Art and Design Commons^™

Field Of Flowers: Mughal Carpets And Treasures, Michael Schuster

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Michael Schuster, PhD will be discussing the exhibition Field of Flowers: Mughal Carpets and Treasures. The exhibiton focuses on a rare pair oflarge carpets on from the collection at Shangri La..  Each carpet has anarched interior with pointed ends.  When paired, the carpets form a bold field of flowers with an interior void wherein a person, most likely a royal personage, could have sat in splendor. In mid-17th century Mughal India, the taste for naturalistic floral sprays reached an apogee of artistic expression.  The aesthetic style seen in the carpets and other art forms of the period dominated the arts …

Textiles Recorded: Fashion Reconstructed Through Aztec Codices, Jennifer E. Siegler

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textiles from central Mexico at the time of the Aztec empire are generally ascribed great significance due to the historical documentation of textile tribute offerings and sumptuary laws in which textiles identified social status; however, further research is warranted on the artistry of these textiles.  While the climate of central Mexico is not conducive to preserving fiber materials, the rich manuscripts of this region preserve many images of textiles created during the Aztec empire.  Early colonial manuscripts, many of which are copies of pre-conquest manuscripts no longer extant, preserve images of textiles from the pre-conquest period. These manuscripts provide invaluable …

A New Start: Re-Thinking The Display And Interpretation Of African Textiles At The Detroit Institute Of Arts, Howard Sutcliffe

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In November 2007 the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will open its doors to the public after several years of renovation and rebuilding.  In a radical departure from the traditional chronological and geographical approach to art history the new DIA will provide its visitors with an innovative experience that focuses as much on the stories and connections behind the art as the art itself.  Textiles from the DIA’s encyclopedic collection will play a large and integral role in this new vision, from European tapestry to Native American beadwork textiles will feature prominently in almost every new gallery.

This paper will …

Documentary Film Presentation Local Colors: Natural Dyeing In A Milas Carpet Weaving Village, Ulara Tamura, John Wells

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This documentary examines the process of naturally dyed carpet production in a village in the Milas region of southwest Turkey.  In large numbers of villages of this region, carpet weaving is the household based work of every woman who lives there. The carpets made by these women will be used in their own homes, or play a role as a symbol of wealth within some spheres of the local economy as in the case of dowry or donations to a mosque, or they will be sold as a commodity outside of the village for cash.

In the modern era, the …

Sea Snail Purple In Contemporary Japanese Embroidery, Takako Terada

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Shellfish purple, known also as ‘murex’, is a dye obtained from molluscs and it has long been associated primarily with Central American textiles. It is also a very ancient dye in Japan but it is less well known. The earliest evidence is from the Yoshinogari site which dates to circa 100 BCE, where a shell bracelet shows traces of shellfish purple pigment. This archaeological find is particularly important because in all of East Asia there has been little other evidence of ancient shellfish purple dye.

Several years ago I was asked to investigate the dye. My project was to research …

Tunics From The Azapa Valley, Late Formative Period. A New Weaving Tradition In The Lower Valleys, Liliana Ulloa

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Three tunics from the Azapa Valley, in northern Chile, dating to the Late Formative Period (330 A.D.)  are presented showing the first complex ways of weaving from this area.  They are woven as warp faced and the pattern design is made changing colors through discontinuous warps and mixing with weft faced weaving at the bottom of the tunics.   One of them has coarse embroidered selvedges, which probably were created as reinforcement for the sides and as decorative features for the textile. The tunics originally formed part of mummy bundles that were excavated in small mounds or funerary túmulos  between several …

The Cloud Brocade And Yangzhou, Ying Wang

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The kind of silk textile famously known as cloud brocade, from Nanjing, developed during the Yuan dynasty of China (13th -14th century).  Its production reached its peak during the Ming and middle Qing Dynasties (15th -18th century), and was monopolized by the royal court. The incredibly rich textures and fantastic designs fascinate people even today.

Throughout the 18th century, the successive officers in charge of cloud brocade production (members of the Cao family) were also responsible for the salt trade of Yangzhou. The salt trade was the most important industry controlled by royalty, providing almost 50% of the court’s annual …

“Revisiting The Ocucaje Opened Tunic From The Textile Museum; Washington, D.C.: Textile Models And The Process Of Imitation”, Sophie Desrosiers

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The opened tunic from the Textile Museum in Washington D. C. (fig. 1) is a beautiful object the colors and design of which are well known since a part of it was used 22 years ago on the cover of The Junius B. Bird Conference On Andean Textiles. The tunic has no archaeological context, but its characteristics place it among Early Horizon Epoch 9 woven fabrics from Ocucaje.

