Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Difficult Subjects, Wendy Weiss

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Textiles, Clothing and Design Department in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska has a graduate program that offers Masters of Arts and Master of Science degrees. Students have the choice of completing a thesis, project or coursework for their degree. Students who elect a project emphasis, notably in textile design and textile history/quilt studies department enroll in a graduate seminar called TXCD 873 Design Perspectives & Issues, which is described in the course bulletin as a:

Seminar [that] combines readings and discussion of contemporary issues in design with creative applications. The course culminates …

“Tie It On Tight, Girls!” Speaking And Acting Through Cloth In Southern Madagascar, Sarah Fee

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

It was another scorching day at the height of the dry season. Masy had come to visit me, bringing her basket of cotton to work. A Tandroy woman’s hands should never be idle. She began pinching out cotton seeds and the gathered girls and I picked up handfuls to join her. At one point, when conversation lagged, Masy held up a piece of cotton fluff and spontaneously began to tell a tale.

Long ago, we did not know woven cloth, but dressed in cotton fluff. Once there was an unhappy senior wife. She was unhappy because her husband loved his …

Construction Of Social Relationships Through Clothes: Gender, Caste, And Inter-Religious Relationships In Kutch, India, Miwa Kanetani

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This study examines the manner in which the odhani—a head cover cloth used by women in the Kutch District, Gujarat State, India—is worn, in order to explain how clothes create social relationships, like gender, caste, and inter religious relations.

One of the limitations of previous studies on Indian Muslims is that this community -- a minority -- was discussed separately from Hindu society, which has a different social system and structure. However, in reality, both communities share a common culture to a large extent, and regularly interact with each other. Their clothes provide a new perspective for understanding the …

Delineating Women’S Historical Lives Through Textiles: A Latvian Knitter’S Narrative Of Memory, Eileen Wheeler

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In presenting and analyzing the narrative of a woman who knitted for survival, I engage two continuing marginalizations in mainstream history; that the lives of ‘everyday’ women are poorly delineated and that the realm of textiles is undervalued as a source of knowledge.

Outside the visual art domain the status and potential of textile study, with its associations of domesticity and craft, is little valued. Yet textiles have a history of being associated with many other aspects of women’s lives, a relationship that is slowly being probed for the knowledge it may hold (Parker, 1984; Tickner, 1988; Ulrich, 2001). Through …

Stories Underfoot: Reconstructing A Filipino American Identity From A Patchwork Rug, Rachel Morris

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As Eliza Calvert Hall’s words suggest, a patchwork quilt, made up of a lifetime of castoffs and remnants, not only brings together the artifacts of intimate relationships and events in an individual’s life, but also becomes something larger – a tangible extension of memory itself. Operating on the premise that “material objects… can [not only] act as the analogues of human memory... [but also] prolong and preserve them beyond purely mental existence, ” the material bases for my research are several patchwork floor mats from my childhood home that my family refers to as, Apo Nananag’s rag rugs. My grandmother, …

The Troyes Mémoires: A Translation Of A Script For A Late Medieval Choir Tapestry, Tina Kane

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The subject of this essay is a late medieval French manuscript, comprising a set of written instructions for the iconographic program to be depicted in a set of a medieval choir tapestries. It is a rare piece of primary material that fills a gap in our understanding of how narrative programs for such tapestries were constructed. The manuscript is entitled: Mémoires provided to painters commissioned to design the cartoons for a tapestry, destined for the collegiate church of St. Urban of Troyes, representing the legends of St. Urban and of St. Cecilia.

These tapestries were to have hung over the …

The Swedish Presence In 20th-Century American Weaving, Marion T. Marzolf

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Swedish weavers who arrived in the United States in the early 20th century before World War I found hand weaving a dying art in the United States, but their own skills were valued. American textile mills produced inexpensive and vast quantities of fabrics, but there was also growing interest in reviving the lost arts and crafts of the Colonial and pioneer eras. Influence from the European Arts and Crafts movement and the Bauhaus design philosophy was growing in modern America. These factors created new opportunities for a revival of hand weaving.

Sweden, by contrast, had retained its strong craft tradition …

The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: Modern Art And The Kimono, Valerie Foley

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In 2003 I enrolled in a master’s degree program in arts administration. In addition to such classes as exhibition planning, appraisals, and computer applications, we had two sweeping modern art surveys, which took us from the birth of impressionism in the 1860s to emerging artists of the 21st century.

