Art and Design Commons^™

New Directions In Australian Aboriginal Fabric Printing, Louise Hamby, Valerie Kirk

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Missionaries, teachers and art advisers during the 1970s introduced the process of fabric printing to Aboriginal people, particularly in remote areas. Printing was a means to encourage productive work and income generation. Early forms included lino block and stencil prints, followed by screen printing. Bima Wear, was the earliest cooperative to established a business initially producing fabrics for their own clothing and then to sell to others. Historically men were the primary producers of artistic works dominating the production of carvings, sculpture and painting. Designing for fabric printing opened up a new space for men and women to work freely …

Touch And Technology: An Individual Perspective, Vibeke Vestby

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The development of the Single Thread Control Loom (TC-1) resulted from my fascination with ancient Chinese silk fabrics featuring detailed motifs of flowers, dragons and clouds. I wanted to be able to weave designs of similar complexity and remember to my disappointment that my introduction to weaving provided no connection to the silks I admired. I realized then that what I wanted to explore would be very difficult and time consuming to achieve on a shaft loom. But I had no idea how this interest would affect the trajectory of my life and career goals.

In 1984 as a young …

Interior Textiles And The Concept Of Atmospheres – A Case Study On The Architectural Potential Of Textiles In Danish Hospitals Interiors, Jeppe Emil Mogensen, Anna Marie Fisker, Søren Bolvig Poulsen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The architecture of modern hospitals in the western world are often criticised of being too clinical and institutional, causing patient stress and general longer hospitalisation. However, in regards to the international focus on constructing new hospitals, new ideas are introduced and focus has shifted towards the design concept healing architecture, visioning an improved healing process supported by stimulating design and architecture.

In this paper we will relate to this future, and by examining the design history of textiles, we discuss how the use of textiles in hospital design can contribute to this vision of healing architecture.

Textiles in architecture has …

Textile Materials And Techniques In Central Europe In The 2nd And 1st Millennia Bc, Karina Grömer

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

For over a millennium, the site of Hallstatt, located in the Austrian Alps, was a meeting point between north and south, east and west, serving as a melting pot of new ideas and innovations. About 300 textile units (more than 700 single fragments) from Bronze and Iron Ages are known from the prehistoric salt mines, dating from 1500-300 BC. They display a wide range of textile techniques and provide insight in different aspects of textile craft. Their outstanding preservation allows us to investigate many crucial steps in the chaîne opératoire of textile production. The 2nd millennium BC is a time, …

Wikispaces: Technology, Textiles, And Public Engagement, Blaire O. Gagnon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In a world where technology is constantly changing and cultural institutions such as universities and museums are being asked to do more with less, the question becomes how to improve efficiencies but also expand access. University based museums and collections, have, perhaps, an even greater challenge because their faculty and staff may focus on teaching, service, and publication in ways that do not directly support or integrate their collections or their collection/object related projects are turned primarily inward, through such projects as student papers. On the other hand, they have the opportunity to engage students in object-based research that can …

Integrating The Evidence: Historic Silk Production In Context, Julia Galliker

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper presents the results of my PhD research which applies computer-based imaging technologies to examine historic silk production evidence more intensively than was formerly possible. My program combines high-resolution images with a computer vision software application to measure identifiable quality and workshop characteristics for weft-faced compound weave figured silks attributed to Mediterranean workshops between ca. AD 600-1200. For a variety of reasons, research progress for this category of textiles has slowed in recent years. While essential to protect fragile textiles from damage, the consequence of conservation standards has been reduced collections access. Resource constraints and changes in museum practices …

Substitute Innovation: Rethinking The Failure Of Mid-Twentieth Century Regenerated Protein Fibres And Their Legacy, Mary M. Brooks

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Politicians and planners in Europe and America in the 1930s and 1940s were increasingly anxious about the availability of wool for military requirements and actively encouraged research into substitute fibres. Innovation energised by the needs of war informed the development of processes to transform proteins normally used for food (milk, soya, corn, and fish) or perceived as waste (egg whites, chicken feathers and slaughter-house products) into fibres. This paper explores both innovative technology and conceptual models of innovation as applied to substitute fibres which were intended to result in both technical and cultural shifts. Substitute innovation was used to modify …

