Art Practice Commons^™

Paracas Cavernas, Paracas Necroplis, And Ocucaje: Looking At Appropriation And Identity With Only Material Remains, Ann Peters

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Paracas Cavernas, Paracas Necropolis, and Ocucaje are groups of burials made some 2000 years ago on the south coast of Peru. The Peruvian coast is a desert, and textiles, basketry, and other artifacts made from plant fiber and animal fiber and other organic materials are preserved there in ancient tombs. The Andes is known for funerary traditions that emphasize the dressing of the dead, with documented preservation of mummified ancestors or funerary bundles, and in some cases their participation as ancestors in kin group and community ritual.

. . .

It is clear that there are continuing relations of contact, …

Dressing The Part: Indigenous Costume As Political And Cultural Discourse In Peru, Katharine E. Seibold

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In Latin America, indigenous clothing has often been equated with indigenous cultural identity. When we speak of indigenous fashion as being a marker of cultural identity, we must also examine the more fluid roles of the indigenous individual and community within the state. How is individual, community, and state identity represented? What form does the discourse between the individual, the community, and the state take? Many anthropologists have written of the flexible and strategic use of ethnicity, and costume as a primary tool in the manipulation of ethnic identity. Indigenous, handwoven dress legitimates community as well as ethnic group membership …

Rugs And Textiles Of Late Imperial China, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

With successive conquests of the highlands beyond the Great Wall, the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911) formed what was to become China's last empire. Their political expansion encompassed Han Chinese, Mongolians, Turks, Tibetans, and other peoples with diverse ethnic origins, languages and religious beliefs, whose regional economies often relied upon physical features of the land.

Within the Great Wall, to the east and south, silk and sericulture had a long history. Silkworms and mulberry trees thrived in the low-lying agricultural regions populated by Han Chinese. From inland regions rivers flowed to the sea, where coastal cities …

Ancient Near Eastern Fibers And The Reshaping Of European Clothing, Elizabeth J. W. Barber

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In April of 1994, an amazing story hit the news-stands. A group of naturally mummified corpses dated to 2000 BC and later had been found in Chinese Turkestan. Not only were their Caucasian features and blondish hair well preserved by the dry heat of the xinjiang desert, but also their clothes--brightly colored plaids and twills among them (Hadingham 1994). We know from later linguistic records that a group of Indo-European speakers we call the Tocharians had made their way to Xinjiang and the Tarim Basin in early times. We also know that the Indo-Europeans began to spread across Eurasia from …

Frontmatter - Contact, Crossover, Continuity - 1994

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Frontmatter: cover, title page, and copyright page.

Technology And Change: The Incorporation Of Synthetic Dye Techniques In Abeokuta, Southwestern Nigeria, Judith Byfield

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the oriki (appellations) of an 18th-century oba (king) in Okuku, references to cloth and indigo were included in the verses that attested to the oba's wealth and greatness,

Abioye, my father, Olugbola, one who takes the image and all its children to dance

The beauty of cloth dyed in indigo does not fade

Adewale, the indigo is what gives the cloth its worth

The references suggestively point to the aesthetic as well as commercial value of indigo in Yoruba society. Scholars and travelers have long noted the importance of indigo dyed cloth in Yoruba society, and Yoruba women, the …

Akwete-Igbo Weavers As Entrepreneurs And Innovators At The Turn Of The Century, Lisa Aronson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In his discourse on trade commodities, Igor Kopytoff argues that commodities assume what he calls a "cultural biography" through which one sees "the social system and the collective understanding on which it rests" (Kopytoff, 1986:89). What Kopytoff means by this is that commodities take on a life of their own based on the social and economic factors that have come to affect them. This paper will address the "cultural biography" of cloth in Southeastern Nigeria from its origins through trade to its various levels of assimilation both in use and production.

