Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Los Productos Textiles De Los Andes Sur-Centrales: Guía Ontológica Centrada En La Región Aymara-Hablante, Denise Y. Arnold

Textile Research Works

El presente libro ofrece una organización ontológica de los productos textiles andinos. A nivel mundial, los museólogos están dando cuenta de la utilidad de este recurso para estructurar sus colecciones de objetos y para vincularlas con datos de respaldo (registros, catálogos, dibujos, fotos, etc.). Una ontología es una especificación explícita de una conceptualización, que proporciona una estructura y los contenidos que codifican las reglas implícitas de una parte de la realidad, en este caso del dominio textil. Aquí presentamos una representación del conocimiento del dominio textil centrada en las ‘formas’ textiles, por decir los tipos de prendas (ahuayo, acso, unco, …

Shoes @ The Krasl: Photographs, Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The Krasl Art Center, in Saint Joseph, Michigan, is not only an energetic organization but also an ever evolving physical space replete with exciting sculptural experiments. My longtime Krasl favorite, Michael Dunbar’s dramatic Allegheny Drift, was the setting for the initial photograph (inset) in what became my visual explorations with the Blue Shoes (documented in The Year- Long Adventures of the Blue Shoes and Their Friends (Lincoln: Zea Books, 2016); available gratis as a PDF download from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/49/). Inspired by the recent transformations of the Krasl’s grounds, the eight plates in this portfolio …

Re-Making The Mark, Zora Murff

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

Is there a difference between a Black body lynched in 1919 and the forced removal of a community through the construction of a freeway? Or a blighted landscape shaped through generations of segregationist legislation versus a Black life taken by police in 2018? With Re-Making The Mark, I produce a mixture imagery and history to prompt inquiry into not only how racial violence has been recorded through images, but how they can also become a subversive code to interrupt collective belief. I capitalize on photography’s capacity to reveal temporal layers, and my work reinterprets American narratives about power, race, and …

Representations Of Mainstream And Marginalized Subjects In The Work Of Diane Arbus, Grace Short

Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts: Student Research, Performance, and Creative Activity

This thesis considers the photographs of the twentieth-century photographer, Diane Arbus. In America during the 1950s and 60s, Arbus photographed both marginalized and mainstream subjects including dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, debutantes, socialites, and celebrities. At one point in her career, she expressed an interest in family portraiture and, indeed, a number of her images depict families.

Scholars who have written about Arbus, such as Susan Sontag, Carol Armstrong, Anthony W. Lee, and John Pultz, have formulated theories about Arbus’s motivations, although their findings focus on individual features of her work. Sontag argued that Arbus exploited her unorthodox sitters whereas Armstrong …

Chimera Rising, Rosana Ybarra

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

Chimera has three definitions, each so equally fitting of my work that this word has come to embody what I consider my own holy trinity. One: a firebreathing female monster in Greek mythology, often read as an omen for disaster. She was a hybrid animal made up of three – lion, goat, and serpent. Two: an unrealizable dream, a fanciful illusion composed of discordant parts – improbable but dazzling, wild. Three: an organism formed by multiple sets of distinct DNA, human, plant or animal. Chimera – a hybrid monster, an impossible dream, a harmonious organism composed from disparate origins. There …

Someday I'Ll Find The Sun, John-David Richardson

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

I am a product of poverty. The atmosphere of my childhood prepared me for a world where economic and social worth is defined by class. I was raised by my mother and her countless male partners amidst a backdrop of violence and neglect. These men would come and go, each one exhibiting more violent and destructive behavior than the one before. My family fought to make ends meet, but their efforts constantly fell short due to addiction, domestic violence, and a lack of education. This unrelenting cycle shaped my worldview at an early age, and I came to understand family …

Time And Lines, Richard Pecos Pryor

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

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” -Annie Dillard

I want to make art that is worthwhile, that shares something important. This desire often overwhelms and hinders me from starting projects. I find myself questioning the purpose of art altogether. Yet, once I relinquish control into action—just simply start and keep going—the unforeseen meaning eventually presents itself.

Drawings begin with lines. Partnered with curiosity, I began this series by exploring the potential of drawing materials. How far and for how long can a single sharpened pencil last? What does a mile of lines look …

The Adjacent, Phoebe Jan-Mcmahon

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

There are few times when my mind quiets; painting is one of them. A universe exists adjacent to this one where I process thoughts in a quiet space, free from the streaming cacophony of various devices. This adjacent space is where my mind is able to process the state of the world. I think it is essential that everyone knows what is going on around them, especially if the issues they hear about do not affect their daily life. I want to be an active participant in the world but find myself bogged down by the unrelenting events cycling through …

A Certain Kind Of Woman, Emily Wiethorn

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

Our patriarchal Western culture has long dictated how women should behave. We are repeatedly put in our place, told how to present ourselves, and instructed to keep our voices down. There is also immense pressure on women to perform for the public. Whether this is the feeling that we must be “presentable” when we leave the house each day, or when we tailor our personalities in public in an attempt to be more socially amenable, we conform.

