Art Practice Commons^™

Painted Clouds: Uzbek Ikats As A Case Study For Ethnic Textiles Surviving And Thriving Culturally And Economically In The 21st Century, Shannon Ludington

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

We are in a place of flux in the textile world, finding our way between shifting philosophies and new technologies. Uzbek warp ikats, or Abr is a traditional textile succeeding in its own culture and becoming a viable cultural import. Abr has a complex and ancient history, and it is important that we learn from it, for the wisdom it can give us in our own textile traditions and for its own beauty. This paper will discuss the changing cultural purpose, production methods and appearance of Uzbek ikats over time, as well as using historic models to question our modern, …

A New Unit For Study And Research The Textile Museum And The George Washington University In Washington, D.C, Sumru Belger Krody

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

France, so renowned for its fashion, has only recently begun to consider it as a subject of theoretical study; and French historiographical projects, when they dealt with fashion, were primarily concerned with the history of dress and the work of the designers, but hardly took the textile fabrics into account. The stuff of which fashion is made, its particular materiality, its history and its impact on the history of dress and fashion were too often overlooked.

In 2012, the President of the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) decided to start a program for the study of dress, textiles and fashion at …

More Than A Footnote Or Bibliographic Entry: Mary Lois Kissell As An Innovator Of Textile Study, Ira Jacknis, Erin L. Hasinoff

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Mary Lois Kissell was a pioneer in the comparative cultural study of textiles and basketry, an art educator, a museum anthropologist, and an intrepid fieldworker. When she died in 1944, no obituary was written about her, and no single study has focused on her contributions to textile scholarship. We have not come to know her through a single collection of personal papers; for as far as we can tell, nothing of the kind was ever deposited in a repository. The scattered correspondence that we have amassed by and about Kissell comes from various museum, library, historic society, and university archives …

Who Were Joanne Segal Brandford And Lillian Elliott? The Brandford/Elliott Award, Catherine K. Hunter

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Joanne Segal Brandford and Lillian Elliott were key innovators in fiber art and basketry for 30 years. They were colleagues along with Ed Rossbach in the Design Department of the University of California, Berkeley, in the late ‘60s, when the contemporary basket movement began. Brandford’s foundation was in textile history and Elliott had a broad background in art. Drawing on different backgrounds and philosophies, they represented and encouraged creativity and experimentation in fiber art. Subsequently, Brandford and Elliott influenced several generations of students, curators, collectors and artists. Following their deaths in 1994, the Brandford/ Elliott Award for Excellence in Fiber …

Traditions, Tourists, Trends, Tracy P. Hudson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In many areas of the world, traditional textile cultures are being ‘kept alive’ or revived through the marketing of products for export and tourism. In some cases, marketability seems to be synonymous with the idea of a living textile tradition, as if a tradition cannot survive without participating in the global marketplace. This raises the question of whether marketing innovative, modern designs based on traditional skills is actually preserving traditional heritage. This question will be examined from a variety of angles in this presentation. Transformation and adaptability are certainly signs of being alive, but what of the original contexts and …

Flax Fibre: Innovation And Change In The Early Neolithic; A Technological And Material Perspective, Susanna Harris

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Flax (Linum sp.) was one of the first domestic plants in Neolithic Europe, providing a potential cultivable source of fibres for the first farmers. As the plant provides both oil and fibre, it is a matter of enquiry as to whether the plant was first domesticated for its seeds or stem. Through examining new data collected by the EUROEVOL Project, UCL it is possible to chart the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for flax species in Europe. This provides the basis on which to consider the origin of fibres from the flax plant (linen) as a basis for change and innovation …

Redefining Borders And Identity: Ethnic Dress Of The Lolo/Yi Across The Vietnam-China Border, Serena Lee

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This innovative work explores several intriguing topics new to the field of textiles. Based on multiple field studies conducted from 1999-2013 in the northern Vietnam provinces of Cao Bang and Ha Giang and the southwestern China provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan, this paper is unprecedented in its approach as a comparative study of ethnic dress among kinship groups living along both sides of the Vietnam-China borderline. It is also unique in its focus on the Flowery Lolo, Black Lolo, Red Lolo and White Lolo, small subgroups of ethnic minorities who remain unknown to outsiders. The identities and histories of these …

Pulling Strings: Textiles, Community And Diy In Post-Industrial Hamilton, Jen Anisef, Thea Haines, Tara Bursey

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the city formerly known as Canada’s Steeltown, the economic recession of the 1990s, suburban sprawl, and the collapse of Hamilton’s steel industry had a devastating impact on the city’s vitality. An exodus of commercial retail and corporate tenancy from the core of the city left many buildings vacant. In the last decade, Hamilton’s creative community has emerged as a major force in downtown renewal, neighbourhood building, and civic engagement and pride. How do histories of manufacturing and processes of deindustrialization permeate local maker culture? How does a city’s history of industrial production intertwine with contemporary local craft and textile-based …

Before There Was Pinterest: Textile Study Rooms In North American “Art” Museums, Sarah Fee

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines the roots and future of textile museum collections, display and curation in North America. The first half looks back, to the origins of dedicated textile galleries, museums, museum departments, and curators, and examines why this one medium was systematically singled out for special attention in early museums, who the early audiences were, and the methods for communicating textile collections. The history of textile curation and display at the Royal Ontario Museum, of Toronto, Canada, founded in 1914 as an encyclopedic museum, is examined as a fascinating and classic case study in point. The second part of the …

Traditional Innovation In Oaxacan Indigenous Costumes, Hector Manuel Meneses Lozano

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Many different indigenous communities from Oaxaca have been exposed to trade routes that have been active even before the first Europeans came to the continent. Such exposure has led to a “global market” that has influenced the way in which these communities behave. Textiles (from fibres and dyes to yarns and finished cloths) have been a part of this very active exchange. What could be considered “traditional” now, was in fact very avant-garde at the beginning.

