Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Analyzing Patterns In Oriental Carpets: Through Symmetry To The Mind Of The Maker, Carol Bier

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Typically in Oriental carpets, many patterns combine to make the whole. Within an oblong field there is often an overall repeat pattern arbitrarily cut off by borders. Field patterns cover the plane, while border patterns are linear. Patterning -- and color -- in Oriental carpets is carried by the pile (supplementary weft-wrapping) that projects from the surface of a plain weave foundation.

If we take as our definition of pattern the systematic repetition of a unit, distinctions become clear between designs and patterns. While the possibilities for designs are limitless (within the constraints of a medium), the possibilities for repeating …

Marion Dorn: The American Years, Whitney Blausen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Marion Dom, (1896-1964) was an American-born designer of both printed and woven furnishing fabrics and of rugs and carpets. Dorothy Todd, writing about Dom in 1932 for the Architectural Review, called her the "architect of floors".

Like many of her contemporaries, Dom's earliest textiles were batiks. She learned to design for industry by participating in the textile contests and classes championed by M.D.C. Crawford and sponsored, in part, by the trade paper Women's Wear.

In 1923 Dom emigrated to England, where she designed on a regular basis for such firms as Warner & Sons and the Wilton Royal Carpet …

The Weft-Twined Structures Of Cloaks Of The New Zealand Maori, Margery Blackman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Maori cloak

After the settlement of New Zealand in about 1200 AD, Maori women adapted wefttwining techniques for constructing wann clothing suited to the cooler climate of their new habitat. The principal garment was the cloak made with yarns prepared by working and twisting the long fibres extracted from the sword-like leaves of the indigenous plant Phormium tenax, commonly known as New Zealand flax.

The historical evolution of the Maori cloak is largely unknown as only a few fragments and one cloak found in a burial cave are known to be earlier than the cloaks collected by Captain …

Brokers Of Textile Traditions: The Case Of The Shopkeepers In Turkey, Marlene Breu, Ronald Marchese

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Over the course of the past twenty-five years a cultural transformation has taken place in the Turkish Republic. Overshadowed in more recent years by the political confrontations between secularists and Islamists, an unchecked inflationary spiral that has devalued the national currency, and the social upheavals associated with economic disparity, this cultural transformation has garnished little attention from the more traditionally defined scholarship on the modern Middle East. Revolutionary in nature, it is the result of several factors, among them socio-economic changes brought about by a shift in world markets and the liberalization of the Turkish economy. It is responsible for …

Ilonka Karasz: Making Modern, Ashley Brown

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Born in Hungary and "discovered" in New York's Greenwich Village, Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981) brought a unique and remarkable talent to early American modem textile design. Though little known today, her contemporaries described her as "one of the best designers of modem textiles," and noted the "widespread influence among textile manufacturers" of her modem textile designs. Her exploration of textile design from 1915 to 1935 contributed to an exciting time in the history of American textiles when American manufacturers used American designs, experimented with new uses for textiles, and developed new textile materials. Karasz's textile designs from the 1910s reveal her …

A Look Inside And Behind Central Asian Ikats, Annie Carlano

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The recent publications and exhibitions about Central Asian ikats have been highJy acclaimed projects in both their scholarly and their interpretive excellence. Extensive information about the ikats is now available. But while much of the history of these silk luxury items is known, much less has been written about the "flip side" of the story, the original or indigenous linings of the robes and backings of the wall hangings. There are two types of such textiles. The earliest extant fabrics are the woodblock printed chit type which have been well researched. This presentation will focus on the other, more esoteric, …

Between Tradition And Modernity: Textile Design Education In Lyons At The Beginning Of The 20th Century, Florence Charpigny

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

With regard to textile design in general, and Lyonnais designers in particular, there is still no global synthesis and very little detailed research available. Yet, some studies were published in Lyon, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, by local historians with family, professional and cultural links with the silk manufactures. It is not coincidence that their work occurred at this period: at the end of the 19th century, the Lyonnais silk industry went through a series of serious economic and structural crises. The change begun at the beginning of the 19th century with the …

The Mystery Of The Eisenhower Toile, Cindy Cook

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Eisenhower toile is a twentieth-century textile with a story to tell-through its motifs and its creators. The motifs in this toile represent the story of Dwight D. Eisenhower's life. The creation of the Eisenhower toile is a story of mystery and intrigue involving a famous American couple, Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower; a prominent interior designer, Elisabeth Draper; a prestigious textile company, F. Schumacher & Co.; and a mystery designer.