Stitches Of War: Women’S Commentaries On Conflict In Latin America, Deborah A. Deacon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the past thirty years, new forms of women’s textiles began appearing throughout Latin America. The techniques used were not indigenous to the region, yet they were used as forms of self-expression of the horrors and sorrows the women experienced as the result of warfare in the region. In the 1970s Chilean artist Violeta Parra Sandoval introduced arpillera-making to women living in Santiago who experienced first hand the agony of having family members tortured, killed or “disappeared” at the hands of the government. Arpilleras use embroidery and appliqué to create scenes of repression, violence and loss. Banned within Chile and …

Writing Textile, Making Text: Cloth And Stitch As Agency For Disorderly Text, Catherine Dormor

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses upon means and ways in which knowledge gained through textile practice can be expressed using language and imagery drawn from within that practice itself. In this it draws upon Žcriture feminine to develop a matrix of knowledge upon and within which text and textile intertwine. Here cloth and stitch are considered as co-agents for a disorderly text that dissolves boundaries between theoretical and practice-based concerns through a process that Bracha Ettinger refers to as ‘borderswerving’ (Ettinger 2006). In this paper such disorderly text or working in and through body, cloth and stitch, will be addressed through three …

Polychrome Nets Italian Lace From The Collection Of The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Chiara Romano

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

If you think that white is the only color for lace...think again! My research focuses on a group of polychrome Italian laces dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The category I have identified in the MMA lace collection is known as “embroidered laces” and includes the techniques of Filet and Buratto. These early lacemaking techniques are often characterized by the use of different materials for the foundation and for the embroidery (textile and metallic threads). Despite the visual variety represented by these Italian laces, they all share the same basic structure of a net foundation, making them a particularly …

Finding Binding Points: Design Development And The Digital World, Wendy Weiss

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A master weaver at work is in a state of exchange with the material, the design, the craft and the process. The artisan at work is so fully engaged words and photographs alone cannot capture the action. Digital video can bridge that gap. Complex weave patterns published centuries ago are housed in rare book and manuscript libraries. Digital archives make them widely available. Jute fiber thrives in Bangladesh and India and factories in Patterson, NJ processed it until the 1950’s when the synthetic fiber market began to dominate the traditional jute trade. On-line research allows rapid access to historical and …

Textiles And The Virtual World Broadening Audience Engagement At The Textile Museum Of Canada, Roxane Shaughnessy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Museums with textile collections face challenges in providing meaningful public access to these cultural objects. Textiles can only be displayed for limited periods to minimize damage from light and exposure, and the fragility of most textiles requires careful handling to prevent deterioration. Textile exhibitions and special visits to storage areas provide opportunities for public engagement with textiles. However until recently, the close study of materials and techniques required direct access to the object.

In recent years, the advent of the World Wide Web, digitization, and other technologies have afforded global access to museum textile collections, and enabled those interested to …

The Aegean Wool Economies Of The Bronze Age, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper will explore the importance of wool in the emergence of complex societies during the Bronze Age in the Aegean. The 2nd millennium BC Aegean witnesses the emergence of a highly particular system of wool economy, beginning with the Minoan and followed by the Mycenaean centralized palace economies with strict administration of flocks, herders, wool, and textile production by thousands of women and children. This system monitors annual production targets and surplus production, and production strategies ensuring that the palaces’ needs are met. Textile production is the largest sector of the palace economy and employs the highest number of …

Textile Art: Connecting The Virtual And Material In My Work, Janice Lessman-Moss

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As a textile artist in the 21st century, I continue to aspire to make art objects that are unique and timely, characteristic of my individual sensibility and experience. Using the latest digital tools - including the TC1(2) Single Thread Control loom - I strive to animate my woven forms through material interaction and a distinctive touch built on a foundation of research and practice - based in digital and hand craft.