For one end term project, we each had to design a complete hypothetical exhibition, from mission statement to budget to invitation card to gallery space. The only restriction was that we had to demonstrate on paper that we could actually pull it off.

At that time, I had recently seen a …

Textile Narratives In Book Form, Robin E. Muller

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

I am a weaver and textile artist who has moved into working in the book form. As a teacher at an art college I have been looking for ways to explain this movement by myself and several other textiles artists, like the late Shereen Laplantz who wrote a book on book arts techniques after many decades of making plaited baskets. I have the pleasure of doing that today with three esteemed colleagues: Laura Strand, of Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Susan Warner Keene, Toronto, Bronfman award winner, formerly at Sheridan College, and Pam Scheinman, artist and historian Montclair State University, …

Suellen Glashausser: Books As Revelation, Pamela Scheinman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Suellen Glahausser insisted she was a professional artist because she wasn’t suited for anything else. Just as she assigned herself a weekly day to see art in New York, packing a sandwich and apple so as not to waste precious time, Glashausser pushed her own work into new territory with each annual exhibit at Amos Eno Gallery, the cooperative she joined in 1976. Her titles were terse and descriptive: Mounds (1977), Stacks (1978), Fences (1979), Trestles (1980), Paper Shadows (1982), Columns/Wedges (1984), Gardens (1985), etc. They reflected her interest in structure, repetition and infinite variation. These concerns also appear in …

Design Sources: The Edges Of Fiber Geometry, Barbara Setsu Pickett

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

My investigation began with the analysis of the stitched geometrical patterns used in the Japanese textile tradition called sashiko. This technique requires only needle, thread and countless hours of patient stitching. I became intrigued with the hemp leaf pattern called asa-noha. The crossing white stitches on a field of deep indigo blue, conjured up memories of starry constellations and the pinpoint, accurate mapping of laser surgery. When I look from one star to another, the stars seem to twinkle. I believe this illusion happens because the stars share rays. Looking at one star’s center invariably decomposes its neighbors.

Upon …

Textiles And The Body: The Geometry Of Clothing, Madelyn Shaw

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Physics and mathematics are not usually perceived as being closely connected with textile and clothing design or construction, either by scientists or by artists. Those who make clothing from cloth, however, must always take into account two geometries: the plane geometry of the cloth and the solid geometry of the body. In order to clothe the body we begin with cloth. Woven, knitted, knotted, or otherwise constructed, the inherent structure of cloth reflects mathematical principles. Interlaced threads create square or triangular grids, techniques such as knitting or crocheting can make grids of any shape, from triangular to polyhedral.

Those who …

A Textile Narrative Through The Eye Of A Camera/Through The Eye Of A Needle, Jennifer E. Salahub

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

When I began to research needlework in the early 1980s the Library of Congress Catalogue directed me not to needlework, or even embroidery, but to the letter “W” – Women’s Work – the first step in a long and tangled journey. When I recently came across an 1890s photograph of a Canadian woman and her embroidery by Hannah Maynard all I had to do was turn to Google to be directed to the BC Archives. My first reaction was glee – my second dismay – with 300+ hits how could I not know Mrs. Maynard?

To date, Hannah Maynard (1834-1918), …

Constructing Garments, Constructing Identities: Home Sewers And Homemade Clothing In 1950s/60s Alberta, Marcia Mclean

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Home sewing is the most feminine of all the arts and crafts. It is an easy as well as a basic way for a woman to add to her femininity, whether she sews for herself, her children or her home. The woman who sews can be creative, make herself and members of her family attractive, and also stretch the family clothing budget.

The above paragraph is from a home economics thesis written in 1959. It neatly sums up the decade’s attitudes towards femininity and home sewing. In the years following the Second World War, the notions of public, active femininity …

Cotton To Cloth: An Indian Epic, Uzramma

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The cotton handloom industry of India is one of the great manufacturing institutions of the world: its looms have run continuously for five thousand years. Remnants of cotton thread have been found in the ruins of the Harappan civilization [5000-3500 BC], and the weavers of India have supplied the markets of the world with cotton cloth since at least the first century of the Christian era. The golden age of Indian cotton in recorded history stretches from that time until the beginning of the nineteenth century and there are testaments to the quantity, quality and variety of Indian cotton fabrics …

Speaking When No One Else Can: Textiles And Censorship, Jessica Hemmings

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textiles from around the world are capable of conveying sophisticated narration. But in regions where censorship, both in the form of overt government censorship as well as individual self-censorship exists, the ability of textiles to narrate becomes a crucial tool in the discussion of topics otherwise left unspoken. Textiles can offer a form of communication that, ironically, may go unnoticed precisely because of the “innocent” materials in which these messages are told. A growing “illiteracy” to alternative modes of narration such as those offered by the crafts offers an ideal foil for such sensitive conversations. As record keepers these textiles …