The biography discussed in this paper reaches an important …

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 …

Tappeti Safavidi: L'Evoluzione Storica E Culturale Dell'arte Tessile Iraniana Dal Xvi Al Xviii Secolo, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

In Iran l'epoca safavide coincide con il periodo aureo dell'arte tessile: proprio nel XVI secolo infatti si completò l'evoluzione stilistica del tappeto persiano classico e la tessitura di sete e velluti giunse ai massimi livelli per tecnica e per decorazioni.

Nelle fasi successive della storia persiana nei tessuti e nei tappeti continuarono a vivere le straordinarie innovazioni dell'epoca safavide, tuttora insuperate.Nella storia l'Iran è stato uno dei più importanti paesi produttori di tessili.

In epoca medievale le sontuose sete ed i tappeti erano ricercati dalle case regnanti e dalla nobiltà europea per la qualità eccellente e per la bellezza fuori …

Falcons And Flowers: Safavid Persian Textile Arts, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The Safavid period in Iran was a golden age for textile arts. It was in the 16th century that the Classical Persian carpet evolved to its fully developed form, and it was then that woven silks and velvets reached the highest technical and aesthetic standards of all time. In subsequent periods of Persian history, textiles and carpets reflect the extraordinary achievements of the Safavid era which have never been surpassed.

Under the reign of Shah Abbas I, who reigned from 1588 to 1629, Iran established important economic ties not only with the rapidly emerging European powers, but with the Mughal …

What Is An Oriental Carpet?, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Have you ever just stared at an Oriental carpet? Have you ever wondered what makes it so attractive, fascinating, or puzzling? Have you admired its simplicity or its intricacy? Have you ever wondered where it came from? Or, how it was made?

What is an Oriental Carpet? attempts to answer some of these questions. Conceived in response to visitors' requests for more basic information about textiles, this educational approach encourages the viewer to participate in an exploration of Oriental carpets.

Although the terms carpet and rug are often interchanged, here a carpet is defined as a fairly large pile-weaving intended …

Piety And Power In Early Sasanian Art, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Sasanian art has long been considered a royal art: An art in service of royalty. Indeed, traditions of kingship in Iran became a paradigm for kingship throughout the world (though not always recognized as such). But the significance and strength of Iranian kingship no doubt led, in part, to scholarly paradigms in which nearly all in historical Iran has been cast in the shadow of kingship. But there are other ways to look at kingship in Iran. This paper explores the representation of royal images in early Sasanian art from a religious perspective, a view perhaps eclipsed by the ever-present …

Knots And Bolts: Design And Technology In The Caucasus, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

In the largest sense, Oriental rugs represent both the social history and manufacturing traditions of their particular cultures and are related to the human needs, economies, and ecological constraints of those societies. Each textile or fragment represents a complex set of human interactions between user and viewer, implying a social response, and between user and maker, sometimes resulting from economic transactions among buyer and seller, lender, merchant, and trader. Suppliers of raw materials and market superintendents or commissioners for fair trade and quality control may also have been involved. The quality and appearance of any given textile results from the …

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 …

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 …

Beyond The Pyramids: Geometry And Design In The Carpets Of Egypt, 1450-1750, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Mamluk carpets present a paradox. For although they are among the most tantalizingly beautiful of all Oriental carpets, they are also the least understood. The answers to such questions as who made them, why they were made and for whom, and how they were used, are virtually unknown. These carpets, produced during the rule of the Mamluk sultans in Egypt in the late 15th century are arguably the finest ever produced anywhere. Mamluk carpets are distinguished from all other carpet-weaving traditions. In part, this distinction derives from the dominance and simplicity of geometric form (#R34.32.1): squares and rectangles, octagons and …

Carpet Condition: A Curator's Perception Of "The Hole", Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Twenty years ago when I set out on the course of a professional life in archaeology, I thought my future lay in ruins. Preparing this paper has given me an opportunity to review my experiences and reassess my perception of condition in general. And, specifically with respect to carpets, it has enabled me to develop a heightened sense of self-awareness and perception of "the hole." I have found upon introspective analysis two key aspects of my own training and experience that have profoundly affected my response as curator to the condition of carpets: The first is a background, prior to …