Mary Elizabeth King has described the piece in her doctoral thesis. It is made of four widths: two main panels in balanced plain-weave with discontinuous warp-and-weft, and two borders in triple …

Supplementary Warp Patterned Textiles Of The Cham In Vietnam, Michael C. Howard

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Cham People

The Malayo-Polynesian speaking peoples of Vietnam and Cambodia speak languages belonging to the Malayic group of Sundic languages. Sundic speaking peoples lived on the island of Borneo prior to their spreading to adjacent regions. From Borneo they sailed north to Vietnam, west to peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra, and south to Java and Bali. While Sundic speaking groups appear to have migrated to parts of Indonesia as early as 1500 BC, they do not seem to have arrived along the coast of Vietnam until some time around 600 BC. It is during the period 600 BC to 300 …

Omoshirogara Textile Design And Children’S Clothing In Japan 1910-1930, Jacqueline M. Atkins

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The early twentieth century in Japan was both a culturally and technologically expansive period. The Taishō era (1912-1926) spurred a new sense of freedom and experimentation in many parts of Japanese culture. Fashion was not immune to the invigorating atmosphere that prevailed, and, although Western fabrics and dress were popular, especially in among the affluent in urban areas, innovations in fabric production in Japan itself also brought new and appealing products to the marketplace. Some of these textiles, several of which had been developed earlier in the century and begun to be mass-produced by 1912, were especially well-suited to traditional …

The Colour Of Women’S Culture: Natural Dyeing As Self-Expression In America, Japan, Norway And Australia, Karen Diadick Casselman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Natural dyes are currently undergoing a revival in craft and academic circles. The resurgence of attention is due to several factors. One is the popularity of natural dyes among European textile historians, dye chemists, and archaeologists, all of whom rely on natural dyes as an academic and educational tool. Scholars worldwide have developed a rigorous cultural context for natural dyes that embraces disparate fields such as clothing and textiles, religion and philosophy, nineteenth-century medicine, and as curious as it may seem, eighth-century Irish law. Other prominent themes in natural dyeing today are contemporary aspects of gender, ecology, and ethics. Art …

Mending As Metaphor: Contemporary Fiber And Cultural Change, Mary Babcock

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

I grew up predominantly in a context of privilege and protection, with a goodly smattering of denial and despair. I remember as a child sitting in my mother’s sewing room watching her mend socks wondering why – like the other kids—I couldn’t just get new socks instead. It wasn’t until later, far past the time those stitches became the soul-saving sutures of the permanent vest my mother stitched across my beloved stuffed rabbit’s chest, that I realized those mending stitches reflected an act of care – of preserving and mending relationship.

Like many, I live in a world of contradiction, …

People, Place, Spirit, Denise Ava Robinson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

My name is Denise Ava Robinson. I am Tasmanian, often referred to as a Tasmanian Aboriginal Artist. Others question or ‘challenge’ me on being Aboriginal. Almost daily I raise this question myself. I have no simple answer. In the words of Henry Reynolds “There is no easy, nor a collective answer to the question of Aboriginality…. such identification should not be undertaken lightly”1 In Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams he refers to a quote by Peter Schledermann: “Everything we are is in our spirit. In archaeology, you are examining the long line of what we are” My paternal ancestry is Aboriginal, …

From Construction To Ritual Function: An Exploration Of New Guinea Fiber Masterworks, Jill D’Alessandro, Christina Hellmich

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The island of New Guinea is fringed by many small islands to the east. The west portion of the island, called Papua or West Papua, is politically part of Indonesia. The narrow Torres Strait separates New Guinea from Australia to the south. Physical features have profoundly and diversely shaped the lives of people living there for over fifty thousand years. The natural world, supernatural world and the rituals surrounding life’s passages, inspired the creation of the Jolika Collection works we explore today. They are complex compositions layered with imagery and meaning. Designs and motifs are often specific to clans and …

Black Silk, Brown Silk: China And Beyond—Fabric Analysis, Margaret T. Ordoñez

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A piece of unusual fabric that is shiny black on one side and red-brown on the other laid unidentified among the Chinese textiles in the University of Rhode Island (URI) Historic Textile and Costume Collection for over half a century. Abby Lillethun’s interest in analyzing mud silks brought this cloth, identified as Xiang-yun-shā, from obscurity to notoriety. Its most obvious feature is the two-colored surfaces created by first dyeing the fabric and then coating one side with black mud as described in the preceding papers by Lillethun and Lin.

The selvage of the URI fabric, seen from the backside in …

A New Start: Re-Thinking The Display And Interpretation Of African Textiles At The Detroit Institute Of Arts, Howard Sutcliffe

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

When the DIA began implementing its renovation, restoration, and expansion project in 2001, its objective was to make essential upgrades to the Museum’s aging facility, improve traffic flow and way-finding patterns and increase gallery space. The enormous task of the building project presented the unprecedented opportunity for the Museum to reshape the visitor experience, not only through an upgraded building and new amenities, but also by rethinking how to present its world-class collection to the public.

