Drawloom Velvet: Exploring A Centuries Old Tradition,
2016
Waverley, Nova Scotia, Canada
Drawloom Velvet: Exploring A Centuries Old Tradition, Wendy Landry
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Since 1986, I have been pursuing my passionate interest in handwoven velvet, both practically and academically. By velvet, I mean extra-warp pile, rather than weft-woven types of pile, such as weft-looping or knotting. Simple, monochrome plain velvets have been woven since the early Coptic period, requiring only simple looms and two simple warp tensioning systems, one for the foundation cloth and another for the pile warp.1 (On the basis of such a simple set-up, early velvet figuration could be created through the following colour effects using: (a) striped pile warp; (b) ikat/chiné (spaced dyed) pile warp; (c) painted or printed …
"Knit A Bit For Our First Line Of Defense": Emotional Labor, Knitters, And Comforts For Soldiers During The First World War,
2016
University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Knit A Bit For Our First Line Of Defense": Emotional Labor, Knitters, And Comforts For Soldiers During The First World War, Rebecca Keyel
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
During the First World War, American women were encouraged to support national defense by conserving food, sewing clothes for refugees, and knitting comforts for servicemen sent abroad to fight. Groups like the Navy League and the Red Cross promoted knitting for the troops as a necessity for the security of the home front, and for the comfort of servicemen abroad. By the end of the war, knitters had hand-knit millions of garments to send to servicemen, an act of compliance that supported an overseas war--one that had aroused bitter resistance only a few years before. Defense knitters knit in private, …
The Story And The Stitch.,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
The Story And The Stitch., Alice Kettle
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
This paper explores my work and the connection between stories and stitching. It seeks to find meaningfulness and purpose in these narratives and activities and see how they are a reflection of everyday encounters. It asks if there are mnemonic properties to stitching and stories that can offer ways to understand and transform actual experience and to represent the past by making it physical and continuous. Tim Ingold uses this textile vocabulary to present its close connection with story telling; “To tell a story then, is to relate, in narrative the occurrences of the past, retracing a path through the …
Performance, Adaptation, Identity: Cantonese Opera Costumes In Vancouver, Canada,
2016
University of British Columbia
Performance, Adaptation, Identity: Cantonese Opera Costumes In Vancouver, Canada, Jean L. Kares
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Photographs of the 1936 Vancouver Jubilee Parade show Chinese men and women wearing Cantonese opera costumes that appear to be similar, if not identical, to ones in the collection of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. In this highly public forum, they portray the role of “Chineseness” for the non-Chinese audience, reference the power of temple festival dramas, and assert their presence and aspiration to be accepted by mainstream society. By reconfiguring costumes for public display, Chinese immigrants employed material culture in a strategy of performance, adaptation, and identity. This connects to matters still pertinent today: …
Imperial Versus Local Perceptions Of Indian Textiles,
2016
University of Minnesota
Imperial Versus Local Perceptions Of Indian Textiles, Donald Clay Clay Johnson
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
The 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition in London brought together arts and crafts from around the world particularly those produced in the British empire. The great popularity of the exhibition documented how much people in Britain delighted in seeing the huge diversity of artistic expression from around the world. The following decades witnessed similar exhibitions in various European cities as well as contained the growth and development of museums. While Indian textiles had long fascinated people in Britain and had been eagerly purchased, museum holdings in both India and Britain of these distinctive fabrics have remained minimal. British collecting activities and …
Resilient Threads Telling Our Stories
Hilos Resilientes Cosiendo Nuestras Historias,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Resilient Threads Telling Our Stories Hilos Resilientes Cosiendo Nuestras Historias, Carolina Paz Gana, Lynne M. Jenkins
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Sewing is traditionally women’s work. Often characterized as homespun, even quaint, it is associated with the domestic sphere. What at first glance may appear charming belies the persuasive ways in which women work with textiles to depict apartheid in South Africa,1 identity,2 forced migration,3 grass roots activism,4 encoded messages,5 and remembrance of murdered and missing indigenous women.6 Perhaps that is why the powers that be are mostly unaware of its subversive potential, and thankfully so, as this potential remains under the radar “sew” to speak while galvanizing those at the margins. How might sewing bring women together in a circle …
Aesthetics, Economics And The Enchantment Of Cloth,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Aesthetics, Economics And The Enchantment Of Cloth, Janis Jefferies, Barbara Layne
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
In a changing world everyone crafts, designs and engages in making: each individual person and each collective subject, from communities to cities and regions, can define and enhance a life project. We are witnessing an unprecedented wave of social innovations, sometimes using technology and sometimes not. As these changes unfold, an expansive open set of process and practices in which new solutions are suggested and new meanings are created. Most revolutions are about energetic movement and upheavals; even if ideas take a while to become ideologies, we don’t think of them as slow events. But the phrase also makes us …