The Eisenhower toile is a printed cotton produced by F. Schumacher & Co. of New York from 1956 to 1960. Schumacher produced the 36" wide fabric with a 36" repeat …

An Early Seventeenth-Century Japanese Textile In The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Joyce Denney

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As a site seminar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a rare early seventeenth-century Japanese robe (kosode) in the Museum's collection (see ill.) was examined in depth. The sumptuous complexity of the textile from which the robe was made was analyzed, with emphasis on the textile's makers and their methods as well as the markets of the period.

The ground fabric, a white float-patterned plain-weave silk, was probably produced in China. During this period Chinese silk was highly prized in Japan; nevertheless, this imported cloth was then highly embellished. The textile was resist-dyed in irregularly bordered bands that …

The "New Deal" Child Artist: Textiles From The Educational Alliance Art School, Joanne Dolan

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

Progressive educational theories, many which had their roots in the late nineteenth century, were put to the test as a result of the Federal Art Project initiative. A small collection of printed textiles at the Museum at FIT produced during the second half of the nineteen-thirties at the Educational Alliance Art School in New York City reflect philosophies relevant to the period of the New Deal. The textiles represent and illustrate major social forces in America: the late nineteenth century settlement house providing services such as language, citizenship, and skills training; Roosevelt's New Deal and the federal relief efforts …

Transitions And Expansion: The Haskell Silk Company's· Switch From Thread Manufacture To The Production Of Yard Goods, 1880-1882, Jacqueline Field

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Haskell Silk Company of Westbrook, Maine, operated from 1874-1930. At its peak it was above average in size and counted among major U.S. silk manufacturers. The most northerly situated silk mill, Haskell began as one of New England's numerous post-bellum machine thread makers, but within eight years shifted to weaving broadsilks. During this period many New England thread producers made a similar change and at the same time opted to relocate with new plants in the vicinity of New York and northern New Jersey, where a variety of social and economic factors provided an attractive business climate. The Haskell …

Making The Bed: Printed Sheets For Children Since 1960, Sarah Hayne Fitzsimmons

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Before the 1960s, bed sheets were usually white. Any decoration, whether applied by hand through applique, embroidery or crochet, or machine-printed, maintained the monochrome. As screen printing technology and more color-fast dyes were developed, multicolored printed bed sheets began to enter the American market. In 1960, two of the sheet patterns available in the Sears, Roebuck catalog; "Cowboys" and "Kittens," were intended specifically for children. Over the next thirty years, printed sheets for children became an increasingly booming American industry. This paper traces the evolution of these "kid sheets" from a social history point of view; focusing on the developing …

The Calligrammatic Pattern: An Aspect Of Modernism In French Textile Design, Lourdes M. Font

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper is less concerned with Twentieth Century French textiles as such than with what may have inspired their designers, with the possibilities suggested to textile artists in places where art, literature and design meet. To an artist with an appetite for the new, few places offered more possibilities than Paris in the decades before and after World War I. Between 1910 and 1940, textile designers working in Paris were part of a dose-knit community of the avant-garde that included writers, musicians, architects, painters, illustrators, interior and theatrical set designers, costumers and couturiers -- who not only mingled and took …

Textiles - An Art Form For The 90'S: Advancing Fiber With New Concepts & Marketing Strategies, Elizabeth Gaston, Laura Hill

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This panel discussion provided a forum for an exploration of the place and meaning of contemporary textile art. It was one of several concurrent panels held on the final afternoon of the Sixth Biennial Textile Society of America Symposium. Textiles An Art Form For the 90's brought together artists and enthusiasts from many backgrounds and with different perspectives. Four participants presented formal papers accompanied by slides. This was followed by a panel discussion.

The chairperson was Patricia Malarcher, editor of Surface Design Journal. She shared the viewpoint of the media. Malarcher also presented Susan Lordi Marker's paper. Marker …

Photographic Evidence For 19th Century Central Asian (Kat Production, Kate Fitz Gibbon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Rare. early photographs can provide both factual information about the various technical processes used to produce Central Asian ikat fabrics and an evocative vision of the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara in the 19th century. These photographs demonstrate the physical structure and equipment of the various craft workshops necessary for ikat production, the preparation of the ikat warp. the application of the pattern, the dye process, and the weaving and finishing of the cloth. Other photographs show the production of the most common 19th century lining materials, and the marketing of ikat in the bazaars.

