpose and green were hash tags. A lifelong Preston, Maryland resident and domestic worker, Mrs. Butler’s household was outfitted with quilts, tablecloths, aprons, pillows, and shopping bags she created from fabric-sample books and fabric remnants obtained from the late Mrs. Sarah Covey, her longest employer, who operated a drapery and upholstery business in Federalsburg, Maryland. Mrs. Butler’s artistic impulse-vibrant, improvisational, …

Abstracts Of Papers: Textile Society Of America 16th Biennial Symposium

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Abstracts of 175 papers:

Monisha Ahmed — The Kashmir / Cashmere Shawl – Tradition and Transformation

Philis Alvic — Eliza Calvert Hall, The Handwoven Coverlet Book, and Collecting Coverlet Patterns in Early Twentieth Century Appalachia

Sarah Amarica — Global Threads: Histories of Labour and Cloth in Ann Hamilton and Ibrahim Mahama’s Installation Art

Lynne Anderson — Schoolgirl Embroideries: Integrating Indigenous Motifs, Materials, and Text

Jennifer Angus — Education through Co-Design

Margaret Olugbemisola Areo and Adebowale Biodun Areo — Egungun: Concept, Content and the Dynamic Contextual Manifestations of Yoruba Ancestors Masquerade

Alison Ariss — Wrapped in Wool: Coast Salish wool weaving, …

Radical Access: Textiles And Museums, Michele Hardy, Joanne Schmidt

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This presentation discusses recent initiatives at Glenbow and Nickle Galleries that endeavor to provide new, radical levels of access to textile collections as a means to build community and affect creativity. While locking textiles away in environmentally controlled rooms and minimizing handling are useful methods for preservation, they are less effective in building vibrant communities or creating future relevance form museum collections. This paper, building on Hemming’s post-colonial textile theory, as well as Onciul’s theories on decolonizing engagement, challenge the apparent dichotomy between access and preservation. It argues that preservation without radical access, without shared community meaning making, without respecting …

Weaving Authenticity: Artesanías Or The Art Of The Textile In Chiapas, Mexico [Poster], Addison Nace

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In Chiapas, Mexico textiles live in different institutions from the market to the museum. In these spaces tourists, art professionals, and weavers manifest their varying perspectives of the authenticity of textiles. I examine the construction of authenticity through these spaces. In the museum, textiles become authentic because they represent a vision of an idyllic past. The authenticity created by the market is entangled in the acts of production by weaving cooperatives and consumption by tourists. Weavers see their work in intertwined thread with identity, culture, art, and economic necessity. Tourists often fetishize the handmade and cultural ties of the objects, …

Refashioning Newport: Reuse Of Textiles During The Gilded Age, Anna Rose Keefe

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

During the late-nineteenth century, descriptions of the fashions worn by the summer residents of Newport, RI appeared in magazines and newspapers all around the world. Though contemporary interpretation romanticizes the idea that Newport’s style leaders wore their ensembles once before discarding them, letters and diaries from the Newport Historical Society and the Preservation Society of Newport County detail how clothing was reused and remade across all levels of society during the American Gilded Age. While Newport’s belles sold and traded gowns with friends, remodeled afternoon ensembles into evening gowns, and re-cut and re-dyed their clothing to fit the latest styles, …

Sprang Bonnets From Late Antique Egypt: Producer Knowledge And Exchange Through Experimental Reconstruction, Carol James

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Head coverings are a global phenomenon, worn by people everywhere with various roles and meanings within their respective societies. The sprang technique has been part of the hat-making tradition in various times and places, from Bronze Age bonnets in Scandinavia to hair nets found in modern Eastern Europe. Arid conditions in the Nile Valley communities of Egypt preserved hundreds of sprang bonnets dating to the Late Antique period (c. 3^rd to 7^th centuries) which are now held in many European and North American museums. Among these, the Deutsches Textilmuseum in Krefeld, Germany holds one of the largest collections …

The Modern Development Of Kyoto Textiles For The Kimono, Keiko Okamoto

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Hand painted yūzen dyeing and other types of yūzen dyeing are considered the main dyeing methods among Kyoto textiles. They were developed between the mid-17^th century and early 20^th century and are still used for the kimono. The kimono and its textiles were spotlighted in Western countries when Japan opened the country to the West in the late 19^th century and had been popular into the early 20^th century. Westerns collected them, wore them, or used them as motifs of their art works. Japanese also took Western motifs in the kimono textile designs, which in turn …

Rahul Jain’S Reimagined Velvet Drawloom, Barbara Setsu Pickett

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Indian textile traditions are exemplars of Deep Local, firmly rooted in geography and culture. Even family names denote specific occupations; Ansari are weavers; Chippa, block-print dyers; Khatri, bandhani dyers. In the 1980s, two exhibitions introduced me to Indian textiles. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s show, “India Festival of Science included artisans demonstrating their specialties. Ansar Ahmed Ansari, a Varanasi silk brocade weaver, wove sari fabric on a Jacquard loom. After shadowing him for several days, he offered his business card and invited me to visit. In New York at the Met, the India Art and Culture exhibition had …

Along A Continuum: Spirally-Woven Beadwork Of The Tlingit, Wasco, And Pit River Peoples, Alice Scherer

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This presentation explores the impact of introducing glass beads on the weaving practices of three Pacific Northwest Indigenous groups. Although Native Americans made and used beads of bone, shell, seed, and stone prior to contact with Western European culture, the 18^th-century introduction of glass beads brought new elements of sparkle, regularity, and color to native art and inspired creative expressions. Faced with the challenge of integrating these new materials, women turned to familiar basketry techniques for ideas, adapting traditional basket-making methods to weave beads and native-made fibers into bags, caps, straps, and hair ornaments. Visual evidence for this …