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Javanesque Effects: Appropriation Of Batik And Its Transformations In Modern Textiles, Abby Lillethun

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

American batik practice emerged in the early twentieth century based on traditional techniques from Java and those filtered through Dutch Nieuwe Kunst. The promotion of batik through the Arts and Crafts movement in North America fostered egalitarian endorsement from artisans, individual practitioners, and consumers, across geographic locales, social milieu, and skill levels. Encouraged by manuals, magazine articles, and exhibitions, enthusiasm for batik grew across the nation and in the avant-garde enclave of Greenwich Village. While practitioners were cautioned to avoid excessive veining or crackle in their works in emulation of fine tradition, commercial enterprises helped to transform the aesthetic …

Shifting Sands: Costume In Rajasthan, Vandana Bhandari

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Rajasthan in Western India has a history of turbulent political conditions. This is an outcome of Rajasthan being a frontier region of India’s borders. Therefore, its people have had a continued interaction with outsiders entering India in successive waves of migration (from the time of Aryans – 1000 BC). Costume of the region is an assimilation of many historical and foreign influences and has evolved to present a unique tradition.

This paper aims to study dress in this region by taking examples of different ethnic groups like Marwaris, Rabari and Rajputs and examine influences that have led to change. The …

Pleated Skirts Of Miao In Guizhou Province, China, Tomoko Torimaru, Tomoko Torimaru

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Miao of Guizho China are a people with no written script and therefore no written historical record. Of their pre-history, scholars are certain of only one thing: "…that the Miao were in China before the Chinese, for it is the latter themselves who indicate the presence of the Miao in the land, which they, the Chinese, were gradually infiltrating" (J. Mottin). With no written scripts, textiles are at once the Miao’s cultural identity, their history of migration, and a communication tool. For these reasons, Miao textile traditions survive to this day.

Although it is true the Miao have hundreds …

West Anatolian Carpet Designs: The Effect Of Carpet Trade Between Ottoman Empire And Great Britain, Elvan Anmac, Filiz Adigüzel Toprak

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

West Anatolia is a region that holds diverse precincts of carpet weaving in terms of colour, motif and composition features the carpets display throughout history. The carpet weaving tradition of West Anatolia till the middle of the 19th century had continued as a home industry which was manufactured by the villagers. The weaving style followed a sample rug called “örneklik” (a sampler with many motifs on it); the weaver was selecting the type of design she wanted to use. It was not the custom to draw the design of the carpet on a design paper.

Together with the increase in …

Calico Trade Shirts On The Journey Of Discovery With Lewis And Clark, Margo Krager

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the spring of 1803, Meriwether Lewis traveled to Philadelphia to prepare for his journey west. During a busy month there, he gathered thirty-five hundred pounds of supplies. His shopping list included “Indian Presents”: beads, tomahawks, fishing hooks, combs, and “30 calico shirts.”

Israel Whelan, Purveyor of Public Supplies, purchased from twenty-eight Philadelphia merchants many of the needed items, including the calico shirts. Where did he get them, were they ready-made and what did they look like?

The North American marketplace of 1803 offered a wide variety of fabrics. Canoe manifests from the customs house at Michilimackinac in 1802 listed …

Fashion, Tradition, And Cultural Authentication: Change In Hmong American Ethnic Textiles And Aesthetics At Hmong New Year, Susan J. Torntore

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper discusses the concepts of fashion and tradition as they relate to the process of cultural authentication. Historically, in the context of Laos and Thailand, Hmong textiles were used to create distinctive ensembles worn as everyday dress. They were handwoven and embroidered by women, and specific patterns or color combinations in the cloth denoted membership in regional language groups. Today, Hmong ethnic textiles are used in the United States to express ethnic identity and display cultural heritage in a more general context, worn instead at festive occasions such as Hmong New Year. Significant changes in “traditional” Hmong textiles have …

Something Borrowed, Something Red –Textiles In Colonial And Soviet Central Asia, Kate Fitz- Gibbon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Turkoman and other tribal groups in Central Asia have used specific textile patterns from carpet weaving and embroidery as identity markers for centuries. Under late 19th century Russian rule, these designs were used as decorative elements on publications to represent an exotic, foreign, central Asian identity. In the Soviet period tribal patterns were utilized as formal symbols of Central Asian provincial sub-identities within the Soviet Union. They were incorporated into in architecture, used in theater set design, in painting, as a sort of tribalidentity- prop in every form of visual artistic expression. Similarly, a standardized “national costume” only superficially related …

Protest To Persuasion: Chinese Textiles As Political Tools In The 19th And 20th Centuries, Diana Collins

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Throughout history textiles have been used to demonstrate dissent towards political regimes and so it was in late 19th century China, when some civil officers expressed their frustration with decay and corruption during the decline of dynastic rule. Defiant modifications reflecting disrespect for the emperor were incorporated into embroidered badges of rank required by strict dress regulations to be worn conspicuously at the front and back of officials’ surcoats. When any insubordination could attract the penalty of death, wearing such rebellious statements against the Son of Heaven was undeniably bold.

