Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons^™

Dressing The Leader, Dressing The Ancestor: The Longue Durée In The South Central Andes, Ann H. Peters

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The preservation and adornment of the dead in the South Central Andes can be traced over some twelve thousand years. The potential for preservation of human bodies and fine textiles in desert sands and high altitude caves contributed to a continuing social and political role of the dead in the lives of the living. Colonial period documents describe well-dressed mortuary bundles that participated in public ritual and could be cited as proof of heritage and validation of social leadership. However, the nature of social and political ancestry and its relationship to power change over time with the development of large-scale …

Conversationa And Encounter, Belinda Von Mengrsen

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Textile artists often use items of traditional textile material culture as sites for primary research or encounter within their conceptual and physical practice. This research practice is, however, far more than aesthetic or visual analysis: rather, it allows for the observation of that border territory in which a new work of art begins and ends—the very place from which the ideas come—and also of how influences are layered, and evolve within our psyche. Ruth Hadlow, has described the use of traditional West-Timorese woven textiles as “a ‘tool’ with which to think?” (Hadlow, 2013). Through such tools, primary research may operate …

A Fragmented Treasure On Display: The Turfan Textile Collection And The Humboldt Forum, Mariachiara Gasparini

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the summer 2012, thanks to the Department of Central Asian Art of the museum and the International Dunhuang Project (IDP) at the British Library in London, UK, the so-called Turfan textile collection--gathered during the last century Prussian Turfan Royal Expeditions in the Tarim Basin--held in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin, Germany, was finally microscopically analyzed and digitized. Except for a couple of pieces taken into account in previous studies as examples of comparison, the collection as a whole (ca. 350 pieces) has not enjoyed particular attention from scholars in the fields of Chinese or Central Asian art …

The Kanga, A Cloth That Reveals- Co-Production Of Culture In Africa And The Indian Ocean Region, Phyllis A. Ressler

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Kanga is one of Africa's least understood textiles. As a simple cotton, colorful, hand and machine printed cloth it embodies dynamic historical co-production of culture throughout African and Indian Ocean trade networks. Exploring African mercantile trade history, the coproduction and exchange of iconography, the diverse use and meanings of the Kanga, suggests a valuable discursive role for this textile. Despite its longevity of more than 150 years, its significant role in creation of identities, and its contribution to communication through design and social meaning, the Kanga, receives limited attention in textile research. Though seen by many as a simple …

The Parenthetical Notation Method For Recording Yarn Structure, Jeffrey C. Splitstoser

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Until now, describing yarn structure has been more art than science, especially for complex yarns and cordage like those encountered at Cerrillos, a Paracas (ca. 900-100 B.C.E.) site in the Ica Valley of Peru, where yarns and cordage frequently involve multiple colors, sub-structures, and materials (e.g., Image 1). My early attempts at describing yarn structures using notation were essentially undecipherable to others. Likewise, narrative methods proved too wordy and no less confusing. (For instance, a narrative description of the structure of specimen 2001-L185-B1654- S001, a rope-like yarn pictured in Images 2 and 3, would be: Twelve Z-spun-singly-ply yarns Ztwisted with …

Samplers, Sewing And Star Quilts: Changing Federal Policies Impact Native American Education And Assimilation, Lynne Anderson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Illustrating the U.S. federal government's changing policies on the assimilation of Native American children is the role of needlework instruction in the schooling of Indian girls. Described and discussed are three examples of 19th and 20th century policy, with emphasis on the textiles resulting from those policies. Early 19th century policy supported mission schools for Indians. Learning to sew was a valued domestic skill in 19th century female education, culminating in the making of a needlework sampler. This focus was adopted in mission schools, illustrated by Christeen Baker's 1830 sampler stitched at the Choctaw Mission School in Mayhew, Mississippi. Shortly …

Kitab Al-Hadaya Wa Al-Tuhaf: A Unique Window On Islamic Textiles, Wendy Landry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

During the first millennium, a rare kind of literature evolved in the Islamic world that provides a fascinating window on the interest and importance of material objects. A unique example of this literature, entitled Kitab al-Hadaya wa al-Tuhaf [Book of Gifts and Rarities] was translated into English, annotated and published in 1996 by Kuwaiti curator and scholar Ghada al Hijjawi al-Qaddumi. It is an anthology of anecdotes referring to the period between the sixth century and the twelfth century, probably compiled in the late twelfth century by an official in the Islamic Egyptian government.

