Art and Design Commons^™

Statements From The Loom And The Needle: Woven And Embroidered Anatolian Textiles In The Home Environment, Serim Denel

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

With their innovative images and messages, Anatolian textiles bring statements from history and witness social change as well. This conversation with the past appears on embroideries (isleme), weavings (dokuma), flat woven carpets (kilim), rugs (hali), needlelace (oya), or a variety of other artifacts from the loom and the needle. They take their impetus from Turkish culture and traditions. However, they extend well beyond these, into the lives and roots of the many peoples of Anatolia who have left their marks on the multi-cultural urban, rural, or semi-nomadic environments. Since their themes and motifs appear on architecture and artifacts alike, …

Textile Tribute In The Antebellum South, Ann Dupont

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The involuntary immigration of African slaves to America in the early nineteenth century had a secondary impact on the slaves as well as slaveholders related to the possession and use of clothing and textiles in daily life. The slaves were not allowed to bring their clothing, or other attributions of their native culture to America. Rather, the slaveholders were required by law to provide for their slaves' adequate "clothing and basic needs." These requisitions were influenced by the slaveowner's philosophy of slave management, wealth, and temperament. Dependency for these basic necessities of life on the slaveowner reinforced the dichotomy of …

A Wisteria Grain Bag And Other Tree Bast Fiber Textiles Of Japan, Mary Dusenbury

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Throughout most of Japan's long prehistory (Jomon period: ca.8,000- 300 B.C.)/ the hunting and gathering Jomon people stripped the bark of a variety of native trees, shrubs, and grasses and processed it into cordage, baskets, nets, and various twined textiles. Impressions of cloth on the bottom of some of the distinctive cord-patterned pottery for which the period was named, suggests that weaving was not practiced until the very end of the period.

Dislocated by the expansion of central Chinese authority, groups of immigrants from the continent moved to Japan in the third and second centuries B.C. These peoples brought irrigated …

The Jinbaori: Oneupmanship On The Battlefield, Valerie Foley

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

There are very few absolute statements that can be made about jinbaori in the sociological, cultural or historical sense, except that they were worn only by males of the military class in military settings. Some believe that the jinbaori constituted a kind of formal wear, which vassals wore in audience with their lords, yet there is some evidence to contradict this - for example, the fact that very few portraits exist of men in jinbaori, while portraits of men in armor abound. Indeed, one scroll shows a lord in jinbaori, his retainers in armor. There are several theories as to …

Sparto: A Greek Textile Plant, Helen Bradley-Griebel

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

Cotton and flax are known as plants whose fibers are used in the manufacture of textiles, and hemp and jute are known as plants used to make rope. Less well known for its contribution to both textile and rope manufacture is the plant sparto (Spartium iunceum L.; Spanish broom) which grows wild over much of the Mediterranean region in brushwood localities of the mountainous and semi-mountainous zones, including the area of my fieldwork village on the West Coast of the Greek Peloponnesos.

Sparto is a perennial broom, growing as a shrub not reaching over 3m. in height. Its …

Embroidery In The Everyday Life Of Artisans, Merchants, And Consumers In Fez, Morocco, In The 1980s, Louise W. Mackie

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Many inhabitants of Fez welcome modern lifestyles. But they also value their Muslim faith and cultural traditions which identify their Fezi heritage. One prominent symbol of that distinctive heritage is embroidery. It is highly visible throughout the city on decorative covers used in daily life and on special occasions, especially weddings.¹

Although many cities in Morocco and abroad had distinctive styles of embroidery in the past, embroidery continues to prosper today almost exclusively in Fez. Its widespread manufacture and use provide insight not only into current practices but also into comparable customs elsewhere which have been mechanized.

The continuing …

Daily Life Under Duress: Richard Vaux, A Philadelphia Textile Merchant And His Business, 1777-1790, Marisa A. Morra

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Richard Vaux was a Philadelphia merchant who sold textiles during and immediately after the Revolution. His story may be told as the biography of a Quaker merchant and businessman. But his story has more to offer. It may, more importantly, shed light on the merchant profession itself, for it is possible to show how this man's personal life influenced the goods he distributed to the American market .