In my weavings I explore relationships of abstract systems created with traditional and innovative textile coloring techniques, material contrasts, and the generative processing of the computer and digital loom. …

Traditional Textile Design For Social Innovation Toward Sustainability In Japan, Yuko Fukatsu

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Japanese local textiles are too traditional to fit in our time, however they are all earth-friendly materials those of which are significant for the sustainable society in our future. In this paper, possibilities of re-designing traditional textiles made of natural fiber are explored with local weavers at Okinawa and Nagano in Japan. Talking with craftsmen from local communities I realized that not only current issues of textile techniques and products but also those of local communities and environment should be discussed and solved at the same time.

Also, I realized that activities and creativities of young generations are necessary to …

The Fabric For A City: Development Of Textile Materials During The Urbanization Period In Mediterranean Europe, Margarita Gleba

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Ancient literary sources indicate that, by the beginning of the Common Era, different textile types and qualities were available to Roman consumers and many of the best fibres were produced in Italy, from where they spread throughout the Roman Empire in the form of sheep, raw materials or finished textiles. The variety observed during the Roman times reflects a long period of evolution, based on selective breeding and cultivation, as well as development of new and more effective processing, spinning and weaving technologies. Recent investigations demonstrate that major changes in fibre development and processing took place in the Mediterranean Europe …

Conversations Between A Foreign Designer And Traditional Textile Artisans In India: Design Collaborations From The Artisan’S Perspective, Deborah Emmett

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Contemporary textile designers are part of a cultural shift that has brought into the mainstream a sense of ecological and social responsibility. Some are challenging the way the textile industry is conducted, questioning the existing business models. International media coverage has exposed the poor and unsafe working conditions of many of the people employed in this industry, cruelly demonstrated by the collapse in April 2013 of Rana Plaza, a garment manufacturing complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where 1127 workers died. This awareness has developed a social consciousness in many design communities, and as a result the development of ethical design practices. …

Communicating Textiles Within And Beyond Museum Walls: New Directions, Dinah Eastop

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Innovation in the past, present and future will be considered by reference to an extraordinary but little known collection: the textiles and dress preserved in the Board of Trade Representations and Registers of Designs, 1839-1991. This set of records is held at The National Archives [of the UK government] and contains records of nearly 3 million designs, registered by proprietors worldwide (but mostly UK and mainland Europe). Innovation in the past will demonstrated by this registration scheme which encouraged investment in design by enabling copyright control over both ornamental and useful designs, for many materials and products. Recognising design as …

Adinkra And Kente Cloth In History, Law, And Life, Boatema Boateng

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Adinkra and kente cloth have changed significantly in the course of their history first as markers of Asante royal power and then of Ghanaian cultural distinction. Once handmade and reserved for the exclusive use of the Asante ruler, cheap mass-produced reproductions now proliferate in Ghanaian markets. In attempting to use intellectual property law to regulate their appropriation, the Ghanaian state has set the conditions for further changes in these fabrics, their designs, and their sources of authority. This paper examines the implications of changing political and regulatory contexts for the past present and future meanings of adinkra and kente cloth …

Highland Complementary-Warp Weaving And The Lima Style In The Central Coast Of Peru, Ca. 200-650 C.E., Sophie Desrosiers

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

For more than a century, the geometric interlocking fish or snake designs appearing on Lima style artifacts - painted ceramics and walls, engraved gourds and wooden sculptures - have been considered as reproduction of designs created through textile means. An analysis of their characteristics shows that they fit well with designs obtained with weaving techniques still practiced today in the Peruvian highlands. This discovery allows reconstruction of the models of the interlocking designs. Then, comparing the reconstructed models with the small group of textiles with similar designs excavated in Lima sites, it becomes possible to understand better the mechanism at …

Biennial Symposium Program: New Directions: Examining The Past, Creating The Future, Los Angeles, California, September 10–14, 2014

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Schedule with speaker and program information. 14 pages.

