Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Notes On Editing, Carol Bier, Ann Svenson Perlman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Sixty-six papers and more than ninety bios and abstracts are included in this publication of the Proceedings of TSA's 10th Biennial Symposium in Toronto. The Proceedings reflect in text and image the substance and the intellectual vibrancy that characterized the Textile Society of America's 10th Biennial Symposium in Toronto. The contents are published substantively as submitted. Our editorial efforts comprised formatting of more than 500 images and preparing each paper to a standard visual style of presentation.

We have endeavored to bring all papers into a consistent visual format, suitable for either screenviewing or hard-copy print-out. Since the symposium was …

About The Authors

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

About the Authors

A-Z

Nettie Adams

Monisha Ahmed

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Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Stephen Wagner

Mike Cloud: Systems, Daniel A. Siedell

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Mike Cloud was born in 1974. He received a BFA from the University of Illinois-Chicago and studied at Yale University, where he received his MFA in 2003. He has had solo exhibitions at the Max Protetch Gallery in 2003, 2004, and 2006. His work has been featured in National Projects at PSl Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City and in Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

"So a lot of painting for me is just trying to find out what is believable and what kinds of painting can be honestly generated."

"The …

Who Is Imitating Whom?, Sharon L. Kennedy-Gustafson

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

Photographers create images that look like paintings, and painters make paintings that look like photographs. Who is imitating whom and why?

Long before photography was invented painters who could depict realistic imagery were held in high esteem. When photography was first invented, its ability to capture reality was also greatly admired. Over time, however, its status declined and eventually it was viewed as merely a mechanical tool with little artistic value.

Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901) popularized the emulation of painting and encouraged artificiality in photography. It was believed that if a photograph were made to look like a painting it …

Here… Is The Place Where You Are, Leah Decter

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In this paper I will be discussing my use of material and process as conceptual elements for exploration in my practice, and the ways that narrative intersects with my work. I will be focusing on the first four works in ‘here’, my ongoing body of sculpture, installation and video works. These works examine human relationships with place through a lens of the contemporary and historical.

I am not exclusively a textile artist although I have used textiles periodically throughout my practice and extensively in the last several years. In my practice I draw on the social, personal and formal connotations …

Historical Memory And Empathy In Studio Art Classroom, Karen Hampton

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

During the fall of 2002, I was a guest instructor at California College of Art and Craft in Oakland, California, and was asked to create a course inspired by my artwork and research. The course I created was titled, “Slavery, Internment and Transcendence,” subtitled "Artists of Color Who Use Historical Memory." The course involved the study of contemporary artists, their artwork and the historical context in which the artwork was inspired and fashioned

Students were taken inside the artist's world, learning to analyze artwork from the perspective of historical memory. By using "sense of place" curriculum, which included an understanding …

La Mode À L’Écossaise: Textile Of Diplomacy, Seta K. Wehbé

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The fashion style called La Mode à l’Écossaise flourished during the early years of the French Second Empire (1852-1870). There is no equivalent English term for it except maybe “tartanmania.” In the early 1850s Queen Victoria’s fondness for wool tartans had already popularized this textile as clothing for women and children in England. Tartans came to France as a full-fledged fashion style after Empress Eugénie wore a tartan gown for the trip to England. The six-day State Visit of the French Imperial couple started on April 16th, 1855, a very foggy Sunday, when Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie set sail …

Swept Under The Carpet: Subtle Tales From The Back Room, Michele Hardy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

According to Ruth Phillips, we are poised to enter the second museum age. For many years now museums has been the object of serious criticism. First Nations have critiqued museums’ authority to represent and possess culturally significant objects. There has also been a shift away from object-based research—undermining the very foundation of museums. They have been forced to re-evaluate who they are, whom they are for, and what to do with all that stuff in the storerooms. Since the mid-1980’s there has been growing responsiveness to indigenous peoples concerns, efforts to share authority, and a re-envisioning of museums as places …

Weaving Social Change: Berea College Fireside Industries And Reform In Appalachia, Sarah Stopenhagen Broomfield

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Appalachian subculture of America is well known for its tradition of handcrafts, and Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, played a seminal role in promoting that tradition throughout its 150-year history. This study looks at the first five decades of Berea College’s renowned handweaving program, the beginning of what is known today as the Student Crafts program. It explores the connection between Berea alumnae and the settlement school movement that promoted social change in the Appalachian region, specifically the contribution of Berea College’s Appalachian Crafts Revival to reform in Appalachia.

The historical record is full of references to Berea College students …

The History And The Present Of A Traditional Textile Of Okinawa, Japan A Narrative Of The People In Miyako Island And Miyako-Jofu Textile, Yuka Matsumoto

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Preface

Miyako Island, located in the Sakishima Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, is known for the production of the Miyako-jofu textile. Miyako-jofu is a hand-woven ikat textile, which is dyed with indigo and woven with dye-resistant yarns of hand-spun ramie. (fig.1) “Jofu” means a ramie textile. In this paper, the dye-resistant process in which designs are reserved in warp or weft yarns by tying off small bundles is called “ikat.”

