Art and Materials Conservation Commons^™

The Merchants And The Dyers: The Rise Of A Dyeing Service Industry In Massachusetts And New York 1800-1850, Linda Jean Thorsen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Histories of dyeing in the United States have tended to emphasize home craft processes, early textile manufacturing, or the growth of synthetic dyes. But in the first decades of the nineteenth century, a vibrant independent dyeing service industry emerged in U.S. port cities. Using natural dyes, working with a variety of fibers, colors, and finishing processes, and developing sophisticated skills and equipment, these dyers served import merchants, retailers, elite households, and businesses such as hotels. They received cloth, garments, or home furnishings, cleaned, bleached, and/or dyed them, and then returned them “like new.” To satisfy customers, these businesses had to …

Artist At Sea: Codes And Cargo, Kelly Thompson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The themes of land, labor and the port resonate for me and particularly in recent voyage experiences and digital weaving research, which I will attempt to bring together in this talk. These activities converge in new and evolving artwork, generating more questions than answers on the relationships between digital and analog materiality. Trades routes, and the movement of people and goods through ports, notions of networks, flow, circulation, has parallels and resonance with our contemporary digital systems and also, correlations with political issues, namely power and control. The Container Shipping world is fascinating to drop in on, a world so …

A Morenada Dance Costume: An Example Of The Interconnection Of The Americas, Spain And Africa, Nancy B. Rosoff

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper will explore the interconnection of the Americas, Spain and Africa as exemplified by a 19th century festival costume in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, worn for the Moreno or Morenada, a dance developed after Spain’s conquest and colonization of the Inca Empire in the 16th century. Two other costumes were also examined, one in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and the other in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz, Bolivia. Today, the Moreno or Morenada is one of the most popular dances …

Velvet And Patronage: The Origin And Historical Background Of Ottoman And Italian Velvets, Sumiyo Okumura Dr.

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Velvets are one of the most luxurious textile materials and were frequently used in furnishings and costumes in the Middle East, Europe and Asia in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. Owing to many valuable studies on Ottoman and Italian velvets as well as Chinese and Byzantine velvets, we have learned the techniques and designs of velvet weaves, and how they were consumed. However, it is not well-known where and when velvets were started to be woven. The study will shed light on this question and focus on the origin, the historical background and development of velvet weaving, examining historical sources …

Non-Specific: Ubiquity, Invisible Labor And The Moving Blanket, Callen Zimmerman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

“A textile is not simply a binary system of spun, twisted or spliced fibres, but first and foremost a result of complex interactions between resources, technology and society.” Eva Anderson Strand The crash of metal on asphalt as the back of a truck lowers its lift, a grunt of exertion, a buoyant step on the platform, the shuffling of work boots in calculated motion, the crumbled sigh of fabric folding falling on itself. This observed situation is typical to the daily ins and outs of the moving blanket, a complicated dance to aid objects of importance in transit. Even if …

From Function To Fashion To A Contemporary Art Process, Journey’S Within A Fisherman’S Rib Jumper, Christine Wiltshier

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper investigates a number of journeys discovered within a fisherman’s rib jumper. The thread of each journey was unravelled whilst considering the notion, Could a process of unmaking become a form of making. This question framed a process lead studio research that centred on haptic experimentation. The vehicle chosen to investigate this question was that of the unravelling of a knitted garment. Along side a studio investigation, a number of threads were followed that connect a 1980’s fashion garment with historic coastal fishing economies in the United Kingdom. Connections were also unravelled between the machine construction of the garment …

Sumptuary Synergy: British Imperialism Through The Tartan And Slave Trades, David Loranger, Eulanda A. Sanders

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Sumptuary laws have been a useful tool for various national powers in regulating subjects and to promote class differentiation and business interests. The genesis of this study was one such law, entitled the South Carolina Negro Act of 1735, stipulating that slave garments could only be made of low-quality textiles. These fabrics were reflective of slaves living in chattel environments, thus also representing a slave’s status in society. This law forbade slaves from wearing “any sort of garment or apparel whatsoever, finer, other or of greater value than Negro cloth, duffels, coarse kerseys, osnabrigs, blue linen, check linen, or coarse …

Veiled In Ignorance And Clothed In Reason: Jimmie Durham’S 2014 Exhibition Traces And Shiny Evidence, Andrea Feeser

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the 2014 London exhibition “Traces and Shiny Evidence,” Jimmie Durham showed on one floor brightly colored oil barrels, car parts, pcv pipes, and reproduction animal skeletons covered with or leaking ooze that shimmered with rainbow hues. On a floor one level up, Durham exhibited wall size drawing-prints he made by throwing stuffed animals coated with charcoal at very large pieces of paper. In the video that recorded Durham making the drawing-prints, the artist wears a workman’s vest labeled “Steiner. Maison de la Paix.” A video that is featured in the exhibition itself shows Durham in a business suit seated …

Blanket Statements, Issue 126, Seminar 2016

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 126, Seminar 2016

Out Of Site, But Not Out Of Mind: The Conservation And Display Of Ancient Roman Floor Mosaics In Situ And In Museums, Erin M. Hoey

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the display of Roman floor mosaics in museums and in situ. Taking the original mosaic to museums for display and protection, and replacing them on site with replicas, is best for the preservation of the original material and its context.