Drawing, Stitch, Translation, Archive,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Drawing, Stitch, Translation, Archive, Janis Jefferies
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
The Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles was founded in 2002. Inspirational textiles teacher, Constance Howard, established the Collection in 1980. Constance joined Goldsmiths as a teacher in 1945 and founded the acclaimed textile courses which closed in 2008. Internationally respected, she remained involved with the College until her death in 2000, when she donated her textiles collection to the College on the basis that it would be stored in perpetuity. . It is important to note that modern, historians have relied – often of necessity – on documentary or visual sources to research textile history. We have …
Recycling Sprang,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Recycling Sprang, Carol James
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
In this talk I would like to explore some of the evidence of sprang in history, how sprang travelled from place to place and some of the ways it was modified as it travelled. I will then suggest that sprang could be an exciting technique for the 21st century. First let me explain how this technique works. Sprang is a braiding technique. The worker winds one continuous thread around and around a frame. The worker then manipulates the threads at one end, and a mirror-image structure magically appears at the other end of the frame. Structures that lend themselves to …
Ingenious And Practical; Parallels In The Making Of Arimatsu Trade Cloth And Contemporary Designers’ Production,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Ingenious And Practical; Parallels In The Making Of Arimatsu Trade Cloth And Contemporary Designers’ Production, Ana Lisa Hedstrom
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Yoshiko Wada introduced me to shibori in1976, and for over 40 years I have worked with shibori techniques based on the concepts of Arimatsu shibori. I had been aware of the Congo trade era and often peppered Yoshiko with questions about this curious chapter in the Arimatsu history. When I saw the textiles that Yoshiko has displayed here, I became very excited. There is an old axiom that nothing is ever really new. I love to see textiles that connect to my own decision making as a dyer, and where I can totally empathize with the artisan’s hand and eye. …
Batik, Ja, Batik: Wiener Werkstätte Batik From The Los Angeles County Museum Of Art And Cotsen Textile Traces Collections,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Batik, Ja, Batik: Wiener Werkstätte Batik From The Los Angeles County Museum Of Art And Cotsen Textile Traces Collections, Michaela Hansen
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
In 1919, the Viennese cultural critic Adolf Loos addressed a newspaper column to the “ninety percent” of female artists who “call themselves that because they can batik.” Bemoaning shop windows filled with batik cloths and neckties, Loos stated: “To the modern human being…batik [is] an abomination.” Derisively likening the skill required of a batik artist to “drop[ing] a May bug into an inkwell and then let[ting] it crawl around on a prettily dyed, magnificent piece of…pongee silk,” Loos advised practitioners to seek a dry cleaner to “fix” their dye work by erasing it. “The danger is great,” he went on; …
Seafarer People And Their Textiles From Erub Arts, Torres Strait, Australia,
2016
Australian National University in Canberra
Seafarer People And Their Textiles From Erub Arts, Torres Strait, Australia, Louise Hamby, Valerie Kirk
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
A quote from Florence Gutchen, an artist from Erub (Darnley Island) in the Torres Strait, 180 kms NE of mainland Australia, sets the scene for this document. “We hear the wind…We are seafarer people. Our livelihood depends on the sea. We are saltwater people and we are the seafarers.” The geographic location of her current home is crucial to the understanding of not only the textiles artists produce but to all of their work. Their island in the eastern part of Torres Strait plays a major part in how their identity as Erubians is expressed through textiles. This paper primarily …
The Effect Of Colonization And Globalization In The Shaping Of Phulkari: A Case Study Of The Textiles Of Punjab, India,
2016
Panjab University
The Effect Of Colonization And Globalization In The Shaping Of Phulkari: A Case Study Of The Textiles Of Punjab, India, Anu H. Gupta, Shalina Mehta
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Hand woven fabrics and embroidery are known to be some of the most ancient form of handicraft nurtured in almost every corner of Indian subcontinent. Embroidery is often an expression of the maker especially women depicting their emotions on fabric and their lived histories. Usefulness of this form of decoration is reflected in the fabrics used in clothing for humans as well as domesticated animals, household articles and decorations in temples. Besides being practical, these ethnic embroideries have symbolic and traditional purposes.1 It expresses several cultural metaphors of a community. It is also one of most distinct forms to study …
The Nature Of Collaboration In The Digital Age,
2016
Professor and Chair/Fiber, Kansas City Art Institute
The Nature Of Collaboration In The Digital Age, Pauline Verbeek-Cowart
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
I proposed this talk because the subject matter "Collaboration in the Digital Age" seemed timely and relevant. What I hope to achieve with this paper is to present initial material that could start a dialogue; a conversation that needs to happen to clarify what "Collaboration in the Digital Age " means. I am going to give an example of a truly magnificent collaboration and compare and contrast that with my personal trajectory. I want to preface this by saying that my comments are filtered through the lens of a maker and an educator. I chair the Fiber program at the …