The Revolutionary period, when Vaux reached the peak of his business activity, has traditionally been considered a "transitional" period, and has not been the focus of much recent material culture scholarship.^{2 …}

Silk, Power And Diplomacy In Byzantium, Anna Maria Muthesius

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In Byzantium between the fourth and the twelfth century, a hierarchy of silken splendour was established across social, artistic, religious, economic and political boundaries. On one level silk was a decorative fabric socially exploited for its aesthetic qualities. On another level it was prized as a fabric fit for furnishing the House of God. Above all though, the Imperial house was intent to raise what was essentially a valuable economic asset to the heights of a powerful political weapon. Consequently silk was made to serve both as the prime Imperial ceremonial fabric and as the diplomatic cloth 'par excellence'.1 The …

Japanese Textiles Of Daily Life, Iwao Nagasaki

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The main function of textiles in daily life is that of clothing. Along with food and shelter, clothing the body from the elements has been one of the most essential conditions since primitive times. Since the time when animal hides and plant parts were used to protect one's body from the external world, clothing has always been closely related to human life. Therefore, it can be said that clothes were invented and developed for daily use and, at the primitive level, one type of garment served all purposes.

At this level, the material and style of clothing were one hundred …

The Women Of Coyo: Tradition And Innovation In Andean Prehistory, San Pedro De Atacama, North Chile (A.D. 500-900), Amy Oakland Rodman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Beginning in the second century and continuing until the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, the inhabitants of the large cluster of oases known as San Pedro in the Atacama desert of northern Chile buried their dead in the desert, in areas adjacent to shaded habitation sites and irrigated agricultural fields (Figure 1). The scarce oasis lands have been reused over the millennium and little former architectural evidence survives, however the cemeteries and the people themselves have been preserved. The arid Atacama desert has allowed the uncommon preservation of a vast quantity of prehistoric textiles and other usually perishable materials. …

Sashiko: A Stitchery Of Japan, Cynthia Shaver

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The term sashiko refers to the stitching of one or more layers of cloth with a simple running stitch and can also apply to the completed fabric. Sashiko is the noun of the verb sasu, meaning to pierce. Sashiko probably was initially a way to recycle or extend the life of cloth. Among the textiles in the Shoso-in, the Imperial Repository built circa 752 to preserve thousands of objects of art and other belongings of the Emperor Shomu, is an 8th Century "distant mountain" pattern monk's robe covered with a purple silk running stitch. This running stitch is superfluous …

Textiles And Identity In Prehistoric Southwestern North America, Lynn S. Teague

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This study focuses on the place that textiles had in the lives of people in the central Greater Southwest after about A.D.1000, and in particular on the development of two distinctive traditions in cloth that co-existed in the central Southwest during this period. These traditions were the predecessors of two equally distinctive historic textile traditions, those of the puebloan people of the Colorado Plateau and those of the O'Odham in the Sonora Desert of southern and central Arizona.

Clothing is a basic means of indicating social identity, and in the prehistoric Southwest provides some of our most intriguing evidence of …

Textiles As A Daily Obsession: A Day In The Life Of An Andean Weaver, Elayne Zorn

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

This paper focuses on weavers and textiles from the island of Taquile, in Lake Titicaca, Peru, in the southern Andes. In my abstract I wrote that I would speak about both Taquileans and the Sakaka of Bolivia, but due to the richness and complexity of the material, I shall concentrate on Taquile.

This paper dates back to a conversation I had with Natividad Machaca (Figure 1), a matron of Taquile, on a winter afternoon in June 1984, after the festival of Saint John, which Taquilean families dedicate to ceremonies to increase the fertility of their scrawny sheep. Along with …

Fish, Fowl And Fauna, Daphne A. Deeds

Sheldon Museum of Art: Catalogs and Publications

As the art musem of the University of Nebraska, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery staff is committed to making the exceptional permanent collection available to all Nebraskans. The Sheldon Gallery's Statewide Touring Exhibition Program realizes that goal by circulating art of the highest quality to communities throughout the state. Each Statewide exhibition addresses an art historical genre or theme , and together the five exhibitions constitute a mini-art history course and a unique focus on the Sheldon Gallery's renowned collection. As the exhibition series continues , the relationships between diverse artworks are increasingly apparent.

FISH, FOWL AND FAUNA, offers a …

Bukhara: Traditional Weavings From Pre-Soviet Central Asia, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

In southern regions of what was the Soviet Union lie five independent republics, the populations of which are predominantly Turkic: Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. During the course of the past fifty years, each of these areas has seen increasing industrialization as part of the centralized planning of the Soviet economy. Today, throughout the region. privatization of industry is rapidly occuring. Accompanying these new developments, and as part of the political and economic changes of the last few years, there has been an increasing awareness of ethnic identity and cultural inheritance. This may be expressed through literary and intellectual …

Luxury Textiles From Feudal Workshops: 19th Century Russian Tapestry-Woven Shawls, Arlene Cooper