Although the historical veracity of the …

Figured Velvets From Simple Looms: Velvet Pick-Up And Related Techniques For Handweavers, Wendy Landry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Much historical velvet was designed to be figural, often in elaborate curvilinear floral motifs, and multiple colours. These complex patterns could be efficiently designed for and executed on the available drawlooms and their successors, the jacquard looms. Faced with such complexity, and the unavailability of jacquard looms and drawlooms, few handweavers have attempted to add velvet technique to their repertoire. However, the basic principles and weave structures of velvet are relatively simple and can be executed on simpler handlooms. Pick-up techniques and simple loom modifications make figured velvet accessible for weavers without access to complex jacquard velvet looms, allowing them …

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, filmed in 2006, examines the process of naturally dyed carpet production in a village in the Milas region of Muğla Prefecture in southwest Turkey, a region well known as a traditional Turkish carpet production area. In large numbers of villages of this region, carpet weaving is the household based work of every woman who lives there.

In this paper, I aim to add more detailed information and discussion specifically on the colors and dyes of the carpets shown in this film. First I will introduce the varieties of the natural dye materials the villagers use one by one. …

Re-Inventing Cultural Heritage: Palestinian Traditional Costume And Embroidery Since 1948, Jeni Allenby

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Prior to 1948, when the State of Israel was declared, Arab society in Palestine consisted of three main groups - the townspeople, a small percentage of nomadic or semi-nomadic bedouin tribes, and the villagers or "people of the land" who made up three quarters of the population. Over eight hundred villages were scattered from the coastal plains to the Jordan River. While costume in the urban regions historically reflected the current occupiers of the country (for example, Turkish styles during the Ottoman period, and European fashions under the British Mandate) Palestine's many villages were economically and socially independent, and difficulties …

Japanese Kimono Fashion Of The Early Twentieth Century, Annie Van Asche

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the development of popular kimono fashion from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. I focus on kimono worn by modem-thinking young women whose wardrobes, by the 1920's, included both new Western and recreated Japanese garments and accessories. The meisen kasuri kimono, the most popular new style of kimono among women living in the growing urban metropolitan centers, is highlighted. It covers an unprecedented historical period of rapid modernization and Westernization of Japan, which brought about societal changes that dramatically--and positively--transformed the lives of Japanese women. I begin with a historical sketch of the industrialization of …

Textiles, Scholarship, And Art Education: An Art College Perspective, Wendy Landry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In many communities the art college is the last formal refuge of active textile-making knowledge and heritage. This location appears to value playful, risky, or challenging material explorations which might result in creative design or meaningful visual expression. This should be the best environment for cultivating adventurous students able to integrate a wide range of experience and resources towards generating new ideas for interesting contemporary textiles. It could be a good place in which to discover how textiles contribute to human experience and history, and how they are meaningful. However, I submit that this art environment is still detrimental to …

The Meaning Of Yoruba Aso Olona Is Far From Water Tight, Lisa Aronson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

While researching the ritual meaning of cloth among the Eastern Ijo of the Niger Delta, I examined the contents of a number of family owned trunks in which were stored old and much valued cloths traded from elsewhere in Africa, Europe, and India. One type of cloth which I frequently found in these collections was one made up of three, or sometimes four, woven strips that are sewn along the salvage and decorated with supplemental weft-float design. The Eastern Ijo regard this cloth as a valuable heirloom for its trade value and for the fact that its designs evoke spiritual …

Textiles Of Sacrifice: Aztec Ritual Capes, Patricia Rieff Anawalt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This presentation analyzes three long-gone prehispanic textiles, a feat made possible due to the peculiarities of the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and the sixteenth-century Spaniards' dedication to detailed recordkeeping. From Columbus' first voyage in 1492 to Spain's final expulsion from the Americas in the nineteenth century, the Spaniards were exemplary recorders. Fortunately, this trait was particularly evident in the decades following the 1519–1521 conquest of Mexico, a period that yielded invaluable conquistador eye-witness accounts, administrative records and missionary chronicles. It is to the latter genre that we owe the data presented in this paper.

Of all the newly-discovered peoples in the …

Preface - Contact, Crossover, Continuity - 1994, Louise W. Mackie, Patricia R. Anawalt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The Fourth Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, Inc., was hosted by the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California, Los Angeles, California, September 22–24, 1994. The papers addressed a broad theme which was chosen in order to accommodate the diverse interests of members. The proceedings contains the thirty papers and two abstracts of papers presented at the symposium, plus a video script, and a list of the two hundred and forty participants.