The Future Of Arabic Music: No Sound Without Silence, Nesma Magdy Khodier Vcuq

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, Arabic music has been intrinsically linked to Arab culture and by extension bonded to the environmental landscape of the region, reflecting their emotions, moods, and behaviors. Numerous technological advancements in the latter half of the twentieth century, have greatly affected the rich legacy of Arabic music, significantly impacting the natural progression of traditional Arabic musical genres, scales, and instrumentation.

This thesis serves as an introduction to generative methods of music production, specifically music generated through gestures. Through generative music, and its unique ability to map gestures to different musical parameters, music can be produced using computer algorithms.

The …

Subsurface, Elizabeth J. Huhtala

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press And Fluxus, Meghan A. Dellacrosse

Theses and Dissertations

"Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press and Fluxus," positions Knowles’ Big Book (1966) as a case study of historical methodology and interdisciplinary artistic practice in the post-war period. This comprehensive analysis of Big Book, a work of art no longer extant, contextualizes its publisher, Something Else Press through Dick Higgins’ concept of “intermedia,” and important lesser-known junctures relevant to Fluxus and the group’s leader George Maciunas are illuminated. Knowles' early and lesser-known silkscreen paintings are also examined.

P-04 Cavan Burren 2015 Project, Rhonda Root, Robin Johnson, Ariel Solis, Abelardo Rivas

Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship

The Cavan Burren is a plantation forest within the Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geopark overlay along the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland border. The exposure of Cavan Burren’s "relict landscape" resulted from a 2012 partial clear fell. Our multidisciplinary team of researchers in architecture, technology, ecology, fine arts, and archaeology investigated domestic architecture reflected in three stone configurations: circular/semicircular sites, rectangular sites, and tomb structures. We also investigated human action on pedestal boulders (PBs), which had been modified by sculpting, splitting, and cutting away. Our first goal was to show human action on structures by using three-dimensional (3D) …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 27:2 — Fall 2015, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America: Newsletters

Letter from the Editor
Introducing Caroline Charuk, TSA's New Membership & Communications Coordinator
Letter from the President
First Three Fellows of TSA Announced: Sheila Hicks, Jack Lenor Larsen, and Ann Pollard Rowe
R. L. Shep Ethnic Textile Book Award: 2014 Awardee Announced [Ralph Isaacs, Sazigyo, Burmese Manuscript Binding Tapes: Women Minisatures of Buddhist Art]; Call for 2015 Book Nominations
Textiles Close Up Report: International Folk Art Market, Santa Fe, July 9–12, 2015
Announcing TSA's Spring 2016 Programs: Asia in Amsterdam at the Peabody Essex Museum and Chin Weaving at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
TSA 2016 Symposium Comes to …

Blanket Statements, Issue 121, Fall 2015

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 121, Fall 2015

Review Of Woven Luxuries: Indian, Persian, Turkish Velvets From The Indictor Collection, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

LUXURIANT AND extravagant are words that come to mind to describe the sheen of brightly coloured velvets on display in this small but stellar exhibition at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum, on view to 1 November. The exhibition presents an exceptional private collection of exquisitely designed velvets woven in lands of the Mughal, Safavid, and Ottoman empires during the 15th through 17th centuries. Robust blossoms, sinuous vines, and stylised flowers are among the many designs that characterise Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman textiles, including sumptuous velvets with raised pile and metallic threads that shimmer in changing light. Together the products of …

Hidden In Plain Sight: The Story Of The Hunter College Collection Of Puerto Rican Graphic Arts, Sarah Laleman Ward

Publications and Research

The Hunter College Collection of Puerto Rican Graphic Arts includes over 150 works produced between 1954 and 1985 and represents the work of forty-one artists. It is illustrative of the growth of the printmaking tradition in Puerto Rico during the twentieth century. Acquired through a misappropriation of funds by a student group in the mid-1980s and ultimately purchased by and displayed in the college, the story of this collection raises important questions regarding institutional responsibility for the purchase and stewardship of art objects. Should art be collected if no plans are made for its maintenance and care?

Rational Design Of Materials For The Protection Of Outdoor Metalworks, Natasja Alexandria Swartz

Dissertations and Theses

Protective coatings are commonly used to protect culturally significant works, such as outdoor sculptures and architectural elements. Given the valuable nature of such metalworks, there is a surprising lack of environmentally sustainable coatings available for their conservation. High performance clear coatings are not developed or thoroughly tested for compatibility and longevity on outdoor sculptures. This can make the implementation of both methods and materials, no matter how promising in a lab, a significant hurdle for the conservation science community. This dissertation work initially aims to replace high-VOC formulations such as acrylic lacquers and waxes currently used as protective coatings for …

Blanket Statements, Issue 120, Summer 2015

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 120, Summer 2015