As a young girl, my mother provided guidance on how a woman should conduct herself. I then spent my early years hidden beneath …

Chilean Arpilleras: Writing A Visual Culture, R. Darden Bradshaw

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper highlights a recent inquiry into the contemporary visual culture of the Chilean arpillera from a cross-global perspective. This art form derived from political, social, and economic conditions of the times yet contemporary manifestations do not address these origins. Arpilleras, historically created in the home and sewn by hand, are constructions in which bits of discarded cloth and burlap were used to compose pictorial narratives. The art form arose in Chile during a period of intense political oppression. This manifestation of women’s fiber art has and continues to serve as both seditious and reconstructive forms of visual culture. While …

The Future Of Textiles: Disruption And Collaboration, Susan Brown, Matilda Mcquaid, David Breslauer, Suzanne Lee, Anais Missakian, Abby-George Erikson, Salem Van Der Swaagh

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The textile field, while not “local” in the geographic sense, is a community: a group of people with a shared language, history, and practices that date back thousands of years. As deeply-rooted as those materials and practices are, textiles is also an area that has historically experienced enormous disruptions due to changing technology and globalization. In the 21^st century, we are undergoing something like a second Industrial Revolution. Advances in digital and robotic technologies and shifting labor markets are driving a revolution in where and how things are made. Global climate change, lack of food security for much of …

Whitework: The Cloth And Call To Action, Sonja Dahl

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In the newly independent colonies of the American Northeast, styles of white-on-white quilting and embroidery became popular among women coming of age. Considered the epitome of their needleworking skills, whitework required patience, time, focus, precision, and a steady hand. Such detailed stitchwork on pure white cotton-then a booming industry in the American South-prepared these young women to make homes that were meaningful, full of symbolism and care. Drawing analogy between these historic textiles and current movements for decolonization and anti-racism, this talk expands the term Whitework to function as a call to action, for both myself and other white-identified scholars …

Shipibo-Conibo Textiles 2010-2018: Artists Of The Amazon Culturally Engaged, Nancy Gardner Feldman

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper considers the intersection of processes of making and cultural memory as contemporary Shipibo artists design, produce, and exchange of their contemporary textiles and art. One sees a continuation of traditional collaborative social networks both in Peru’s deep Amazon region and in new Shipibo communities of Pucallpa and Lima. In cities, they create new artistic networks and expressions of art in ceremony. In these artworks, one sees how Shipibo relationship to the natural world, the forest, plants, animals, and waters reflects deep spiritual beliefs, wisdom, and community knowledge. Shipibo communities in 2017 face ever-expanding challenges from intrusions into their …

A Virgin Martyr In Indigenous Garb? A Curious Case Of Andean Ancestry And Memorial Rites Recalled On A Christian Body, Gaby Greenlee

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The notion of “social fabric” has deep resonance in the Andes, where woven textiles have long been entwined with gestures of political alliance, marriage, or rituals marking key transitions in the life cycle. Within the life cycle pre-Conquest, what is more, textiles were heavily implicated in that most poignant of transitions-from life to death. Yet in the Andes, death did not remove one from the life cycle. The deceased remained present and active participants in communal life, seen as potent advocates for the next generation, consulted as oracles, and regularly re-dressed in traditional woven textiles. After the Spanish-Catholic conquest, however, …

Threads, Twist And Fibre: Looking At Coast Salish Textiles, Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Coast Salish textiles are: remarkable for their quality; unusual in the fibres used; notable in their designs; singular in the innovative processes used to manufacture them. Salish textiles were determined by geography, shaped by trade, and influenced by colonization. That the textile tradition has survived is a reflection of the prestige they hold and the importance of the textiles in the Coast Salish culture. Relatively unknown and underappreciated, the older textiles deserve to be looked at with fresh eyes and modern methods that bring to light the outstanding abilities of the Coast Salish women in the creation of these important …

