Indigenous Studies Commons^™

Native American Chic: The Marketing Of Native Americans In New York Between The World Wars, Emily Schuchardt Navratil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Focusing on four key figures - Morris de Camp Crawford, John Sloan, Amelia Elizabeth White, and René d'Harnoncourt - this dissertation analyzes museum and gallery exhibitions of Native American art mounted in the United States, particularly New York City, during the interwar period, and documents the immediate and lasting impact these shows and their promotion had on the emergence of "Indian Chic" in women's fashion and interior design.

In the late 1910s, Crawford, a research editor for Women's Wear and honorary research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, mounted a campaign encouraging Euro-American designers to seek inspiration in …

Review Of Eric Broug, Islamic Geometric Design, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

From the eleventh century C.E., Islamic geometric patterns have continued to evolve in complexity, contributing a distinct aspect of Islamic art and architecture that covers a broad geographic range and temporal spectrum. The underlying principles of these patterns are brilliantly explained in narrative and visual formats by Eric Broug, a Dutch design professional, self-trained and with an M.A. in the history of Islamic architecture from SOAS in London. Offering both an analytical and practical understanding of the construction of Islamic geometric patterns, this book is an unusual hybrid of scholarship and art, combining the qualities of a coffeetable bibelot and …

Geometry: Drawing From The Islamic Tradition, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Getting students involved in careful observation and analysis and encouraging their exploration of cultural forms of expression is an excellent means of introducing mathematical ideas. Geometric patterns abound in Islamic art and architecture. Exhibiting great ingenuity over the centuries, Muslim artists and craftsmen created beautiful patterns to adorn architectural monuments and exquisite objects. The Alhambra in Spain and the Taj Mahal in India offer the most famous examples of extraordinary patterns using brick and glazed tile, or carved and inlaid marble. Other examples of patterns are made using metal, wood, and fiber. Students may gain conceptual and theoretical understanding of …

Inscribed Cotton Ikat From Yemen In The Tenth Century Ce, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

More than a thousand years ago, Baghdad was capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasid caliphs, and Yemen was a flourishing center of agriculture and trade. Among its famous products were dyestuffs, and cotton cloth with warp stripes, patterned using techniques of compression resist. As the strength of the Abbasid caliphate declined and claims to power gained hold in the provinces, regional artistic styles began to emerge. The rulers of Yemen adopted one of the prerogatives of the Abbasid caliphs, bestowing honor by rewarding their subjects with inscribed textiles called tiraz. From burial sites in Egypt, many such textiles …

Sinan’S Screens: Networks Of Intersecting Polygons In Ottoman Architecture, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

An often overlooked characteristic of Sinan’s architectural production of the 16th century is the use of low screening walls and windows carved of marble with pierced openwork or tracery to let in light and allow for air circulation. Typically these screens display polygonal networks often with intersecting polygons. This paper explores aspects of these carved patterns, which have antecedents in earlier Islamic architecture, attributing particular significance to this architectural feature in the works of Sinan and three successors whom he had trained. These slabs (and their counterparts in forged iron) may be considered études, serving as opportunities for the training …

Review Of Michel & Nosch, Eds., Textile Terminologies In The Ancient Near East And Mediterranean From The Third To The First Millennia Bc., Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Textile production comprised the major manufacturing industry of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean, yet it has received relatively little scholarly attention. As garments and furnishings, textiles may provide warmth and utility, but they are also indicators of status, objects of trade and tribute, products of technology, and economic generators. The role of textiles is both pervasive and complex, yielding rich and specific vocabularies that do not easily transcend time and space for contemporary understanding. This brilliant volume offers a compilation of twenty-two papers that result from an exciting collaboration between the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile …

The Decagonal Tomb Tower At Maragha And Its Architectural Context: Lines Of Mathematical Thought, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Of several brick tomb towers constructed at Maragha in western Iran before the Mongol conquests, one in particular, Gonbad-e Qabud (593 H. / 1196-97 C.E.), has generated significant recent attention for its unique patterns with pentagons and decagons. Gonbad-e Qabud is also unusual in having a decagonal plan. While both plan and decoration distinguish it from earlier and later towers at Maragha and elsewhere on the Iranian plateau, the ornamental patterns follow a long line of experimentation with geometric expressions that grace many pre-Mongol buildings in Iran. This article examines in particular the overlapping polygons and radial symmetries of the …