Early Modern Needlework Pattern Books: Tracing The International Exchange Of Design,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Early Modern Needlework Pattern Books: Tracing The International Exchange Of Design, Lisa Vandenberghe
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Needlework pattern books, a genre that first appeared in the early 16th century as printing-press technology became widely available, were some of the first art books for the common people. Their pages offered charted, linear, and figurative designs in a wide range of complexities and styles. I use the term “needlework” to represent the group of decorative textile-arts which these books target. This includes a range of techniques that use a needle alone or with other tools, such as embroidery, lacemaking, knitting, and tablet and small-loom weaving. Students of women’s history may know the pattern books for their introductory pages …
Exploring Origins: The Technical Analysis Of Two Yoruba Masquerade Costumes At The National Museum Of African Art,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Exploring Origins: The Technical Analysis Of Two Yoruba Masquerade Costumes At The National Museum Of African Art, Rebecca Summerour, Odile Madden
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Egúngún masquerades are traditions in which composite ensembles are worn and danced to commemorate lineage ancestors in West African Yoruba communities. This technical analysis of two 20th century Egúngún in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art (NMAfA), referred to as 2005-2-1 and 2009-15-1 (fig. 1), investigates materials in these colorful costumes. The Yoruba are a cultural group rooted in Southwestern Nigeria, Benin, and Togo with a diaspora in Africa and the Americas. In their traditional belief system, Egúngún are the embodiment of lineage ancestors. Fully concealed maskers incarnate individual or collective spirits, providing opportunity for the …
“The Consular Collections At The National Museum Of American History” Opening Plenary Session: Crosscurrents: The Transnational Flows Of Textiles,
2016
The New Bedford Whaling Museum
“The Consular Collections At The National Museum Of American History” Opening Plenary Session: Crosscurrents: The Transnational Flows Of Textiles, Madelyn Shaw, Amy J. Anderson
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
Hidden away for decades within the Department of Textiles, Division of Home & Community Life, National Museum of American History, was an extraordinary group of nearly 1000 textile samples collected by US consuls around the world between about 1898 and about 1920. The Commerce Department transferred them to the U.S. National Museum (now NMAH), in the 1920s. The samples range in size from just a few inches square to a few feet. The information that came into the collection with each sample, from lists or scraps of paper attached by the consuls, was typed onto onionskin typing paper or cardstock …
Kanga Textile Design, Education, And Production In Contemporary Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Kanga Textile Design, Education, And Production In Contemporary Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Mackenzie Moon Ryan Phd.
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
While today kanga textiles are commonly thought of as bearers of east African or Swahili culture, this industrially produced textile emerged from a complex history of global trade networks serving local consumer demands. Worn widely throughout the east African region, this textile emerged as a fashionable garment preferred by women along the Swahili Coast of east Africa in the late nineteenth century. Shortly after its introduction in 1886, these inexpensive printed textiles became favored consumer goods throughout the wider region, stretching from present-day southern Somalia, throughout Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, and into eastern DRC and northern Mozambique. (Closely …
West African Indigo Textiles Under Influences: The Fouta-Djallon Wrapper And The Mauritanian Melhafa,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
West African Indigo Textiles Under Influences: The Fouta-Djallon Wrapper And The Mauritanian Melhafa, Annie Ringuede
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
The cloth-dyers of West Africa are known to produce indigo textiles which reputation needs no making. These various productions, often times centuries old, have been continuously exposed to the turmoil of a variety of external events which have often made them very fragile or, on the other hand, have brought about prosperity. Among those events, let us cite the caravan trade across the Sahara and the Sahel, the establishment of trading posts by the Europeans on the Atlantic Coast, the Senegal River and the Niger, the slave trade, the development of small indigo factories, colonization by the English, the French …
Tradition And Transition: The Changing Fortunes Of Barkcloth In Uganda,
2016
University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Tradition And Transition: The Changing Fortunes Of Barkcloth In Uganda, Sarah Worden
Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Scottish travellers, missionaries and colonial officials were among the first Europeans to visit east and central Africa. The objects they collected whilst living amongst those whose customs and traditions were so unfamiliar, form the backbone of the National Museum of Scotland’s early ethnographic collections. These collections are tied into the complex historical relationships between Scotland and Africa, however, it is often the case that little was documented regarding the collectors particular collecting strategies or acquisition. In these collections is a type of cloth, barkcloth, a material which predates weaving and is probably …