Changing Face Of Ottoman Imperial Image: Carpets Of Dolmabahce Palace, Turkiye, Elvan Anmac, Filiz Adigüzel Toprak

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As a result of Westernization act within the State, flourishing from the end of 18th century, essential alteration took place in the social and cultural life in the Ottoman Empire. Western influence asserted itself intensively as soon as Sultan Abdulmecid (1839-61) was enthroned; it was Western style which was immediately imitated in State Governance as well as in every aspect of life, in architecture, architectural decoration, in furnishings, in clothing and home textiles such as upholstery fabrics and carpets used in Sultan Palaces. One of the most striking references of this alteration is the Dolmabahce Palace which was built in …

High Style And Cleanliness: Oriental Rugs In Toronto Homes 1880 - 1940, Neil Brochu

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Academic scholarship pertaining to Oriental rugs, which began at the end of the nineteenthcentury, has concentrated mainly on connoisseurship and the study of the cultures of origin and the peoples that have produced these items with a particular bias for items produced without the taint of Western influence. Little attention has been paid to the actual consumption of Oriental rugs in the West and the general influence of this trade on the evolution of decorative taste or how they may reflect changes in cultural and social attitudes. Oriental rugs within the Canada have received even less attention leading to assumptions …

Designing For Future Textiles – Challenges Of Hybrid Practices, Zane Berzina

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The potential of the future for both science and design lies in a multidisciplinary approach. Disciplines are merging, boundaries are melting and “many […] technologies are not significant when looked at in isolation, but become of critical importance when coupled with other technologies.”

Introduction

This paper offers a condensed case study of a cross-disciplinary practice led Ph.D. research “Skin Stories :: Charting and Mapping the Skin” which dealt with issues across the fields of design, art, textiles technology, electronics, biology, material science and psychology in an attempt to bridge the gap between aesthetics and technology. The artistic investigation examines skin …

A Collaboration Through Academia Into Industry, Vita Plume

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This presentation is about two collaborative projects, Lees Carpets Funded Studio and Ameleon, of which I have had the honour to be a part. My involvement in these projects is a result of being on faculty in the Department of Art and Design at North Carolina State University.

I joined this University for several reasons. An important one among them was research. When I was hired, I understood this to mean the continuation of work on my artistic textile production. While I have in fact continued on this research line as well, in this paper I will discuss two collaborative …

Sustainability Of Handwoven Carpets In Turkey: The Importance Of Technical Distinctions Between Regional Carpet Styles, Feryal Söylemezoğlu, Sema Taği

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

In Turkey, hand-made carpet-weaving is a widespread handicraft which many people are effectively busy with. It is also an important area in which unemployed labour can be put to use.

Carpet-making is a traditional craft that has been practised in Turkey since ancient times, and is still found in almost all regions today. Actually, in rural areas, many families still derive significant income from carpet-making.

The reasons why hand-woven carpet-making is crucial for Turkey can be listed as follows:

• Because of the socio economic conditions that currently exist in Turkey the rate of unemployment needs to be reduced, particularly …

Sustainability Of Handwoven Carpets In Turkey: The Context Of The Weaver, Kimberly Berman, Charlotte Jirousek

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Forms of Production

Past research, conducted mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, has identified three forms of production in which carpets are woven as commodities. These are petty-commodity production, the putting-out system, and workshop production.

Petty-commodity production involves weaving in the home, with the male head of the household or other male relatives selling the finished product to a carpet dealer or at a local or regional market (fig. 1). The family owns the loom and other weaving supplies, and family members purchase or prepare the yarn themselves. Under the putting-out system, the yarn, rug patterns and perhaps the loom …

Unraveling The Story: Art Holmes’ War Correspondent Uniform, Courtney Stewart

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

War correspondents have, and continue to risk their own personal safety in order to capture a story and communicate news. The first war correspondents from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Art Holmes and Robert Bowman, shipped out from Halifax in late 1939, and for the duration of the war vested themselves in standard military attire. Identical to that of the soldiers on the front whose stories they was capturing, Holmes and Bowman were given military uniforms. Although correspondents were neither soldiers nor members of the armed forces, they were given military priority and respect by association of what this uniform signified. …

Messages From The Past: An Unbroken Inca Weaving Tradition In Northern Peru, Lynn A. Meisch

