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Meeting The Needs Of Manufacturers: The Education Of Silk Designers In Eighteenth Century Lyons, Lesley Ellis Miller

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Theories about the best education for craftsmen and designers preoccupied a number of French thinkers during the Enlightenment: they included several notable inhabitants of Lyons, a city which depended for its reputation on the manufacturing of patterned silks. After several years of debate, the initiatives of these individuals led, in 1756, to the founding of a school of drawing (ecole gratuite de dessin), which received Royal approval the following year, and direct central government funding from 1780. The founders and administrators of the school claimed that they were targeting future silk designers to whom they offered tuition in …

Electronic Textiles: Hacking The Museum, Barbara Layne

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The subject of my presentation, Electronic Textiles: Hacking the Museum, is a project I orchestrated between the Marsil Museum of Textiles in St. Lambert, Quebec and the Glass Box Gallery at Salford University near Manchester, England. The purpose was to manipulate images of textile objects as a way to reconsider the practice of collecting, question the system of classification (and thereby the authority of the museum), and open up new possibilities for the collected object. The Marsil is the only museum in Quebec whose mandate is exclusively dedicated to textiles. Its catalogue system catagorizes the collection according to function …

Hogushi And Heiyo: Methods Of Creating Painterly Images In Woven Textiles, Kazuo Mutoh

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Proto-Meisen

The term meisen generally refers to plain-weave silk cloth patterned with woven (not printed) stripes or kasuri and made into kimono, haori, and nen'neko (literally 'jacket sleeper, " a padded coat worn during the autumn and winter months for carrying babies on the back). In the first half ofthe twentieth century, almost all Japanese women were familiar with meisen- as ordinary, everyday wear for the upper and middle classes and as dress-up kimono for working- class and country women. In the twenty four years between 1913 and 1937, according to the census, 200 million bolts …

"Scutulis Dividere Gallia": Weaving On Tablets In Western Europe, Carolyn Priest-Dorman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Tablet weaving is a structurally intricate, flexible art indigenous to pre-industrial Europe and northwest Asia. It has been used to reinforce the borders of woven textiles as well as to create sturdy, often decorative bands used as strapping, belts, a variety of garment trimmings, and ecclesiastical vestments. To some extent the history of tablet weaving can be correlated with the history of costume.

There are no known early written sources describing how to tablet weave, although a few sources make reference to an art which may be tablet weaving. Historical depictions of tablet weaving are few, and most are fraught …

Between The Field And The Museum: The Benedict Collection Of Bagobo Abaca Ikat Textiles, Cherubim A. Quizon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Any researcher working on vintage textiles and clothing from the Philippines collected during the early years of the American colonial period is likely to encounter the following informative catalogue entries: "From headhunters," or "From chiefs attire." Since the Bagobo people of southern Mindanao were also once famous for the practice of human sacrifice, the cloth, weaponry and ornament of these people were of high anecdotal value for collectors.

By contrast, a typical entry in the Bagobo textile collection of Laura Watson Benedict in this museum, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), circa 1910 reads: "Woven by Antap [who specializes …

Starlets And Masters: Meisen Posters Published By The Textile Makers, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A group of more than a dozen original paintings of "kimono beauties" or bijinga, literally "picture of a beauty," is in the collection of the Ashikaga Museum of Modem Art, Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. They were painted by well-respected master painters between 1920s and 1930s, commissioned by the Ashikaga Meisen Weavers Association to be reproduced in postcards and posters to promote their products, Ashikaga meisen.

Another group of large posters of movie actress "beauties" wearing meisen kimonos is in the collection of Shimojo Koichiro, a former meisen dealer/producer, now a drapery manufacturer in lsesaki, Gunma Prefecture. These posters were …

Exploring Pattern In Woven Design: A Comparison Of Two Seventeenth Century Italian Textiles, Melinda Watt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper explores the differences in both pattern and technical features between two similar woven silk textiles from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two textiles are seventeenth century Italian woven silks. They have in common an identical brocaded pattern consisting of four floral motifs, two are large and two are small. It is the differences between the two textiles that provoke comparison, more than do their similarities. First, the ground colors are different, as are the ground weaves. Second, the individual brocaded motifs, while identical in detail, are a mirror reflection from one textile to the …

The Grape And The Vine: A Motif In Contemporary Jewish Textiles, Reba Wulkan

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Grapes and grapevines are prominent motifs in the vast range of Jewish art dating back to Antiquity. In recent decades, there has been growing interest in creating contemporary Jewish ceremonial textiles for the home and synagogue, as well as textile art on Jewish themes. The grape and vine motif have often been included in these new works.