Contact, Crossover, Continuity highlights the causes and effects of change on textiles around the world. The proceedings provides an opportunity to identify and evaluate …

Table Of Contents - Contact, Crossover, Continuity - 1994

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Table of contents from Contact, Crossover, Continuity: Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, September 22–24, 1994

What’S In A Name: The Domestication Of Factory Produced Wax Textiles In Cote D’Ivoire, Kathleen E. Bickford

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In a frequently evoked passage from Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare asks "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Yet, as Romeo and Juliet tragically come to learn, human beings make much of names. Indeed, one's name is a significant part of one's social persona; it can describe who we are, it can join us and separate us from others, and it can link us to the past. In a sense, when we are named we are given an identity. Describing the complexities of naming for the Wamakua …

Continuity Of Culture: A Reenactor’S Goal, Elizabeth Mcclure

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the maintenance of cultural continuity through historical reenactment. It is the reenactor's goal, in this case, to portray and maintain the culture of Ireland and Scotland. They are holding on to this culture and presenting it to others by maintaining the dress, crafts, and lifestyles of sixteenth-century Scotland and Ireland.

The methods of data collection for this study were ethnographic in nature. Interviews with key informants were conducted. In addition, there was a questionnaire distributed to members of the group This method of data collection provided the insight to see how a member of this group achieved …

Green Labels With Golden Elephants: Western European Printed Cottons For Malaysia And Indonesia, Frieda Sorber

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the second half of the 19th century, several Belgian cotton printing firms were involved in the production of imitations of African and Southeast Asian textiles for markets in West-Africa, the Dutch East Indies, and Malaysia. Extensive records of one firm, the Societe Anonyme Texas, owned by the Voortman family in Ghent, have been preserved in the Ghent public records office and the Vrieselhof Textile Museum (Oelegem, near Antwerp). Frans de Vos and Abraham Voortman started a cotton printing establishment in Ghent in 1790. At that time cotton printing was a relatively new type of enterprise in Flanders. The first …

Bolong-Bolong And Tirtanadi: An Unknown Group Of Balinese Textiles, Marie-Louise Nabholz-Kartaschoff, Monika Palm-Nadolny

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

On late 19th- and early 20th-century photographs, South and East Balinese people clad in traditional adat wardrobe for rituals, temple ceremonies, and dances often wear transparent, netlike open-work textiles as breastcloth (anteng), shouldercloth (cerik) girdle (selendang), or headcloth (destar, lelunakan). Information given by elderly Balinese concerning the situation before World War II confirm their use as part of their ceremonial wardrobe but also as important items in offerings and rituals. Such textiles could be laid over several fabrics, covering the body of a toothfiling candidate, or serve as curtains (langse …

Micronesian Textiles In Transition: The Woven Tol Of Kosrae, Ann Deegan, Ross Cordy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper presents findings on the major steps in the transition of the Kosraen tol from traditional clothing, to tourist souvenir, to the end of tol manufacture. An extensive study of the German, French, and English literature of the 19th and 20th centuries was done to piece together the history of the Kosraen tol.

The island of Kosrae, located in the Pacific (4–10°N latitude, 140–163°E longitude), is part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Since earliest European contact it has seen numerous changes in its traditional culture. One of its most beautiful and complex traditional crafts is the woven …

The "Severed Shroud": Local And Imported Textiles In The Mortuary Rites Of An Indonesian People, Penelope Graham

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper explores the significance of local and imported textiles as these interact forming complex categories in the mortuary rites of the Lamaholot-speaking people of the traditional district Lewolema in eastern Flores, Indonesia. Within this regional framework, my account draws primarily on field work in the village of Lewotala. There a person's physical demise elicits diverse social and ritual practices, depending on the deceased's achievements during his or her lifetime and the circumstances surrounding the death. As regards the mortuary sequence that commonly occurs, I will argue that various uses of cloth for exchange purposes mark both the severence—consequent on …

Supplementary Weft On An "Ikat" Isle: The Weaving Communities Of Northwestern Flores, Roy W. Hamilton

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Among textile enthusiasts, the island of Flores is known primarily for its beautiful warp-ikat cloths. Most of the island's numerous ethno-linguistic groups, including the Ngadha, Nage, Endenese, Lio, Palu'e, Sikkanese, and Lamaholot, produce related yet distinctive textiles within this tradition. It is therefore surprising to find a series of weaving districts, stretching along the northwest coast of the island, where the ikat technique is not used. Instead, weavers in this region produce indigo-dyed textiles decorated with colorful supplementary-weft motifs.