This study examines what the meaning and the role Miyako-jofu have for the people in Miyako Island and examines the relations between the people and the textile. …

Sashiko Workshop: Experiential Geometry, Lucy Arai

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The objective for this workshop is to experientially understand the connection between textile and math by drafting and stitching simple underlying grids from which all sashiko patterns are derived. This demonstrates the intrinsic connection between textiles and math.

This hands-on presentation taught the essentials of sashiko pattern drafting and stitching to facilitate an experiential understanding of geometry and subdivision of the stitched plane. Each participant received a threaded needle and a fabric square prepared with a grid, the underlying structure for all traditional sashiko patterns. I guided the participants through the process of sewing and drawing stitches through the grid …

The Question Of Symmetry In Andean Textiles, Mary Frame

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Considering the various mathematical ideas we’ve been exploring briefly, how might these differ in textiles from ancient Peru?

In the ancient textiles that I study, Andean people seem to have made conscious use of the math embedded in textile processes for generating several kinds of graphic codes. You may have heard about a device called the khipu: it is a bunch of colored and knotted cords that looks like a string mop, but it is really an ancient record-keeping device. The knots stand for numbers in the base 10 system. Long knots were used for numbers from 2 to …

Confessions Of A Red Thread Bandit Queen: Ten Years Of Fieldwork With Narrative Embroidery, Skye Morrison

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

I confess to living a life full of unexpected experiences trying to remove the bark from the tree of commercialism and finding the ever-fruitful world of contemporary textiles made by traditional artisans. This presentation is a series of confessions brought to light through fieldwork, teaching and working in India and Canada / there and here / two worlds made into one. We begin with the six images connected to confessions or thoughts to live by:

Always dream that something is possible. I confess that I can be very stubborn when it comes to realizing these dreams. When I first …

Mathematical Approaches In Quilt Design, Gerda De Vries

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Mathematics often is thought of as the study of numbers and geometry. But mathematics is so much more. It also includes the study of patterns, enumeration, classification, problem solving, and logical reasoning. More loosely, mathematics is not just a collection of facts, but also an action: a way of doing, or a systematic way of thinking.

In this paper, quilt making will be discussed in the context of the latter view of mathematics. In particular, three quilts made with a structured approach to design will be discussed: Bubb’Illusion II, Wild Flowers, and Cyclic Permutations. Bubb’Illusion II represents early work of …

Nationalism: Pubic Voices, Private Lives, Jerry Bleem

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

For millennia fabric banners have served as indicators of political affiliation and national allegiance. Flags are steeped in the foundational mythology of a country, region, or group. Flags sum up moments of glory (while ignoring ignominious history). Flags foster a pride in identity that can unite people. Flags are the stuff of swelled chests and Independence Day parades.

But countries are composed of individuals who have private histories, relationships, hopes and dreams. Some people (or their ancestors) know firsthand their country’s failure to offer equality and justice to all its citizens. Most people use this national symbol to shade patriotism …

Text & Textiles: New Writings From Spam Tales, Janis Jefferies

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Collaborations

In many essays and texts on the subject of art and science, the questions of collaboration and the points of discontinuity in disciplinary practice habitually surface. For example, C.P. Snow’s commentary on the ‘two cultures’ (as popularized in the Rede lectures in Cambridge in 1959) is frequently cited as a challenge to establishing a meeting place for artists and scientists where stereotypical expectations might be broken down. More weight, however, can be credited to Einstein’s acts of expansive thought, and the potential of what is yet to may come into existence through the open-ended processes of investigation, experimentation, and …

Nature Fancywork: Nineteenth Century Women Tell Stories About The Natural World, Andrea Kolasinski Marcinkus

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Idealized nature entered the homes of middle and upper class Americans in the mid nineteenth century in opposition to the harsh realities of growing industrialization, and as a celebration of humanity’s control over nature as both a recreation and commodity. This “man made nature” is evident in other ways during the same period: domestic architecture, with its bay windows extending into a cultured garden and yard; the growing popularity of pet keeping; and the science-mania that caused men and women alike to crowd into theaters to hear natural scientists espouse theories of glaciation or coral reef growth. This large-scale cultural …

Peacocks In The Sands Of Palm Beach: The Vogue Of Men’S Beach Robes, Diane Maglio

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Personally, if two years ago anyone had told me that regular two-fisted he-men would loll around on the beach in one of those “Charvet” linen robes with big wall-paper like figures two feet in diameter adorning them I would have said, ‘Crazy.’ But they are doing it [in Palm Beach]”