A brief survey of Jewish sources:

Grapes and wine are highly important symbols in Jewish tradition and ritual and date back to the 1st century. A magnificent golden vine that hung over the inner portal of the Second Temple was described by Josephus …

Blanket Statements, Issue 55, Winter 1998–1999

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 55, Winter 1998–1999

Bibliography For: Reality And Vitual Reality: Extending The Tradition Of Compound Woven Structures

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Benjamin, Walter

Emery, Irene

Fannin, Allen A

Grosicki, Z.1.

McCullough, Malcolm.

Newport, Mark.

Nia, Xia.

Oelsner, G. H.

Plant, Sadie.

Re-Defining Tradition: Handweavers To The World, Seema Chandna

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

It is my ongoing attraction for, and love of, Indian textiles that brought me back to my country of birth after spending several years, studying and working, in New York. This paper deals with my research, experience and observations, over the last year, working closely with the hand-weaving industry in India.

At my design studio, in Bangalore, I have a multi-treadle handloom and have employed a local hand-weaver. We create the designs and make sample swatches at the studio. For production of yardage, based on our swatches, we work with various weaving centers, located in different Southern Indian villages. Depending …

The Past Is Prologue, Lia Cook

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Since the early 1970s I have been interested in the construction of imagery in textiles and how the imagery that is an essential part of the structure can be altered through painting, dyeing, and finishing processes. My early pieces used a simple distortion of the vertical horizontal threads to create undulating parallel lines that defined what I called the "fabric landscape", a piece of fabric laid over a relief surface. In 1974-5 I applied photographs directly to the surface of my woven structures, sensitizing the cotton cords with photosensitive chemicals and processing the whole weaving as one would a photograph. …

Unit Turning Blocks For Designing Tablet Weavings, Bonita R. Datta

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper describes a design process for tablet weaving with four-holed tablets. It addresses the following techniques: twining; Egyptian diagonals~ four-colour diagonals; 3/1 twill; and, 2/1 twill.

DEFINITIONS

Threading direction is the way in which the yarns pass through the holes in the tablets. These diagrams show the two possible threading directions. The fell line of the fabric is above, the unwoven warp is below, and the front surface of the textile faces the viewer.

This paper assumes all tablets are Z-threaded. The impact of alternating or symmetrical threading arrangements, and the operation of flipping tablets to reverse the threading, …

Fiber And Leather Products Of The Juhena Tribe Of Saudi Arabia And How They Are Made, Joy May Hilden

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Juhena tribe in the northwestern region of Saudi Arabia, the Hijaz, live in coastal towns and villages and in remote, jagged mountains inland, parallel to the Red Sea coast. The coastal area has absorbed diverse cultural influences because of its proximity to Africa and Egypt and its location on an ancient trade route, on which Muslim pilgrims travel to the holy cities of Makkah and Medina. Some members of the tribe, such as the Egyptian-born mayor of Umlaj, have their roots elsewhere and have been adopted by the Juhena.

Coastal inhabitants are settled, semi-nomadic and nomadic, and survive by …

Weaving For Your Life: Creating Textiles In Dolp A, Nepal, Anne M. Johnson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

High in the Himalayan mountains, two weeks walk from the nearest road, weaving is a necessity, not an option, for the women of the Dolpa region of Nepal. A woman weaves all of her life, and must weave for her family to survive the difficult life at this high altitude. Picture three weavers working outside in the late winter snowfall, seated on the ground within a low-walled enclosure. There can be more light and warmth outside, rather than inside, their stone houses. Weaving also provides a place of community, where men, women, and children gather to card fibers, spin, weave, …

Recreating A Warp-Faced Compound Weave With The Jacquard Mechanism -Considering Heizo Tatsumura-, Keiko Kobayashi

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Recreating of Ancient Fabrics