With the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911, centuries …

Pattern Power: Textiles And The Transmission Of Knowledge, Carol Bier

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

If one makes an ontological distinction between patterns and textiles, an argument can be developed to assess the potential role that textiles may have played in the transmission of mathematical knowledge, concerning the spatial dimension. This paper seeks to address early Islamic textiles within the context of contemporary advances in the history of mathematics from the 8th – 10th centuries, which may have influenced, or been influenced by, technical developments in the production of pattern-woven textiles.

In particular, this paper explores patterns in woven textiles ascribed to the Sasanian Empire and its aftermath in Iran and Central Asia, with a …

Culture On A Platter: Politicization Of Central Asian Ikat Patterns, Victoria Z. Rivers

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textile patterns and motifs are powerful cultural markers conveying much more than mere geographic origin. Businesses and even governments have harnessed the meanings conveyed through the visual construct of textile patterns by adapting and interpreting them into products. This resulting, distinctive "otherness" has been used to express geo- and sociopolitical interests, ethnic identity and unity.

This paper investigates a curious example of textile pattern appropriation and explores its geopolitical and cultural meanings within a particularly volatile time and place. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian embroidered textiles and silk ikats began appearing in markets. Along with these …

A Berkeley Home For Textile Art And Scholarship, 1912–79, Ira Jacknis

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The work of Ed Rossbach, his colleagues, and students at the University of California, Berkeley during the 1960s and 1970s was critical in forming the modern movement of American fiber art. What may not be as well known is the continuity of this work with a tradition of textile art and study at UC Berkeley going back to 1912.

Founded as a department of Household Art as part of the home economics movement, it became a department of Decorative Art in 1939, under the leadership of Berkeley anthropologist and textile scholar Lila M. O’Neale (1886–1948). A cultural approach to the …

California And The Fiber Art Revolution, Suzanne Baizerman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The 1960s and 1970s were critical years in the development of American fiber art. One of the major and most exciting centers of change was California. This paper will look at California’s transforming role in the fiber revolution. One noteworthy indicator of change in fiber art was the series of twelve exhibitions entitled California Design. They were held at the Pasadena Art Museum from 1954 to 1971 and at another venue in 1976. Exhibition catalogs were published for the last five exhibitions (1962, 1965, 1968, 1971 and 1976). The catalog pages document the movement within the fiber area - …

Katherine Westphal And Wearable Art, Jo Ann Stabb

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper traces the influence of Katherine Westphal on the developments in textile design during the years between 1965-1985. As a member of the Berkeley community and wife of UC Berkeley Professor Ed Rossbach, Katherine’s activities were key to incorporating ‘wearable art’ into the dialogue and validating it as a serious component of the ‘textile revolution’ taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area. I trace her career as a painter and free-lance textile designer to when she joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis campus. She revitalized that textile program with her emphasis on surface design and …

Appropriation, Acculturation, Transformation, Janet Stoyel

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Investigation of high-tec processes for the manufacture of decorative materials for use in contemporary textile and fashion design. Photon Laser and Ultrasound techniques explored via engineered substrates to create patinated colour, structural surfaces, repetitive pattern, etched detailing and modernistic construction possibilities. Keywords: Photon Laser, Ultrasound, Ecological, Environmental, Sustainability, Substrates.

‘Rafoogari’ Of Najibabad, Priya Ravish Mehra

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper will discuss the still continuous and centuries old skill of “Rafoogari” or the Darning and Maintenance of Pashmina Shawls by the Rafoogars or Darners of Najibabad, an historical town in western Uttar Pradesh. It is the home of several ‘Rafoogar’ families and the hub of the kani shawl trade. While Kashmiri pashmina shawls have been elaborately researched, the important role of darners in the maintenance of these priceless shawls has not yet been recognized. Although darning is a highly intricate and laborious task necessary to the maintenance, restoration, and renewal of the shawls, the role of the darners …

Darning: A Visible Thread, Liz Williamson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper documents the transformation of cloth through the repair process by examining the impact of darning on the cloth’s surface. It looks at historical precedents for the translation of a darn into a decorative embellishment and the application of this translation as a concept for contemporary textiles.