Shepherds And Shawls: Making Place In The Western Himalayas, Jennifer Hoover

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Cars weave through the flocks of the Gaddi shepherds as they travel from the plains to high altitude deserts, winding along roads lined with shops selling Kullu shawls. In these ways and more, textiles are the face of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Yet dominant discourses position both the shepherds and weavers of the region as the last hold-outs of endangered traditions. These discourses continue colonial-era assumptions of rural artisans as “primitives” in need of either protection from encroaching industrialization or motivation to modernize. Academic writings, popular visual representations, and government policies also reinforce monolithic identities of herders …

Kasb-E-Hunar (Skilled Enclave), Adil Iqbal

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Kasb-e-Hunar (Skilled Enclave) is a sensory film showing a visual documentation of Shu (woolen cloth) making a short interviews with an elderly artisan community for the village of Madaklasht. It invites the audience to engage with the past and present and seeks to provoke conversations about the future and the responsibilities we have, given past mistakes. The film was made over three weeks of anthropological fieldwork in Shishi Koh Valley, Chitral, Northern Pakistan. The film investigates the cultural significance of woolen craft skills, exploring memories relating to handiwork, and the challenges of globalization. It shows the value of traditional skills …

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

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

During my six months in Chiapas, I worked for the weaving cooperative Mujeres Sembrando la Vida (MSV), a partner organization to Natik. Natik works with grassroots organizations in Mexico and Guatemala with a focus on economic development and education. MSV is a cooperative of sixty women weaving from the municipality of Zinacantán1 founded by Doña Magdalena and currently run by her two daughters Yoli and Xunka. Zinacantán is a Tzotzil Mayan village in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Chiapas has the highest population of indigenous people and is also the poorest state in Mexico with a poverty rate of 75.7 …

Ties That Bind: Finding Meaning In The Making Of Sacred Textiles, Janet Pollock

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

I was a novice weaver when I began constructing a Rakusua-Buddhist ceremonial garment-as an initiation into a spiritual community in my hometown. Years later, in the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam, I was drawn to an early 19^th century Tallit Katan, a ritual silk undergarment that had been made for a Jewish poet who later converted to Christianity. I had just inherited my father-in-law’s prized collection of silk neckties. He was a troubled man who had embraced his faith late in life. Those ties became the weft for three works-a handwoven tallit, a woven timeline, and a small keepsake for …

Other People’S Clothes: The Second-Hand Clothes Dealer And The Western Art Collector In Early Twentieth-Century China, Rachel Silberstein

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In Chinese culture, as in many other cultures, new clothes were a powerful symbol of prosperity and beginnings. Yet, with the development of the Qing economy, the second-hand clothes seller (guyi) thrived alongside the pawnshop business to occupy a vital role in the wider system of clothing provisioning: enabling the poor a means of covering their bodies, the privileged an opportunity to liquidate value in clothing possessions, and pretenders a chance to dress their way into different social roles. At the end of the nineteenth century, this established clothing system encountered seismic change, as Western dress systems were introduced, imperial …

Nd’Awakananawal Babijigwezijik Wd’Elasawawôganôl: “We Wear The Clothing Of Our Ancestors”, Vera Longtoe Sheehan

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

When thinking of Native American people, a typical image is of tanned people with long dark hair wearing leather and furs in the distant past, but that is not an accurate depiction of the Abenaki people or their textiles. As an Abenaki scholar, artist, and educator, my research into the textile traditions of the Abenaki people includes archaeological evidence, primary resources, and oral history interviews. Abenakis themselves have different ideas of what it traditional because textile and fiber arts evolved over many millennia throughout N’dakinna, the Abenaki homeland which once encompassed Vermont, New Hampshire, northern Massachusetts, and parts of New …

The Global Influence Of China And Europe On Local Japanese Tapestries Mainly From The 19th Through Early 20th Centuries, Masako Yoshida

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In general, Japanese culture has developed under the influence of foreign cultures, and textiles are no exception. In this presentation, I will focus on tapestries from the 19^th century (the late Edo period) to the early 20^th century (the Showa period), and discuss how Japanese tapestries achieved their original expression under the influence of Chinese and European tapestries. The Japanese began to seriously produce tapestry weaving around the end of the Edo period, but in the beginning, they just copied Chinese and European tapestries. Regarding these early productions, little research has been accomplished yet. In this presentation, I …

Mind’S Eye And Embodied Weaving: Simultaneous Contrasts Of Hue In Isluga Textiles, Northern Chile, Penelope Dransart