The technique of how the Warp-faced compound weave was once woven has been the focus of study for many specialists in Japan. It was around 1921 that Heizo Tatsumura began to recreate ancient textiles from the 7th and 8th centuries, found in the Shosoin Repository and the Horyuji Temple. He used the new Jacquard mechanism, which had been imported from France in 1873 with great dexterity. With this mechanism, along with his gifted creativity and inventiveness Tatsumura produced new techniques for the purpose of recreation. The very modem Tatsumura chose the Jacquard mechanism as his tool …

Weaving In Taspinar: A Case Study Of Using Samplers In Carpet Weaving, Sumru Belger Krody

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The functions of samplers in needlework, as records of patterns and educational exercises, are well known. But the uses of samplers in carpet weaving have not been subject to serious study. This paper based on a case study conducted in the region around the town of Taspinar in Central Anatolia, will describe the appearance of carpet samplers, the role they play in carpet weaving, how they serve the weavers, and why they are important to weavers.

The field research conducted in the village of Taspinar was a result of responsibility undertaken in early 1996 of documenting a small group (15) …

The Market For Central Asian Ikats, Gail Martin

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This site seminar presentation will illuminate the history of the market for Central Asian ikat in the west, since the latter part of the 19th century, but with particular focus on the more recent personal experience of the panelist. How is it that these beautiful, vibrantly colored textiles, created within a particular cultural tradition, became known, valued and collected so far away from their place of origin? Although carpets and embroideries from Central Asia have been known to outsiders since well before the 20th century, it was not until well into the 20th century that the ikats from Central Asia …

Spanier Arbeit A Tarot (Collars For A Prayer Shawl), Bonni-Dara Michaels

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Spanier Arbeit

A tallit is a rectangular piece of fabric with fringes (tzizit) at the four corners. Until fairly recently, it was worn as a prayer shawl exclusively by observant Jewish males over the age of thirteen. In Ashkenazic lands, primarily Germany and Poland, a limited range of materials was used to make a tallit. It was made of wool or silk, and was white or off-white with a black stripe. The center of one long side of the tallit was often distinguished by some form of decoration. This decorated area would be worn at the neck, functioning …

Catering To The Designer: Stewart Culin's Study Rooms At The Brooklyn Museum Of Art, Kathleen Moore

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In 1918, Stewart Culin, Curator of Ethnology, opened his first "study room" at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, filled it with Indian cottons, and invited American designers to use it for inspiration.

While Culin never designed a textile or costume and never deviated from his scholarly and curatorial roles, he in effect functioned as both master of a design library and informal manufacturer's agent American designers responded by incorporating ideas gleaned from the materials he offered them. Stores displayed his exhibitions and even bought from the same sources he collected from.

This presentation will explore how Culin saw himself, his …

Making It The "Old-Fashioned Way", Laura Foster Nicholson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

It is tempting to consider the process I am about to describe as the result of a point of view which is subjective and maybe even romantic. Although the adjective "old fashioned" as used in the title carries a certain amount of ironic wit, in fact my method of weaving is ancient and timeless. I chose it because it is the only way I can adequately convey the majority of my ideas about the textile world. I also work this way because I love the process itself I have tailored my ideas, and risked hobbling them, in order to continue …

Dolls And Upholstery: The Commodification Of Maya Textiles Of Guatemala, Margot Blum Schevill

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

Maya weavers of Guatemala are well known for their beautiful backs trap and treadle-loomed cloth, which they create for clothing and related garments and for sale, both within and outside Guatemala. Backstrap weaving, mainly a woman's occupation done in the home, has an ancient history over two millennia, although there are few extant examples of the weavings of the ancient Maya due to climatic conditions (Figure 1). The process, however, was documented in ceramic art, and the tradition of handwoven clothing can be seen in monumental stone carvings, murals, and also in ceramic art. Today weavers purchase the yarn …

Drawing On Tradition, Cynthia Schira

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Over the forty years that I have been weaving, my work has changed conceptually and technically. In the late fifties, after studying in Aubusson, I worked in the tapestry technique. What I perceived to be a rigidity within the working process pushed me toward investigating ways of incorporating the spontaneity of the painters of that period into my textile art. The integration of resist-dyeing along with the use of supplementary wefts provided the potential for changes and additions during the weaving process that I sought. The imagery on my work then was formed by and contained within the supplementary wefts. …

Interlacing Histories Loom Technologies And Pictorial Weaving In Late-Nineteenth Century Japan And France, Leila Wice

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Starting in 1872, Japanese artisans travelled from Kyoto to Lyon, to study in the town's famed silk-weaving studios. The Jacquard mechanism which they helped to introduce to Japan the following year made the sorabiki-bata draw-loom obsolete within decades. Even in its. most basic application as an addition to hand-loom weaving, this new technology fundamentally transformed the geography and the economy of manufacturing processes by the turn of the century, but these new methods' impact on the actual fabrics which they were used to produce has yet to be fully explored.

