Art and Design Commons^™

The Conversion Of Chinese Court Robes Into Japanese Festival Hangings, Gloria Granz Gonick

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Decorated silken robes historically worn in China to garb the emperor and his family were disassembled and resewn in Japan into hangings for Kyoto's Gion Festival during the 16th to 18th centuries. The twenty robes, which were converted into coverings for festival carts called yama and hoko, include silk tapestry weaves (kesi), brocades, and embroidered examples. Eleven date from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and nine from the early to mid Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). This distribution contrasts with other world collections of Chinese imperial robes, in which Qing Dynasty examples are far more numerous. In addition to the …

Raphael’S Acts Of The Apostles Tapestries: The Birth Of The Tapestry Reproduction System, Marjorie Durko Puryear

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As a younger fiber artist at the beginning of my teaching career, I rarely found European tapestries of the 16th through 18th centuries to be more than copies of paintings in a woven mask. The weaver's hand and spirit were only apparent in finite details which were resplendent with meticulous hatching, shading, and delicate slit work, unchanged from the Medieval past. But it was against my art school training to separate art concept from process. I wasn't ready to accept that the weavers were not the artists, and that tapestry was in fact an industry.

More recently, my point of …

Ottoman Silks And Their Legacy, Diane Mott

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

During the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, luxury silks of Asia that had for centuries trickled into Europe began to enter in large numbers, fueling an appetite for the rich and exotic that was to have a lasting effect on Western textile design. In turn, expanded trade with the Levant carried Western designs and advances in weaving eastward. The Ottoman Empire, standing at the thresholds of Europe and Asia, was perfectly poised to transmit these East-West currents. Weavers in manufactories in the successive Ottoman capitals of Bursa and Istanbul, the western outposts of the Asiatic silk routes, absorbed …

Charmingly Quaint And Still Modern: The Paradox Of Colonial Revival Needlework In America, 1875–1940, Beverly Gordon

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Despite the self-conscious modernism of the early 20th century, American needlework was filled with images of flower baskets, cozy cottages, spinning wheels, and women in hoopskirts. It was dominated by seemingly old-fashioned and "quaint" techniques, such as cross stitch, patchwork, crewel, and rug hooking. In an era with teeming cities, radio, and cars pouring off the assembly line, needlework came to stand for a romanticized, seemingly simpler and nobler American past. And in an era when women were winning the vote and re-entering the professional work force, needleworkers, in turn, became identified with the domestic homebody of the past. In …

Ancient Andean Headgear: Medium And Measure Of Cultural Identity, Niki R. Clark, Amy Oakland Rodman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

From the earliest recorded periods of southern Andean history, distinctive clothing styles have served to identity specific socio-cultural groups and provide clues about cultural origins. Unique environmental conditions, especially present along the arid Pacific coast of South America, have allowed the preservation of a vast archive of usually perishable material. From the far south coast of Peru to the northern desert regions of Chile, textiles, and especially headgear forms were worn to distinguish between the diverse populations who established permanent settlements along the narrow river valleys linking highland regions and the coast.

The south central Andes region has always known …

(Re-)Fashioning Identity: Late Twentieth-Century Transformations In Dress And Society In Boliva, Elayne Zorn

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The members of most of Bolivia's large indigenous ethnic groups, such as the nearly 22,000 people of ayllu Sakaka of northern Potosi, continue to wear a distinctive daily dress. Such dress nationally and internationally is emblematic of the Sakaka's separate, and to many inferior, identity as Indians. To the wearers also, or perhaps fundamentally, such dress marks a division between clothed indigenous humans (runa) and naked foreign outsiders (q'ara). This interpretation coincides with hegemonic non-Indian evaluations of Indian separateness, but reverses the hierarchy.

Yet most members of these large indigenous ethnic groups, whom I refer to …

Contact, Crossover, Continuity: Proceedings Of The Fourth Biennial Symposium Of The Textile Society Of America (1994) [Entire]

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Preface 7

Contact, Crossover, Continuity: Fiber and Garment

Featured Paper: Ancient Near Eastern Fibers and the Reshaping of European Clothing Elizabeth J. W. Barber 9

Wreath and Cap to Veil and Apron: American Modification of a Slavic Ritual Patricia Williams 19

Panel: Textile Transformations and Cultural Continuities in West Africa

Akwete-Igbo Weavers as Entrepreneurs and Innovators at the Turn of the Century Lisa Aronson 31

What’s in a Name: The Domestication of Factory Produced Wax Textiles in Cote d’Ivoire Kathleen E. Bickford 39

Technology and Change: The Incorporation of Synthetic Dye Techniques in Abeokuta, Southwestern Nigeria Judith Byfield 45