Ikat fabric received wide distribution …

Moses, Little Red Riding Hood And The Furniture Store: Wimpels (Torah Binders) In The Yeshiva University Museum Collection, Gabriel M. Goldstein

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Yeshiva University Museum (YUM) collection includes 56 examples of the type of Torah binder known as a wimpel. A Torah binder is a strip of fabric which is used to bind together the two staves and parchment of a Torah scroll. The Torah scroll, which contains the text of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible), is read in a cycle through the Jewish liturgical calendar. The proportions of the scroll thus change through the year, with one stave bearing the portion of the scroll which has been read, and the other stave bearing the …

Warp Ikat In Mindanao And Indonesia: Some Comparisons And Their Implications, Roy W. Hamilton

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Although textiles were a major focus of Laura Watson Benedict's work, the only book she published deals primarily with Bagobo ceremonial life and-only tangentially with textiles. She never fonowed up with any direct treatment of the textiles themselves and neither she nor anyone since has ever published a systematic description and classification of the warp ikat textiles of the various weaving groups in Mindanao. The work that went into developing From the Rainbow's Varied Hue, involving not only Benedict's collection, but several others around the world, has put us in a much better position for doing so. This paper …

The Fabrication Of Good Government: Images Of Silk Production In Southern Song (1127-1279) And Yuan (1279-1368) China, Roslyn Hammers

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In China, Gengzhi Tu or the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving as a distinct and separate genre was inaugurated in 1145 by Lou Shou, an official in the Southern Song bureaucracy. In that year he gave a set of two scrolls of poems and paintings to Emperor Gaozong. One was on the topic of cultivating rice and the other on the weaving of silk fabric. These scrolls formed a suite. The imagery and poetry, consisting of a breakdown of the procedures of production in a step by step manner, must be understood in their official context. The circumstances of Emperor …

A Horsehair Woven Band From County Antrim, Ireland: Clues To The Past From A Later Bronze Age Masterwork, Elizabeth Wincott Heckett

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

This paper has as its subject the narrow woven horsehair band from Cromaghs, Co. Antrim in Northern Ireland It is about two thousand eight hundred years old which places it in the Irish Later Bronze Age. Farming was well established in the country and skilled metal workers were producing tools, weapons and ornaments in bronze and gold. The horsehair ornament merits analysis because of its intricacy and outstanding artistry.

It is also important to explore what clues may lie within the band and the other finds associated with it. These may explain what the ornament represented to the people …

Suzani Vernacular: Technique And Design In The Central Asian Dowry Embroideries, Angela Izrailova

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

Suzani, (also called Bukhara embroidery) is an embroidered piece of cloth made in the region of Central Asia. The word "suzan" comes from Farsi and means needle, and suzani means "of the needle." Suzanis, which differ in size, pattern, function and types of stitches, were embroidered exclusively by women, rvfuslim and Jewish, from all social backgrounds. They were an important part of a girl's dowry and were used for decorative purposes in Central Asian households.

Although suzanis have been produced since c.17501 they are still relatively unexamined by textile scholars. In the late 1980s, …

Creating Textiles In Belgium During Tbe 20th Century: A Large Weaving Manufacturer, A Small Textile Studio And A Contemporary Textile Designer., Elsje Janssen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Belgium, and most of all Flanders, has a strong textile history with many large manufacturers as well as some promising young textile designers. This lecture will focuss on three periods in time: the beginning, the middle and the end of the 20th century, three different kind of makers: a large manufacturer, a small studio and an independent textile designer, three methods: machine woven jacquard interior fabrics, simple handwoven household textiles and exclusive samples handwoven on a 24 shafts computerised loom, and three types of markets: the export market, the local Belgian market and both.

Most of the weaving mills active …

The Troyes Manuscript: Technology And Design In Fifteenth-Century Tapestry, Tina Kane

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

The question I am considering is a general one: how were medieval tapestries designed and produced? While we know how they were woven, less is known about the design process. One of the primary sources for what we do know comes from a fifteenth-century manuscript discovered by a French scholar, Ph. Guignard, in Troyes in the mid-nineteenth century. By examining this manuscript we can see some of the elements involved in the technology and design of fifteenth-century French tapestries. We begin, then, with the manuscript itself which, for this study, I have translated from the medieval French.