In the ikat districts, sarongs for men and women differ in their patterning and in the names applied to them. In …

The Influence Of Computer Technologies On Contemporary Woven Fiber Art, Cynthia Schira

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

It is generally agreed upon, by both the participants in the field and those few who have chronicled it, that the fiber art movement as we know it today began with Jean Lurcat in France in the late 1950s. He was among the first, if not the first, to make designs or cartoons specifically for the medium of tapestry. Previously, paintings were translated into the medium of tapestry. As well as creating the design or cartoon, he personally oversaw the actual weaving process. This direct connection between the process and the concept or image, the manual and the mind, laid …

Byzantine Influences Along The Silk Route: Central Asian Silks Transformed, Anna Maria Muthesius

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Silks traded along the ancient Silk Route were precious, light, and easily transportable commodities that served as ideal vehicles for cross-cultural exchange. The survival of several hundred Central Asian silks, variously datable between the seventh and the eleventh centuries, presents an opportunity to trace patterns of trade, diplomacy and cross-cultural developments at the heart of the Silk Road. These silks perfectly mirror contact, cross over, and change fostered under the auspices of Mediterranean/Near Eastern economic and diplomatic exchange.

This paper will ask three questions:

1. What lay behind Byzantine influence in Central Asia along the ancient Silk Route?

2. What …

Cloth As Marriage Gifts: Change In Exchange Among The Lio Of Flores, Willemijn De Jong

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The exchange of gifts at life cycle ceremonies is one of the most important institutions in Lio society, as in many other societies in Oceania. The life cycle event of marriage and its exchange of gifts is often significant, because important sociopolitical alliances between kin groups are initiated or renewed. In these exchanges, cloth wealth may play a crucial role, especially in ranked societies. Weiner contends that in Samoa "each distribution [of fine mats] is an example of the negotiation and validation of rank and power." Gittinger has pointed out the economic and symbolic value of cloth gifts at marriage …

From The Ancestors Or The Portuguese: Exotic Textiles In Flores And The Solor Archipelago, Robyn Maxwell

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Throughout the eastern Indonesian island of Flores and the neighbouring Solor archipelago, village treasuries usually contain considerable numbers of highly valued textiles and some items of costume. These consist predominantly of important local products clearly made within the particular village or district.

Other heirloom textiles have been acquired from outside the local regions in the distant or not-so-distant past. These exotic heirlooms are often awarded a special place in the hierarchy of textiles found throughout Flores, Solor, and Lembata and, where possible, examines local histories and myths associated with the origins of particular objects or types of cloth.

Further, an …

Market Effects On The Design And Construction Of Carpets In The Milas Region Of Southwestern Turkey, 1963–1993, Charlotte A. Jirousek

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Beginning in 1964 my husband and I were involved in the development of a village carpet weaving cooperative in Southwestern Turkey. We lived with the weavers of Çömlekçi from 1964 to 1966, as part of the first Peace Corps rural community development program in Turkey. Between 1966 and 1969 we continued to work with the cooperative in its efforts to develop markets and quality control standards while working as Peace Corps staff. Since leaving Turkey in 1969, I have visited Çömlekçi periodically, most recently in 1992 and 1994.

The success of the Çömlekçi cooperative in tum generated carpet cooperatives throughout …

The Assimilation Of European Designs Into Twentieth Century Indian Saris, Linda Lynton

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Although so-called "Indian" designs of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century chintzes influenced Western European [Western] textiles almost from their introduction, Western patterns did not impinge on indigenous Indian fabrics, such as saris, until the last half of the nineteenth century.

They were superimposed upon an already complex mix of textile ornamental styles, which can be briefly categorized as: (i) Mughal, (ii) Hindu, and (iii) adivasi (aboriginal). The Mughal style consists of the elaborately patterned prints and brocades typical of western India. It shows strong Persian influences, such as the kalga (Paisley motif); intertwining floral vines (bel); and life-like depictions of …

From Bohemian To Bourgeois: American Batik In The Early Twentieth Century, Nicola J. Shilliam

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In 1919 Pieter Mijer wrote in his influential book Batiks and How to Make Them, "Batik is still a comparatively recent importation; brought here some ten years ago, it was met with absolute incomprehension and lack of interest, but its real merit as a means of decorating fabrics has earned it a place in the industrial art of the nation and year by year it is gaining wider recognition."

This paper briefly considers the rise and fall in popularity of batik in America in the period Mijer indicated: how it changed from being a foreign import chiefly seen in …