The …

The Fashion's In The Bag: Recycling Feed, Flour, And Sugar Sacks During The Middle Decades Of The 20th Century, Rita Adrosko

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A modest temporary exhibit, FEED BAGS AS FASHION, opened in the National Museum of American History about a year ago (See fig. I).1 The enthusiastic and personal reactions evoked by the exhibit, and a story about it picked up by newspapers throughout the United States and Canada, made clear that the subject had touched a popular nerve. The responses of those who called or wrote, and visitors' comments, revealed that the recycling of flour, sugar, and animal feed sacks was a common, if not universal practice in the States between the 1920s and 1960s, still remembered vividly by both country …

Textiles As History; Clothing Clues To 500 Years Of Mexican Acculturation, Patricia Anawalt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

The history of peasant peoples all too often is sparsely recorded and poorly understood. This paper suggests that sometimes there are clues in the clothing of certain present day groups that can provide insight into their past experience. To demonstrate the point, a group of contemporary Mexican costumes are examined that reflect the sixteenth century collision of the Old and New Worlds and the subsequent melding of these two disparate civilizations. This, then, is a study of the acculturation process through an analysis of peasant clothing viewed against a time line extending over almost 500 years, from Spanish Conquest …

Ruth Reeves' "Personal Prints" Printed Textiles From The 1930’S And 40'S, Whitney Blausen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Introduction

Ruth Reeves pioneered the use of vat dyes and the screen-print process for furnishing fabrics in the late 1920's. Reeves had a positive genius for publicity, and if she was not the first American to experiment with these techniques, which she may well have been, she was without doubt one of the best known.

Reeves was one of a new breed of textile designers who emerged in the aftermath of the First World War. To hope to work as a textile designer was a risky experiment in itself. American mills employed buyers and copyists in far greater numbers than …

Lace Production On The Island Of Pag, Croatia, From 1900 To The Present, Vjera Bonifacic

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

In her publication "Peacocks and Penguins: The Political Economy of European Cloth and Colours", Jane Schneider (1978) describes the flow of gold and slaves from northern Europe to the Middle East in exchange for colourful textiles, during the Middle Ages. Schneider argues that European-made black cloth and clothing constituted both practical and symbolic means to resist luxury textiles from the Orient, and in this way reverse the balance of trade and power. I believe that, a few centuries later, lace played a similar role in this process; uti1izing 1ocally grown and processed white 1inen thread and the intensive labour …

German Jugendstil Tapestries: The Daily Life Of The People Who Made Them, Marianne Carlano

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

INTRODUCTION

In the context of daily life of artists and artisans, I sought to learn about the intimate thoughts, conversations and ideas of the artists who provided the designs for the tapestries of the Kunstwebschule Sherrebek in Germany (1896-1903), as well as those of the artists/weavers who translated such designs into woven forms. Like many an intellectual endeavor, my industrious search revealed little information of this type. Nonetheless, it is possible, though surely only second best without the voices of the artists themselves, to glean some understanding of the founding of the Sherrebek institution, the people who worked there, and …

Contents- Textiles In Daily Life- 1992

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

TEXTILES in DAILY LIFE

Proceedings of the Third Symposium of the Textile Society of America, September 24-26,1992.

Preface

Featured Speaker: Iwao Nagasaki

Textiles in the Everyday life of Artisans, Merchants, and Consumers of Fez, Morocco

• Embroidery in the Everyday Life of Artisans, Merchants and Consumers in Fez, Morocco in the 1980s.
Louise W. Mackie ........................................9

• Trimmings in Fez, Morocco.
Frieda Sorber................................ 21

• Weaving in the Everyday Life of Artisans, Merchants and Consumers in Fez, Morocco in the 1980s.
Lotus Stack................................ 33

• Artisans and Handmade Textiles in a Complex Traditional Culture.
Susan Schaefer Davis …

The Decline Of Jaspe (Ikat) Rebozo Weaving In Oaxaca A Video Interview With Fidel Diaz Valencia, The Last Maestro Of Jaspe Weaving, Virginia Davis

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The dark blue and white jaspe (ikat) rebozo is a traditional shawl-like garment still worn daily in Mexico by many women and girls, especially in the State of Oaxaca. Formerly,this type of rebozo was mainly produced locally in tatteres (workshops) in Oaxaca. Now such rebozos are almost entirely made in other centers, most probably Tenancingo and Chilapa de Guerrero, and brought into Oaxaca. When asked about the number of jaspe reboceros in Oaxaca in former times, informants would reply "a lot," or "many." By the early 1960's, eight of these remained. Not only had other types of weaving become more …

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 …

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 …