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

At the 1829 First Public Exhibition of Russian Manufactured Goods in Saint Petersburg, "The public stopped in amazement before an expensive white shawl with a European pattern, priced at 12,000 rubles. On the edges were roses, lilacs and other flowers; in the borders (there) were roses only. You cannot imagine anything more beautiful than this shawl."¹ Sixty different shades of colors were used in the flowers and green leaves. The shawl, an almost-transparent web woven in double-interlocked 2/2 twill, was produced by the serf workshop of Nastasia Andreevna Shiskina. Nicholas I acquired it from the exhibition.²

This paper, …

Fez Fabrications: Artisans And Handmade Textiles In A Complex Traditional Culture, Susan Schaefer Davis

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

This paper grows out of a group process of studying handmade fabric, embroidery, and trim in Fez, Morocco in the late 1980s and early 1990s.1 The group included three textile scholars, a video specialist and myself, an anthropologist.2 While the textile scholars began the project with an interest in the textile products and their means of production, we all became interested in more social aspects of the work.

Other scholars have noted the cues cloth can give in understanding the social relations of a culture. Reddy (1986) looks for hints of the social tensions leading to the French Revolution …

Clothing And Textiles Of Ottoman Egypt: Examples From Art And Archaeology, Nettie Adams

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

How many of us, all keenly interested in textiles, have not looked at paintings of a bygone age and thought: how was that garment put together? What sort of stitches were used for the seams? Or when leafing through a book with pictures of exotic places which of us has not wondered: what sort of fabric was that? Was the artist depicting a wovenin or an applied decoration?

The answers to these questions for one part of the world have been found at the archaeological site of Qasr Ibrim.1 It is located in Egyptian Nubia some 30 miles north …

Preface- 1992, Beverly Gordon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Preface

In choosing the theme "Textiles in Daily Life" for its third biennial symposium, the Textile Society of America has provided access to an intimate view of textiles - the way in which textiles touch the lives of everyone, from rich to poor, from East to West, from past to present, from birth to death. The theme has provided a showcase for the diversity of disciplines, approaches, and sources of information which characterize our membership and which energize our organization.

It was only fitting that papers on Japanese textiles began and ended the symposium, in tribute to our host - …

Maya Weavers Of Guatemala: Implications For Marketing And Development, Annamma Joy, Kathryn Lipke, John Mckay

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This video/presentation focuses on the active participation of women in the development process in Guatemala. Development is viewed as a larger process of socio-economic change that takes into consideration issues of self-determination and selfreliance (Joy and Ross, 1989). Modernization theorists generally assume that there is a general improvement in women's participation and status due to urbanization and capitalist development (Quinn, 1977) while dependency theorists emphasize the detrimental effects of the development process on women. In this video we provide a context for examining the causes and conditions that allow for the participation of women (Nash, 1981).

For more than a …

Narratives Of Action And Identity In Cloth: The Textiles Of Highland Luzon, The Philippines, B. Lynne Milgram

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The textile artifact, although framed by its physical existence, is not an isolated entity, but functions as a vital part in the ongoing systems of society. By viewing the artifact as an actor with its own life history and with particular parts to play in every sphere of life's narrative, we are provided with an entry to discovering how both the textile object and the subject, its creator and user, collaborate to mutually define one another. To interpret fully the significance of textiles within their cultural context one must examine not only the artifact's physical qualities, its materials, techniques and …

Fragments Of Everyday Life, Karen Jenson Rutherford

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In my work I am concerned with the general concepts of movement and change and specifically with the profoundness of the idea that we are touched by fiber from the moment of birth until the moment of death. This accessibility of textiles combined with the vast historical foundation of textiles allows for abundant exploration as an artist.

In her book, On Weaving, Anni Albers (1965) defines weaving as "the making of a pliable plane" (19). She further describes six structures used to create this pliable plane. They are interlacing (which we normally think of as weaving), plaiting or braiding, looping, …

Coptic Dress In Egypt: The Social Life Of Medieval Cloth, Michael Bazinet

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

"Daily life" is a catchword in historiography for many of the things that historians traditionally have not considered, or have not been able to study due to gaps in historical records¹. In archives and archaeology, the record of daily life activities is often very slim, even for times and places where both archives and archaeology are relatively rich. Egypt is one such place.