Darning is a repair process for cloth, used to prolong the life of a garment out of necessity, sentimental reasons or on principle. Darning aims to make new, re-new and restore by the insertion of additional threads into the warp and weft of a cloth to repair holes and tears. An assumed …

Boro No Bi : Beauty In Humility—Repaired Cotton Rags Of Old Japan, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Using examples from the Nukata Collection of Japanese “boro,” or rags, this paper assesses how such extensively repaired, patched, and pieced utilitarian textiles reflect Japan’s social stratification, agriculture, economy, and trade. These humble cloths, tangible remnants of stories lived by the common people – farmers, fishermen, and lumberjacks – who lived in rural areas along the Sea of Japan and northeastern Honshu Island until several decades ago, point to a material’s aesthetic and functional transformation.

A majority of pieces in the collection are futon, bedding which are made of or patched with various shades of blue fabric …

Disconnecting The Tais: Responses To Trade, Training And Tourism, Mary F. Connors

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the responses of Tai speaking groups in Laos and Vietnam to outside influences and their increasing awareness of the commercial value of their handwoven fabrics. Based on the author’s field work in Luang Namtha Province, Laos, Nghe An Province, Vietnam and Vientiane and Luang Prabang cities, Laos, the weavers in the three regions are compared and their responses to challenges presented such as the availability of yarns and dyes and access to input from the target market and outlets for their products are examined.

In northern Laos live the Tai-speaking Lue, Tai Dam, Tai Khao and Tai …

Evidence Of The Individual In The Cultural Material Of Tapestry, Joyce Hulbert

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In research for support material for a presentation on my conservation of an important Pre-Columbian tunic of the Huari people of Peru, I came upon a statement that intrigued me as an artist and conservator. The statement comes from Rebecca Stone Miller in her PhD thesis on Huari tunics, completed at Yale in 1987:

The sheer elaboration of imagery made possible through material and technical choices bespeaks both an investment of importance of the images depicted and a corollary investment of labor in their creation. The importance of the woven images takes place in the realm of beliefs and ritual, …

Dissolving The Objective Grid: Cultural Excavations In The Work Of Sharon Marcus, Mary Lane

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Sharon Marcus’ tapestries reflect her training in anthropology and archaeology. Her investigation into the notion of site and the human traces that remain within a site reveals the complex, layered and inherently ambiguous nature of the meaning embedded in fragmentary remains. Her artistic exploration also involves a critical investigation of the methods of scientific inquiry that underlie the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology. Her tapestries examine the notion of objectivity and the ordering system of the grid. In exposing the limitations of those paradigms, Marcus has adopted a subjective and multifaceted approach to representation that rejects the notion of transparency, …

Contemporary Tapestry In A Cross-Cultural Context And The Work Of Janet Moore, Christine Laffer

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Weavings and their techniques and attributes, have constantly crossed cultural boundaries whether along trade routes or between neighboring communities. At the same time, they have been claimed as identifiers of their makers’ cultures and territorialized to prevent “stealing.” In contemporary art practice, an act of appropriation is often seen as an act of aggression. Appropriation, from the artist's perspective, serves the purpose of social critique, in particular aimed at the cultural arenas controlled by the art world. However, exchanges that take place through viewing and interpreting the textiles of another culture are under minimal political or social control.

Tapestries fall …

Appropriation, Transformation And Contemporary Fiber Art: An Artist’S Perspective, Claire Campbell Park

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Although founded on European assumptions of fine art, fiber art is equally grounded in textile traditions from around the globe. Issues of appropriation have evolved since fiber’s critical formative years in the 1960s and 70s, when an explosion in awareness of diverse cultures was reflected in the curriculum of California universities. The desire to mainstream into the fine art establishment gave rise to a trend in the 1980s and 90s, for some fiber artists to distance themselves from these traditions. It is this artist’s contention that the most appropriate of appropriations is a renewed appreciation of cultural values evident in …

Tradition And Innovation In Contemporary Lao Textiles, Rebecca Hall

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In this presentation I assess the physical changes that have transpired in Lao textiles within a context of tradition and commercialization. Through understanding of the characteristics of both “traditional” and commoditized textiles, I found that multiple changes are transpiring at once. The most important elements of this research are the textiles themselves, with the perception that textiles reveal the context and intention of their makers. Examination and comparison of over 100 Lao textiles from select U.S. museums and private collections and market observations conducted in Laos resulted in the material cultural analysis presented here. Salient aesthetic and symbolic elements of …