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This article examines the use of hue in textiles woven during the twentieth century in Isluga, a bilingual Aymara/Spanish-speaking community of herders of llamas, alpacas and sheep in the highlands of northern Chile. It pays tribute to the weaving skills of Natividad Castro Challapa and other weavers of her generation, born early in the twentieth century. Aniline dyes were already known to them but, in the course of their lives, they witnessed increasing amounts of industrially manufactured, pre-dyed acrylic yarns arriving in the community. The article explores how weavers incorporated these brightly hued yarns in their textiles to form accents …

Italian Bedfellows: Tristan, Solomon & “Bestes”, Kathryn Berenson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Two surviving late fourteenth-century quilted furnishings, the Coperta Guicciardini in the Museo Nazinale del Bargello, Florence, and the Tristan Quilt in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, depict scenes from the legend of Tristan, one of King Arthur’s knights. Both museums attribute the furnishings to a southern Italian atelier. Research to-date essentially treats these works as if, like Athena from the head of Zeus, they burst complete. Yet by the twelfth century Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Norman occupation and active trade with the Levant, all had contributed to the culture of southern Italy. Prime evidence is the mosaic floor, dated …

Schoolgirl Embroideries: Integrating Indigenous Motifs, Materials, And Text, Lynne Anderson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Hand embroidery was an integral part of female education in Europe, America, and their colonized territories until the late 19^th century. All girls embroidered at least one sampler and many stitched more than one. Because needlework was part of the school’s curriculum; a sampler’s composition, technique, and text communicate a great deal about the teacher’s goals, as well as community and family expectations, including those of indigenous students. This presentation explores ways in which indigenous motifs, materials, and text were integrated into schoolgirl samplers and other girlhood embroideries, leaving visible evidence of cross-cultural accommodations. Motifs are recurring patterns or …

Eliza Calvert Hall, A Book Of Hand-Woven Coverlets, And Collecting Coverlet Patterns In Early Twentieth Century Appalachia, Philis Alvic

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

In her 1912 book, Eliza Calvert Hall describes looking out of her window and seeing coverlets thrown over tobacco wagons on way to market. She would run out and try to bargain with the owner for the coverlet. She collected coverlets, their design names, and their patterns. Since Hall supported herself with her writing, she counted on her coverlet book appealing to the wide audience of people interested in the Colonial Revival in home decoration. Although hall published the book, she was just the more visible of those interested in coverlets during the early twentieth century. Throughout Appalachia, there were …

Fish In The Desert – North Africa’S Textile Tradition Between Indigenous Identity And Exogenous Shifts In Meaning, Silvia Dolz

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Among the oldest handcraft products of North Africa are woven, knotted, and embroidered textiles (flat woven fabrics, knotted carpets, clothing) primarily made of wool and hair from sheep, goats, or camels. Those products have great importance, beyond their practical purpose, as a communicative and artistic medium. Changes and re-evaluations of the textile from a utilitarian object with potent pre-Islamic and Islamic symbolism towards a modern abstract art object reveal centuries of cultural transfer between the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe on the one hand, and between North and West Africa on the other. At the same time, this has …

The Tent-Dweller: Visual Markers Of Migration In Art, Sara Clugage

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The current migrant crisis has brought new complexity to an object that enables transition: the tent. Tents are structures most often meant to be temporary-they both practically enable journeys and visually signify the temporary. A language of migration, territory, and dislocation is mapped onto canvas, ropes, and poles. Migration depends on concepts of land rights, movement, and the finite duration of a journey. As Deleuze and Guattari set for in “A Thousand Plateaus,” migrants move from one place to another but are defined as belonging to those spaces. Nomads, on the one hand, do not have land distributed to them-they …

Reawakening Chahta Nan Tvnna (Choctaw Textiles), Jennifer Byram

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Choctaw people have crafted textiles from the land for thousands of years. Native to Mississippi and Alabama, U.S.A., the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma resides today in the Southeastern part of the state and numbers over 200,000 citizens. This paper comes out of the tribe’s Historic Preservation department’s work in conjunction with community efforts to reawaken Chahta nan tvnna, Choctaw textiles. By piecing together disparate parts of the Choctaw textile narrative, the Choctaw community is creating new textile work that recalls the ancestors and brings the identity of Chahta nan tvnna to new generations of Choctaw artisans.

Milingimbi Artists Partnerships, Louise Hamby

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Aboriginal women artists who live on the island of Milingimbi in eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia have had a long engagement with people outside of the community. This began with the arrival of Macassan traders over 400 years ago who came primarily in search of trepang. They brought new things and ideas with them; some became absorbed into the lifestyle of the local people. One item in particular is most relevant to the Deep Local and those operating outside of it. The praus that brought the Macassans to Arnhem Land were powered by sails. The Arnhem …