"Daily life" also implies a potential focus on the poor as well as the wealthy, on the oppressed as well as the empowered. The methodology for creating this focus remains difficult, even for ancient Egypt. …

Handweaving In The Everyday Life Of Artisans, Merchants And Consumers In Fez, Morocco, In The 1980'S, Lotus Stack

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

My original desire to study an urban center which still produced elaborate handmade textiles was to provide some possible clues to more seriously consider the practical side of historic production. In other words, what were the physical concerns and limitations of cloth production. In the end I learned that textiles often function in a very complex, multidimensional form and cannot be truly understood without considering many facets of the society which produced them. Conversely, in societies where textiles are highly valued, their study can add much to understanding everything from cultural values, economics and technology to international politics.

In addition …

Textiles In The Everyday Life Of Artisans, Merchants, And Consumers In Fez, Morocco, In The 1980s, Louise W. Mackie

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The four authors contributing to this topic are collaborating to document the manufacture and use of handmade textiles in daily life in Fez, Morocco.¹ Fez is the only city in the western world in which there is both a supply and a demand for many types of handmade urban fabrics. A dozen different types exist. They are all part of a continuous, not revived, tradition. Some types are flourishing, some marginal, and one is the equivalent of an endangered species.

Our comments are based on at least three field trips to Fez between 1986 and 1990 by three textile …

Uncoverings: The Research Papers Of The American Quilt Study Group, Volume 13 (1992), Laurel Horton, Teresa Cooper Jacobs, Nancy Cameron Armstrong, Barbara Brackman, Dorothy Cozart, Janee Hindman, Carolyn H. Krone, Thomas M. Horner, Kristin M. Langellier, Margaret T. Ordoñez, Kari Ronning, Virginia Gunn

Uncoverings Journal

Cover Artist's Statement by Teresa Cooper Jacobs

Preface by Laurel Horton

Research Papers

Quilts of the Gulf War, Desert Storm-Participation or Protest? by Nancy Cameron Armstrong

Quiltmaking on the Overland Trails: Evidence from Women's Writing by Barbara Brackman

The Handwork of Women of One Southern Family by Dorothy Cozart

Quilt Talk: Verbal Performance Among a Group of African-American Quilters by Jane E. Hindman

Quilting and Bereavement: Her Grief in the Quilt by Carolyn Krone and Thomas M. Horner

Show-and-Tell as a Performance Event: Oppositional Practice in Contemporary Quiltmaking Culture by Kristin M. Langellier

Ink Damage on Nineteenth-Century Cotton Signature Quilts …

A Kurdish Reed Screen, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

A unique ethnographic monument recently donated to The Textile Museum merits special attention not only for its size (twenty-five feet long and four feet high), but for its important place in the history, use, construction, and decoration of functional textiles.

Designed to enclose space in a nomadic environment. the reed screen may be considered an architectural textile destined for use within the community in which it was made. This distinguishes it from commercial products manufactured for the market, and, indeed, from most other utilitarian textiles, although it shares with carpets and kilims an obvious intent to beautify the environment for …

Elements Of Plane Symmetry In Oriental Carpets, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Historically, in the Islamic world from Spain to Indonesia, two-dimensional repeat patterns have served as primary means for organizing color and space. The ornamentation of architecture may involve the modifications of a two-dimensional pattern in its application to a three-dimensional surface. All of the uses of pattern, appearing as well on ceramics and metalwork, in book illumination, and textiles, rely upon the repetition of complex or simple designs to form overall repeat patterns of apparent complexity and intricacy. Yet within all the visual diversity and within the variability of regional traditions throughout the Islamic world, there is a common visual …

The Persistence Of Bandhani Production In Barmer, Rajasthan, India, Mary Ann Fitzgerald

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In Barmer, Rajasthan, India, traditional alizarin and alizarin-indigo cotton bandhani¹ (tie-dye) garments are produced and distributed to rural populations. The producers of these garments are the Khatri, traditional Hindu dyers and weavers of cotton and silk, while the garments are purchased and worn by Sindhi Muslims and the Hindu Khumbhar women. Thus, the producers and consumers are socially distinct groups. This historical association between producers and consumers has created a tradition of bandhani production that is currently threatened by the introduction of inexpensive screen-printed textiles.

There are two aspects of this traditional bandhani production that may play an important …

Trimmings In Fez Morocco, Frieda Sorber

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Decorative finishes are an integral part of textiles in many traditional cultures, both past and present. Unfortunately they have often escaped the attention of textile scholars. Published material on detailed observation in the field is often lacking. However, research into trimmings can give valuable information on technological, social and economical aspects of a culture. The city of Fez is an excellent place to study the production and function of trimmings in an urban setting with a wide variety of crafts¹.

Types of trim made in Fez

Research into trimmings in Fez started with detailed field observation of a …