More than 5,000 works of art have been reinstalled in some 150,000 square feet of gallery space in a way that allows visitors …

About Tsa

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

TSA Board of Directors 2006 - 2008

Officers

Directors at Large

Task Representatives

TSA Board of Directors 2008 – 2010

Officers

Directors at Large

Task Representatives

TSA Past Presidents

TSA Publications

Notes On Editing, Ann Svenson Perlman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The manuscripts contained in this digital proceedings CD-ROM have been edited by formatting in MSWord to comply with the TSA 11th Biennial Symposium 2008: Digital Print Manuscript Guidelines while maintaining the substance of each presentation as submitted. Each paper was edited to a standard visual style of presentation. In very few cases manuscripts were edited for clarity and understanding as a written document for English readers. European and British English spellings and foreign words and markings were not changed or removed. Images were sized to fit the 10 page limit and no images were rejected. Authors retain copyright for their …

Cartography, Cloth And The Embroidered Tale, Bettina Matzkuhn

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

I have recently been researching maps and their connections to textile. Looking back on my own body of work, I realize that maps have frequently provided a sense of geography and metaphor as I continue to seek ways to tell stories that are important to me. Dennis Wood describes mapmaking as “a transformative process.” I would argue that working with cloth is also transformative -for both the cloth and the maker.

Looking at maps has expanded my ideas of narrative. I like Margaret Atwood’s definition of narrative. She says it’s “one damn thing after another” with the operative word being …

Weaving Independence From A Distant Cottage Industry, Fenella G. France

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

The fabric of flags is inextricably woven into our cultural heritage. Throughout civilization flags have heralded national identity in war and peace, as symbols of both victor and defender. Research into the origins of early 1800 flag fabrics wove a fascinating tie to England, where the wool fabric was made, and why it survived while the weaving industry was mechanized during the industrial revolution. Bunting fabric provided the canvas for the flag as a symbol of a nation and its people. This makes the history of bunting and its struggle for survival into the nineteenth century, an integral facet …

Preserving Provenance: Collaborative Conversation With A Textile Collector, Susan M. Strawn, Mary A. Littrell, Linda Carlson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

Donations of textile collections are essential for universities and museums that rely on historical and ethnographic textiles for research, teaching, and exhibitions. In turn, collectors who have amassed substantial numbers of textiles seek appropriate donation venues. Provenance related to collecting individual textiles may be lost, however, before a donor selects an institution, or before the donation has been accessioned into a university or museum collection. A donation received after the demise of a donor who did not document individual pieces limits the provenance—the history of the source and ownership—of individual textiles. Without provenance, it is tempting to see even …

The World Of Words: A Major Contribution From Linguistics To The World Of Textile Making Off-Loom, Michelle Beauvais

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Despite not being an historian, I can agree with others that the study of ancient textiles cannot help but be bound up with the history of “fléché” (making braided arrowhead-design sashes) and that such study necessarily involves the archaeology of textiles. While such research is naturally specialized, it is particularly valuable when talking about a product and a “perishable” concept, like the classification of textiles in history. Over and above the terminology aspect, I have studied the confusion concerning the classification of “fléché.” Given the lack of guidebooks in French dealing with key topics like the three Supercategories of fabricmaking …

Talking About Textiles: The Making Of The Textile Museum Thesaurus, Cecilia Gunzburger Anderson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The vocabulary for talking about textiles has always been rich and evocative, but at the same time quite varied based on many different factors, such as the specialties, nationalities, geographic foci, and professions of those involved in textile conversations. Textile artists and practitioners often use different terms than academic textile historians; researchers of European historical textiles use different terms than researchers of ethnographic textiles, who often introduce foreign terms into the discussion; and, even within the English language, North American textile specialists often use different terms than their British counterparts.

This bounty of terms can be exhilarating, but when it …

The Documentary Value Of Repairs To The Hwarot, The Korean Bridal Robe, Kisook Suh

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Hwarot is the most sumptuous bridal costume in Korea. Only noble ladies and members of the royal family wore this robe until the late Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). Later, commoners were allowed to wear the Hwarot and it is still worn in the contemporary wedding ceremony in Korea. Although the later Hwarot for commoners was plainer, it retained the same design and the structure of the early one.

The earlier Hwarot shows the excellence of gungsu (宮繡), the palace embroidery, of the royal workshop of the Joseon dynasty. Because of the delicate nature of the materials, not many of these …

The Never-Ending Possibility Of Textile Art Education, Jan-Ru Wan

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textiles have an intimate relationship in everyone’s life - whether one is aware of it or not. Textiles reveal so many stories and memories from every culture and society. My mother was an educator in a home economic school and I was trained by her hands; I was constantly busy helping her with quilting, embroidering, stitching, and making clothing. I grew up appreciating the dedication and skill in textile works. But it is the passion for story telling and the conceptual part of textile more than the desire to creating beautiful textile alone drove me toward the path of textile …

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, …