The Jicarilla Apache Woman's Ceremonial Cape The Making And Re-Genesis Of A Cultural Icon, Joyce Herold

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Women of the tiny Jicarilla Apache tribe of north-central New Mexico have one of the most vibrant and distinctive poncho traditions of any contemporary American Indian group. Based on the yoke of the early 1800s deerskin “tail dress” design, the Jicarilla cape became a separate item of apparel. that was decorated in a classic mode with scallops and fringes, yellow paint, and striped beadwork edges. The cape design signifies woman’s origins and fruitfulness connected with the moon and its phases; thus it functions as necessary raiment and a powerful symbol at a Jicarilla Girl’s Coming Out Ceremony and Feast, a …

The Fashion For Small-Patterned Textiles In Nineteenth-Century Japan, Keiko Kobayashi

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses on the Japanese fashion for small patterned designs on textiles during the late Edo (Edo: 1615-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) periods. The trend was influenced by Western textiles produced using technologies developed during the European Industrial Revolution, including roller printing and the Jacquard mechanism. These Western textiles reached Japan through the port of Nagasaki, open to trade with the Dutch and the Chinese between 1634 and 1868. By the end of the Edo period, Japanese weavers and dyers had become familiar with them.

Albums filled with small fragments of European imported cloth were put together and collected by …

The Impact Of Synthetic Dyes On The Luxury Textiles Of Meiji Japan, Pamela A. Parmal

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Almost as soon as they were invented in 1858, chemical dyes were introduced to Japanese artists and craftsmen. Chemically dyed red, purple, orange and blue silk yarns were woven into elaborate textiles used to furnish the Meiji palaces, costume Noh actors, and wrap Buddhist priests, while dyers adapted resist techniques such as yuzen and stencil resist. Japanese wood-block print artists also responded to the new colors and incorporated them into their work creating vibrant scenes of life during the Meiji period. The bright, bold colors produced with the early synthetic dyes became emblematic of the technological advances of the Meiji …

Transformative Prospects: Textile Structure And The Social Organization Of Pre-Columbian And Colonial Andean Production, Blenda Femenías

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The pre-Columbian Andean material culture record is especially crucial for trying to understand social organization because Andean societies apparently did not employ what Europeans recognized as “writing.” The evidence contained in the objects themselves thus bears a larger burden in helping scholars analyze how social life was structured to enable a huge volume of cultural production. For pre-Columbian textiles in particular, the analysis of embroidered figures and their relationship to the ground fabric on which they were positioned has played crucial roles. In effective and original ways, Anne Paul used the evidence in textile objects, especially from the Paracas culture, …

Nets, Bags And The Transformation Of Headdress In The Southern Andes, Ann H. Peters

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Anne Paul opened the pandora’s box of Andean headdress history in “The Symbolism of Paracas Turbans: A consideration of Style, Serpents and Hair” (Ñawpa Pacha 1982). Mary Frame’s work on the multiple textile significations of twisted strands, looping, diagonal interlacing and other techniques used to create headdress bands has led to new insights on the relationships among textile practice, visual design, and concepts and philosophical premises encoded in many forms of Andean material culture.

This paper looks at the associations of form, practice, and textile history embodied in netted and looped head coverings preserved in burials on the desert …

Transformations In Tapestry In The Ayacucho Region Of Peru, Elayne Zorn

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This article examines contemporary Peruvian tapestry in its historical context. Though tapestry production represents a significant source of income for weavers in Ayacucho, Peru, the contemporary industry has not yet been studied in the context of long-term Andean textile traditions and their historical transformations. Ayacucho is home to numerous crafts traditions, but also terrible violence during Peru’s undeclared civil war (1980–95), which started there. The paper provides an overview of contemporary Andean textiles, emphasizing differences between textiles woven on the pre-Hispanic type Andean loom, and those such as tapestry woven on the Hispanic-type treadle loom. The technology of Andean textile …

Contemporary Phuthai Textiles, Linda S. Mcintosh

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the hand-woven textiles of the Phuthai ethnic group made in the last thirty years or after the Communist Revolution of 1975. If one asks a Phuthai woman to describe Phuthai dress, she will answer, “sin mii lae suea lap lai,” or a skirt decorated with weft ikat technique and a fitted blouse of indigo dyed cotton, decorated with hand-woven, patterned red silk. Despite the use of synthetic dyes that are readily available in the local markets, many Phuthai women still grow indigo and cotton, and indigo-stained hands and the repetitious sounds of weaving are still …