In both countries at this time, woven pictures were one …

"Alienor Regina ... Me Fecit": Production And Patronage Of Medieval Tabletwoven Bands, Nancy Spies

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Someone, somewhere in northern Europe late in the fifth century or early in the sixth century AD, successfully translated a technique known from woven fabrics to the simple methodology of tablet weaving and started adding supplemental brocading wefts of precious metallic threads to bands woven with fine wool and imported silk warp threads. F or the next thousand years until the new art of lacemaking grew in popularity during the sixteenth century, brocaded tabletwoven bands were one of the favorite forms of ornamental fabric trim in Europe. The question of who wove these beautiful bands is one which has not …

Reality And Virtual Reality: Extending The Tradition Of Compound Woven Structures, Rebecca Stevens, Laura Foster Nicholson, Lia Cook, Cynthia Schira, Barbara Layne

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The following papers examine the uses of compound woven structures in contemporary textile art and the methodologies employed to produce this art. Using the working methods and investigations of three teachers/textile artists, these papers will address the interrelated role of high-tech equipment and handwork that gives today's artists the ability to continue the exploration of these traditional structures with a new flexibility and freedom. Collectively the papers will illustrate the creative choices the artists make in using technologies to translate their textile ideas into tangible works of art.

A "compound weave" is a woven structure composed of more than one …

Tracing Intricate Thread Control Systems: The Bamboo Drum Or Swine Basket Loom To The Tc-L, Carol D. Westfall

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

I use the word "primitive" with great care and caution and a certain humility for we now send men and women into space clad in triaxially woven fabrics which stem from a basic hexagonal basket structure perfected eons ago by some "primitive" Chinese artisan. I am consistently amazed by the extraordinary accomplishments of our common ancestors.

Man's need to adorn his or her body with imagery which acts as a signifier of status or aesthetic is a time honored tradition. The transference of this imagery onto textiles was a natural occurrence, once the need for garments was established - either …

Uncoverings: The Research Papers Of The American Quilt Study Group, Volume 19 (1998), Virginia Gunn, Carol H. Elmore, Ronnie G. Elmore, Dorothy Osler, Tracy W. Barron, Heather Lenz, Judy Elsey, Jenny Yearous

Uncoverings Journal

Preface by Virginia Gunn

Research Papers

The Life and Quilts of Ida Stover Eisenhower by Carol H. Elmore and Ronnie G. Elmore

The Quilt Designers of North East England by Dorothy Osler

Mary Susan Rice and the Missionary Quilt by Tracy W. Barron

Learning to Quilt with Grandma Mary Sibley: Gift Labor, Traditional Quiltmaking, and Contemporary Art by Heather Lenz

A Stitch in Crime: Quilt Detective Novels by Judy Elsey

Stitches in Time: The Development of Sewing Thread in the Nineteenth Century and Beyond by Jenny Yearous

Authors and editor

Index

In memoriam: Paul D. Pilgrim (November 9, 1942-November 12, …

The Landscape In Transition, Tim Klunder

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

This thesis exhibition consists of a series of urban landscape paintings. These paintings attempt to explore the issues of transition and flux within the modern environment on the edge of Lincoln as the city expands into rural areas. The paintings were all executed in acrylic and comprise a broad range of sizes on both hardboard and wooden panels. The process by which they were conceived was an evolutionary one that began with the analysis of a specific site that is not far from my home and which I see on a daily basis. Initially, the most engaging aspect of this …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 9:3 – Fall 1997, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America: Newsletters

A Brief History of the Textile Collections at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
Letter from the President
Letter from the Editor
Textile Museum Introduces a Learning Center
Lineups Change at Several Museums
Conference Reviews
Kalamazoo Medieval Congress has Four Textile Sessions
Announcements
Symposia/Seminars/Workshops
Exhibitions