The Troyes …

Cheney Brothers, The New York Connection, Carol Dean Krute

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Cheney Brothers turned a failed venture in seri-culture into a multi-million dollar silk empire only to see it and the American textile industry decline into near oblivion one hundred years later. Because of time and space limitations this paper is limited to Cheney Brothers' activities in New York City which are, but a fraction, of a much larger story.

Brothers and beginnings

Like many other enterprising Americans in the 1830s, brothers Charles (1803-1874), Ward (1813-1876), Rush (1815-1882), and Frank (1817-1904), Cheney became engaged in the time consuming, difficul t business of raising silk worms until they discovered that speculation …

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Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

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Alternative Trade Marketing: Three Approaches To Textile Design And Production, Mary A. Littrell, Marsha A. Dickson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs) are businesses that are deeply committed to a mission of sustainable, people-centered development. By paying textile artisans "as much as possible" rather than "as little as possible," ATOs contrast dramatically with mainstream textile marketers whose attention is directed to meeting customer demand and expanding shareholder profits. A fair trade partnership between textile artisans and retailers involves joint commitment to paying fair wages, offering equitable employment opportunities, providing healthy and safe working conditions, offering technical training, and honoring cultural identity as a stimulus for textile product development. Textiles are marketed through retail specialty stores and catalogs in …

Dressing By-The-Book: The Significance Of The Sample Book In The Marketing Of American Men's Apparel 1925-1930, Diane Maglio

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Dressing by-the-book, or using illustrated and swatched sample books to buy fashionable apparel, offered the American man extensive assortments of fabrics, colors, and styles, often more than he could get from the local merchant's stock. The sample book was convenient for the seller because he could offer more apparel options to his customers without purchasing inventory in advance of sales. Sample books were used both by retailers selling custom-made clothing for wholesale manufacturers and direct sellers. Direct sellers, representing manufacturing companies, carried a sample book straight to the customer by-passing the retail venue. In this paper two types of apparel …

Light And Shadow: The Textile Designs Of Edward Steichen, Lola Mcknight

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In response to a request from Kneeland [Ruzzie] Green, who was both Art Director of Stehli Silk Corporation and a close personal friend, Steichen contributed a group of modernist photographic designs to Stehli's Americana Prints collection, a series of artistdesigned textiles [1925-1927]. While several prominent graphic artists and national personalities contributed to this collection meant for use on silk dress fabric, the adaptations of Edward Steichen's silver gelatin prints received more attention from the Stehli company and from the contemporary press than any other single artist who designed Americana prints. These photographic images of weeds, carpet tacks, sugar cubes, thread …

Kynoch Tartan: A Cultural Analysis Of Small Mill Production Based On Technological, Market And Social Frameworks, Ann Mclennan

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

"The picture of the industrial worker is not the portrait of the whole manthis can be painted, if at all, only after tracing his other social involvements and incorporating them."

A cultural analysis of any large entity such as a Mill is a difficult procedure.The focus of the following research is the development of a proto-industrial woollen Mill in rural Northern Scotland from the mid 18th century to the latter 20th century. It is sometimes difficult to separate linen,jute and woollen textile experiences as workers share so much in skill and social circumstance. Indeed, part of the curiosity of the …

Jessie Franklin Turner: American Fashion And "Exotic" Textile Inspiration, Patricia E. Mears

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Jessie Franklin Turner was an American couturier who played a prominent role in the emergence of the high-fashion industry in this country, from its genesis in New York during the First World War to the flowering of global influence exerted by Hollywood in the thirties and forties. The objective of this paper is not only to reveal the work of this forgotten designer, but also to research the traditional and ethnographic textiles that were important sources of inspiration in much of her work. Turner's hallmark tea gowns, with their mix of "exotic" fabrics and flowing silhouettes, evolved with the help …

Handwoven Dowries From The Gotse Delchev Region Of Bulgaria, Miriam Milgram

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the Gotse Delchev area of Bulgaria, girls in many villages still bring hand-woven dowry items to their wedding. These items include bread cloths, aprons, baby carriers, horse rugs. floor rugs, and bed covers. The dowry items are prepared by the girl and her mother, beginning as early as the daughter's birth in some cases. Since a girl and her family are Judged upon the quality of the work, it is of great importance that the hand-woven items demonstrate skill and aesthetic values. The competition to have the best possible dowry items leads to 'stealing' especially fine patterns, which in …