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The only documented unbroken Inca weaving tradition thrives today in the Huamachuco region of northern Peru (La Libertad Department), where females in several Andean communities weave belts chronicled in A.D. 1590 by a Mercedarian Friar Martín de Murúa. Murúa was entrusted with collecting tribute from and Christianizing the indigenous population of Yanaca in the Province of Aymarays (in modern Apurimac Department in central Peru). His contemporary Guaman Poma accused Murúa of exploitation of the Indians and drew him beating an elderly male weaver (Guaman Poma 1980 [1615]: fig. 647). In his manuscript titled, “History of the Origin and Genealogy of …

Contemporary Hemp Weaving In Korea, Min-Sun Hwang

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Until the 1900s, hemp was one of four traditional textile fibers in Korea, the others being cotton, ramie, and silk. The production of hemp fabrics had traditionally been for family use, but since the 1950s, that tradition has ceased to exist. The present status of hemp production is, therefore, extremely limited to the rural regions, and practiced by only a small number of the elderly (fig. 1). Of the approximately thirteen hemp cultivation regions (fig. 2), the city of Andong developed a different technique in hemp fiber-making from the rest of the regions and this paper will cover hemp fabric …

Elemental Pathways In Fiber Structures: Approaching Andean Symmetry Patterns Through An Ancient Technology, Mary Frame

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Repetitive pattern is laden with meaning in many cultures. In Andean cultures, where no alphabetic writing system was developed during prehispanic times, patterns and graphic codes carried a large cultural load. It is crucial to have appropriate tools to investigate the integrated properties (symmetry, color, number, direction, etc.) in the graphic codes of the ancient Andes. In this paper, I will propose some modifications to the prevailing approach to symmetry classification that better fits the patterns in Andean textiles.

Approaches to Symmetry Patterns, Modern and Ancient

An approach to classifying symmetry patterns that is called “plane pattern analysis” has been …

Nasca Needlework And Paracas Procession, Lois Martin

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Among the treasures in the Brooklyn Museum is an ancient cloth from the South Coast of Peru: 38.121, sometimes known as “The Paracas Textile,” and now more often as “The Brooklyn Museum Textile” (BMT) (fig. 1.). First acquired by a Peruvian collector around 1912, the cloth shuttled between New York and Paris in the 1920’s and 30’s, inspiring great interest and numerous studies. One of these, Raoul d’Harcourt’s Textiles of Ancient Peru and their Techniques (1934), has been in reprint since 1962, and continues to intrigue fresh audiences.

The BMT was one of several spectacular fabrics that spurred archeological exploration …

Brides And Grooms: Embroidery Of The Epirus Region, Sumru Belger Krody

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Traditional marriage ceremonies in the Epirus (Ípeiros) region of northwestern Greece were some of the most extravagant wedding celebrations among the Greeks on the mainland and islands. The textiles produced for the young bride’s trousseau were as elaborate as the celebrations. They included garments for her and her husband and textiles for their home. These textiles tell us many things about the region’s political, economic and artistic history. Ottoman Empire held the Greek mainland and islands in their control for centuries leaving their mark in many aspects of daily life and the arts and as an extension of arts in …

The Narrative Scheme Of A Bengal Colcha Dating From The Early 17th Century Commissioned By The Portuguese, Barbara Karl

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In this article I analyse the iconographic programme of a large size embroidered textile dating from the early 17th century from the Hugli region in Bengal. The textile is part of subgroup (c) of the Solomon group. India has an extremely rich textile tradition. Every region has its peculiarities and techniques. Quilts were made all over the Indian subcontinent throughout the ages. Worn out clothes were not thrown away but were instead reused: Several layers of cloth were laid upon each other and were sewn together to be used in Indian homes. Most of them were very simple but some …

White Snake, Black Snake Folk Narrative Meets Master Narrative In Qing Dynasty Sichuanese Cross-Stitch Medallions, Cory Willmott

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The cross-stitch medallion in figure 1 was collected by my grandmother, Katherine Willmott, in the early 1920s when she was a missionary in Renshow, Sichuan Province, West China. Many years after I inherited it, I learned that it depicts a folk narrative called “White Snake; Black Snake” that was traditionally performed both on stage in the legitimate theaters and in Chinese shadow puppet dramas (Highbaugh n/d:6).

The story may be summarized as follows: There were two female snakes, White Snake and Black Snake, who were inseparable friends. They both changed into beautiful young women. White Snake got married and bore …