By 1920, the east coast of Florida was becoming an American Riviera. Journalists followed the habits and styles of socialites, celebrities, and millionaires in this “jewel of all resorts.” Palm Beach in winter was not only ideal for luxury pastimes of international society but equally important, an opportunity for men …

Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity In The Maya Of Chiapas - Some Next Steps, Patricia Marks Greenfield

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in the Maya of Chiapas (2004) examines the impact of the economic transition from subsistence and agriculture to money and commerce on the transmission of weaving know-how, textile design, pattern representation, and the creative process of Zinacantec Maya weavers, following a large group of families in Chiapas, Mexico over a period of two decades. With the development of commerce, a relaxation of traditional "textile rules" and increasing innovation took place. Part of this process involved a shift in the definition of creativity from a community concept - in which the goal of clothing design was …

An Ethnographic Interpretation Of The Smoke Rising And Smoke Descending Ceremonial Attire Of The Sa'dan Malimbong Toraja, Maria Christou

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The modern Toraja ceremonial attire worn for the smoke rising and the smoke descending rituals are woven in the Sa'dan Malimbong villages on back strap looms with a continuous warp using both continuous and discontinuous two-faced supplementary weft decorative elements (Christou, 1997; 2005). The smoke rising, or Rambu-Tuka', and smoke descending, or Rambu- Solo', ceremonies are a body of rituals associated with the traditional Toraja religion, or Aluk Todolo; therefore, they form the belief structure of pre-Islamic and Christian Tana Toraja (Mattulada, 1978, p. 135). The style and design elements associated with the traditional religion persist despite changes in materials …

Sustainability Of Handwoven Carpets In Turkey: Problems And Solution Proposals In Relation To Standards And Market Issues, Zeynep Erdoğan, Özlen Özgen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to analyse sustainability of hand-woven carpets in Turkey connection with problems and solution proposals in relation to standards and market issues.

The interaction between changing social conditions and technological improvements, due to the arrival of the industrial revolution in Turkey, has influenced the production of hand-woven carpets. The option of purchasing machine-woven carpets in the domestic market has recently increased makedly. These carpets have various colours and designs, and they are cheap. Still, the interest of consumers in hand-woven carpets does continue to some extent. Collectors and investors also have a sustained interest …

Wandering Minstrels – The Tale Of The Phad, Vandana Bhandari

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Decorative cloth has been used in India to portray folk epics as a means of entertainment and as a substitute for theater and other types of performing arts. I quote “The transmission media of the folk epics are large paintings, instrumental music, dances, songs, riddles, jokes, costumes and other equipments.”

“The tradition of narrating legends with the visual aid of painted panels is found in early literature - in Bhagavatisutra (third century), Visakhadatta’s Mudraraksasa (fourth century), Bana’s Harshcharitra (seventh century), and Vaddaradhane (10th century). Narrators in the Indian States of Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra use painted paper scrolls and those …

Weaving Messages Today: Three Decades Of Belts In Taquile Island, Peru (1976-2006), Elayne Zorn

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In studying the past, archaeologists examine change and continuity over time, but physical processes that affect the preservation of material remains make fine sequencing, at the level of decades, difficult or impossible. Cultural anthropologists and others who study present-day material culture frequently conduct short-term fieldwork, which makes it difficult or impossible to reliably study transformations over time. One solution to this problem is long-term ethnographic fieldwork, combining synchronic and diachronic data collection, to study processes of change and continuity in the production of individual weavers and extended families over generations, in communities and regions.

This paper is a preliminary analysis …

Table Of Contents

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

TEXTILE NARRATIVES + CONVERSATIONS

Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Ontario, October 11-14, 2006

Wade Davis, Keynote Address (bio only)

Mapping New Territories: Memory, Materiality and Process

Textile/Trade

Museums and Language

Culture and Context: Innovations in Education

Women and Cloth

Objects of Memory

Artistic Production

Cultural Transitions

Textile Narratives in Book Form

...

Cultural Evolutions in Central America

Symbolic Embellishment Of Ritual Textiles Used In Native American Burial Mounds, Harriet J. Taylor, Stephen A. Taylor

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Honouring the dead is a universal principle that has been evidenced since the dawn of time. Although burial of the dead has not been experienced universally, ritual burial practices have been widespread throughout millennia and it is through examination of burial sites that insight is gained into the manner in which tribute was paid to the dead. When humans became self-aware, understanding that there was a transition between life and the known world, to death and the unknown, those cultures that practiced burial rituals ensured that the dead were well equipped for what may lay ahead.

This paper discusses textile …

Forgive Me Father For I Have Sinned, Michelle Manson

Calliope

No abstract provided.

Mis Sueños I, Monique Montez

Calliope

No abstract provided.

Pieta, Erika Hopson

Calliope

No abstract provided.

Life Taken, Chotika Ophaswangse, Chizuka Nakaya

Calliope

No abstract provided.

Maudlin Moss, Brett Deboer

Calliope

No abstract provided.