2014 Biennial Symposium: New Directions: Examining The Past, Creating The Future (Website Home-Page)

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Brief statement, Organizers, Officers, Chairs, Hosts, & editors.
With links.

Blanket Statements, Issue 116, Summer 2014

Blanket Statements: News Publication of the American Quilt Study Group

Blanket Statements, Issue 116, Summer 2014

Closely Distant, Crisha Yantis

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

Drawing upon my own experiences and observations of the world around me I use the figure to explore what it means to be human. This body of work addresses the universal experience of anxiety through the dynamics of both personal and interpersonal relationships, specifically focusing on fear of the unknown or what subconsciously lies just out of our comfort or understanding.

Often what is unknown is also what brings about questions of our own power and what we can or cannot control. In my work, I address ideas of power and powerlessness formally through what the figures lack. Their control …

Carrying Water: A M.F.A. Thesis Exhibition By Aaron Sober, Aaron M. Sober

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

For all of us, everyday life is punctuated by moments of victory, defeat, pride, and vulnerability. The process of welcoming gain and tolerating loss is a basic lesson in proportionality. My work is a personal reckoning with the contradictions that define this very human experience. Through animal imagery, symbol, and metaphor I explore the unpredictable circumstances that form a life lived.

We engage with, and understand our own place in the world through stories. By doing so, the avatars we create reflect the scope of our experiences, both sublime and damaged. The animal protagonists who inhabit my work are placeholders …

Form In Place, Normandy Alden

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

There is a 200 acre farm in central NY state where I am building a house, a business, a family, a life. My vision for these extends beyond my own capabilities and lifespan. It is a vision of elegance, simplicity and utility. My pots are reflections of this vision, and embody the qualities of the life I seek. They are both exuberant and quiet, expansive and constrained.

The landscape surrounding my farm swoops and recedes with grace. Lines of windrows curve over hayfields, beautifully articulating undulations in topography. Nothing about this agricultural landscape is incidental. The lines and textures I …

Serpentine Imagery In Nineteenth-Century Prints, Paula A. Rotschafer

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

This thesis explores images of sea serpents in nineteenth-century print culture that reflect an ongoing effort throughout the century to locate, capture, catalogue, and eventually poeticize the sea serpent. My research centers primarily on the sea serpent craze that occurred within the New England and Mid-Atlantic states between 1845 and 1880 and examines the following three prints: Albert Koch’s Hydrarchos, a fossil skeleton hoax, printed in an 1845 advertisement by Benjamin Owen, a book and job printer; an 1868 Harper’s Weekly illustration titled The Wonderful Fish; and Stephen Alonzo Schoff’s etching, The Sea Serpent from 1880, based on …

A Language In Becoming, Camille C. Hawbaker

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

Words as I have known them are evolving concepts in the landscape of human language, where the meanings of words are interwoven with layers of history and culture. The boundaries of language are defined by words, and around the edges are instinctive sounds that precede and exceed meaning. These sounds are an interrupting force that unsettles the linguistic structure. We often use them for expression in the form of sobs, grunts, moans, murmurs, chants, obscenities and exclamations. They appear in times of spontaneous emotion that words cannot convey. They can also be used purposely, poetically, “…to shatter [one’s] judging consciousness …

Textile Society Of America Newsletter 26:2 — Spring 2014, Textile Society Of America

Textile Society of America: Newsletters

Special Symposium Issue
[New Directions: Examining the Past, Creating the Future, 2014 Biennial Symposium, September 10–14, 2014, Los Angeles, California]

A Collection: Simulations Of The Home, Liana M. Owad

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

The collection of objects of which a home is comprised changes and grows over time. We inherit furniture and accumulate these pieces to create our own particular atmosphere of home. Our furniture and belongings range from handmade articles to store bought manufactured items. These items we live with everyday perform several different roles. A dining room table does not only have the function of serving food, but is also embedded with the memories of many family dinner conversations. Objects in the home have this layered purpose of utilitarian function and placeholder for memories.

After moving away from home, I drew …