Silk is one of the products that has transformed the appearance of Oaxacan textiles: it is soft, it is easy to dye, it offers …

Innovation And Preservation Of Manichaean Textiles In Southern Costal China In The 17th – 20th Centuries, Gloria Granz Gonick

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

For over five hundred years a group of wool tapestries created in China have been stored in Japan. The tapestries are woven of soft wool, their surfaces hand painted with unusual motifs on backgrounds dyed the soft orange-red hue produced by the safflower plant. Their motifs are identified with the ancient Manichaean religion, considered extinct since the seventeenth century. The motifs and the layout of the tapestries’ design suggests that they functioned as mantles used by religious leaders. The Chinese government outlawed the Manichaean religion and prohibited its trappings, the laws strictly enforced as the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) became firmly …

Challenging Tradition In Religious Textiles: The Mata Ni Pachedi Of India, Donald Clay Johnson

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A community of block printers and dyers in the Indian state of Gujarat has concentrated upon producing religious textiles for nomadic groups. These unique textiles, known as Mata Ni Pachedi, fulfill the need for a religious representation/environment for groups who have no permanent settlement and thus need to construct temporary shrines for their religious ceremonies. The brilliant red, white, and black cloths portray events from the Mother Goddess tradition. Her depiction as the central and by far the largest representation, as well as the Hindu God Ganesh, distinctively identifies these religious cloths. Since the cloths need to be dried in …

Reflecting On Collecting: My Romance With African Textiles, Joanne B. Eicher, Diana Eicher

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As an academic arriving in Nigeria on a three-year university leave, I became fascinated by a wide variety of handcrafted textiles and began collecting them for personal use. I saw them everywhere as I traveled and found that little documentation seemed available By the end of my stay, the collection had burgeoned. My paper provides an account of the intertwining of collecting and my academic curiosity,resulting in an introductory volume followed by unexpected depth of fieldwork related to a specific and unusual specimen that also led to a bigger project.

Natural Dyes And Aesthetic Search, María Dávila, Eduardo Portillo

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

We´re interested in presenting and transmitting our personal experiences through processes and materials which carry the imprint of peoples and places, which show us the relations between humankind and its environment. Color guides us, the route to follow is discovered through color.

Understanding the geographical and cultural context where the natural dyes come from is our guide and inspiration to interpret the geographical and cultural environment in which the textile work is done.

A vision to enhance a better understanding and appreciation of natural dyes as an element in textiles, its importance as a means to preserve and disseminate cultural …

The Obiko Archive, Jean Cacicedo, Ana Lisa Hedstrom

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This presentation will discuss the origin and development of a digital archive documenting the Art Wear movement in the Bay Area during the 80s and 90s. The co-producers, Jean Cacicedo and Ana Lisa Hedstrom, members of the Board of Directors of The Textile Art Council of the De Young Museum Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco will share visuals from the archive and address the issues in constructing this project.

It was decided that parameters were necessary, and the archive focuses on the designers for OBIKO, a boutique/ gallery founded in the 70’s by Sandra Sakata.

She was a creative …

Interwoven Connections: Examining The History Of Scottish Carpet Design To Inform Future Learning, Teaching And Research, Helena Britt

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

As with much of the textile industry in the United Kingdom, carpet manufacturing in the West of Scotland was once thriving. Powder was ground, paint mixed, design papers painted, yarn dyed, spools set and carpets woven. The history of the carpet manufacturing innovators, Stoddard Templeton, dates back to 1845 when James Templeton, a Scot and then Alfred Francis Stoddard, an American, began to produce carpets from disused Paisley shawl mills. The story is one of growth, expansion, worldwide prominence and unfortunately eventual decline. Stoddard Templeton produced carpets for a highly prestigious array of events and interiors including royal coronations and …

Textiles And Museum Displays: Visible And Invisible Dimensions, Ruth Barnes

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The paper discusses changing attitudes towards textiles and their displays in museum collections. As a curator of textiles who has worked in two major university museums, at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Yale University Art Gallery, over a stretch of more than twenty years, I document a change in attitude to textile history and collections. Much of it is positive, as textiles have moved from a Cinderella role into a position where they are taken seriously both in art and social history.

The two museums mentioned above were recently the subjects of dramatic building projects, and I was …

Rethinking The Tiwanaku Phenomenon In San Pedro De Atacama Through The Study Of Textiles Of Solcor 3 And Their Associated Contexts (400-1000 Ad), Carolina Aguero, Mauricio Uribe

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

From San Pedro de Atacama, Chile we examine the alleged relationship with Tiwanaku. Our investigation focuses on elaborate and plain textiles with associated ceramics and recent bio-archaeological data that allow us to question this relationship. We see a heterogeneous and unequal society in San Pedro rather than one that responds to a superior political entity and a culture born from a strong tension between dominant and subordinate groups. Discussing the funeral bundles discovered in Solcor-3 we characterize individuals who wear Tiwanaku textiles with their contextual associations and compare them to others who do not wear such textiles. Solcor-3 presents contexts …

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 …