Visions Of Infinity: Design And Pattern In Oriental Carpets, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

A fascination with color and geometric pattern is expressed in Islamic art. In many areas of the Islamic world, historically from Spain to Indonesia, twodimensional repeat patterns provide the primary means for organizing color and space. Ornamentation of architecture, ceramics, metalwork, book illumination, textiles, and Oriental carpets relies upon the repetition of complex or simple designs, creating overall surface patterns of apparent complexity and intricacy. Patterns may consist of geometric, floral, calligraphic, or figural forms. The majority of patterns in Oriental carpets consist of geometric and stylized floral designs, arranged in a system of repeats within an oblong central field …

Carpets And History, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The story of Western trade with Persia in textiles and carpets casts a fascinating light on the exciting, sometimes turbulent history of the centuries following Europe's Age of Exploration. The intense commercial and political rivalries of European mercantile expansion during the 400-year period from about 1500 to 1900 is revealed both by official historical documents - treaties, royal decrees and contracts - and by more personal ones, such as the reports of traveling merchants. Through the details of production and trade that these documents contain, we can view textiles and carpets as key commodities in the international marketplace. They played …

An Introduction To Oriental Carpets: The Arthur D. Jenkins Collection, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Oriental carpets have long fascinated the American public. Rich colors and attractive designs, as well as lush pile and renowned durability have given them a well-deserved reputation as beautiful and useful floor-coverings. Handmade products of far distant lands, their complicated patterns also evoke the romance of luxury and the Orient in days of yore. Yet Oriental carpets also represent both social history and manufacturing traditions related to the human needs, economy, and ecological constraints of their cultural origins.

Arthur D. Jenkins, an American collector of Oriental carpets, was intrigued by the social origins of rugs. Early in his collecting career, …

Dragons, Blossoms, Sunbursts: Textile Arts Of The Caucasus, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Rugs from the Caucasus have long been appreciated in Europe and America. Widely known for their bright colors and bold designs, Caucasian rugs have attracted collectors for nearly a century. These rugs, produced in towns and villages, reflect regional design traditions which were amalgamated from diverse sources.

Although embroideries and flatweaves (rugs without pile) from the Caucasus are less well known in the West, their designs are no less bold nor their colors less striking. Produced as a domestic art, they were destined for home use and local commerce. The richness of patterns in these textile arts is in part …

"Introduction" To Content And Context Of Visual Arts In The Islamic World: Papers From A Colloquium In Memory Of Richard Ettinghausen, Carol Bier, Priscilla P. Soucek

Textile Research Works

The edited papers presented in this memorial volume offer tribute to Richard Ettinghausen, scholar, teacher, curator and friend, a great man who affected within his own lifetime the study of Islamic art throughout the Western world. Through the high caliber of his scholarship and his discerning connoisseurship, he had a profound effect on the intellectual development of those whom he touched through his manifold activities, whether in publications, formal lectures, or an informal sharing of his knowledge. In recognition of his many achievements he received in 1976 "Pour le Merite," the highest civil decoration awarded by the Federal Republic of …

Woven From The Soul, Spun From The Heart, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Textiles are luxuries and necessities. They are artifacts as well as primary sources which contain a wealth of information about the society that produced them Materials and color represent products available for textile production; structure gives evidence of levels of technological achievement. Patterns illustrate belief and values, frequently offering insight into daily life. The mingling of motifs expresses a kinship of ideas. Textiles, above all, illustrate a culture's freshness and vitality, its flexibility and adaptation to change.

Meaning and Metaphor: Cultural themes occur in both Persian poetry and the textile arts. Hunting, falconry, bird-and-flower studies were popular subjects for poetry, …