Crafts Of Color: Tupi Tapirage In Early Colonial Brazil, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Tyrian purple. Lamp black. Lead white. Cadmium yellow. Ultramarine blue. The materiality of color, as it is often discussed, has a fixed quality. Pigments and dyes derived from many natural substances-minerals, earths, plants, and animals-have stable optic qualities. Lapis lazuli can be reliably counted upon to be blue. Dyes made from cochineal consistently fall within a certain range at the red end of the spectrum. Similarly, we might expect that the green feathers of a bird such as the Festive Parrot (Amazona festiva), after molting, would be replaced by equally green plumes. As the excerpt above suggests, from …

Taking Sides, But Who’S Counting? The Decagonal Tomb Tower At Maragha

Textile Research Works

Lu and Steinhardt introduced the term “girih tiles” to describe the set of equilateral polygons that structures a colorful two-dimensional decagonal tiling on the Darb-e Imam in Isfahan, Iran (1453 CE) with distant roots in the five-fold symmetries articulated in brick on the Gonbad-e Qabud, a tomb tower dated to the late 12th century CE located at Maragha in western Iran. Their work seeks to establish the early existence of quasi-crystalline tilings long before such means of covering the plane were understood mathematically in the West. Questions remained unanswered as to whether those who constructed these monuments were aware of …

Tupi Featherwork And The Dynamics Of Intercultural Exchange In Early Modern Brazil, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"The Tupi of sixteenth- and seventeenth century coastal Brazil were renowned as fiercely warlike and, more sensationally, as cannibals. They were also famed for their ritual featherwork capes made from scarlet ibis feathers, which were closely associated with both war and anthropophagic rituals (see figure). For the semi-nomadic Tupi, featherwork was highly valued, the capes being among the only things that they carefully preserved and carried with them as they moved from site to site."

Virgil Ortiz: American Indian Artist, Representational Trickster, And Identity Shapeshifter, Noell Ross Jackson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study opens the door for a re-thinking of how discourse shapes American Indian representation and identity. As such, contemporary American Indian artist, Virgil Ortiz, his art, and the discourse surrounding both art and artist are examined to reveal the strategies and tactics employed in his constitution of a politics of representation that broaden the spectrum of considerations of American Indian identity. Critical invention is the orientation through which two methodological approaches are intertextually applied. A critical rhetorical approach is employed to analyze both the vernacular discourse produced by Ortiz and the dominant discourse constructed by the dominant culture. Sorrells …

Warps & Wefts 2009, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The interlacing of warp and weft defines a woven fabric. The weaver strings warp yarns onto a loom, a frame designed to hold the warps parallel and taut, and then introduces the wefts sequentially. The process is weaving; the result is a textile.

When we think of textiles, we most often think of garments to clothe our bodies and furnishings to supply our domestic needs. But throughout history, textiles have also played a primary role in fashion, drawing on not only color and pattern but also draping qualities and the effects of tailoring to cover (or show off) the body. …

Jean-Baptiste Debret’S Return Of The Negro Hunters, The Brazilian Roça, And The Interstices Of Empire, Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Despite the range of subjects that Debret illustrates, historians of Brazil have usually only reproduced his images of Afro-Brazilian slaves. This is understandable, given the political, social and economic interest in the topic and the fact that Debret is one of the few artists who portrayed the horrors of slavery in Brazil at so early date.³ The keen interest in slavery as an historical topic has also led some scholars to assume that all Afro-Brazilians depicted in Debret's volumes are slaves, when many individuals may in fact have been free.⁴ While acknowledging the importance of examining Debret's images …

Sleep, Jewel Castro

Pacific Studies

Image of a sleeping woman.

Walking With My Grandmothers #1, Jewel Castro

Pacific Studies

Image of three women, two are grandmothers

Walking With My Grandmothers #2, Jewel Castro

Pacific Studies

Artwork portrays three women, two are grandmothers.

Tradition, Jewel Castro

Pacific Studies

A painting of a woman's chest, opened to reveal people, perhaps her heritage.

Walking With My Grandmothers #3, Jewel Castro

Pacific Studies

An artwork portraying a woman flanked by two women, her grandmothers.

Exhibition Review Of "Cosmophilia: Islamic Art From The David Collection, Copenhagen", Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

THIS EXHIBITION WAS organized by the Isabella V. McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. It is accompanied by a catalogue of the same title published in 2006 by Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom, who also seived as curators, selecting objects in collaboration with the David Collection. The exhibition contains more than I 00 outstanding objects of Islamic art and includes more than 20 significant textiles, which represent diverse geographic origins (Yemen, Spain, India, Egypt, Central Asia, Turkey and Iran); with dates ranging from the 7th through the 19th centuries. Linen, cotton, wool and silk, traditional textile materials, …

Vanishing Points, Deformed Planes, Negative Spaces, Empty Solids And Topological Genius – Or, How I Got Lost In Bilbao, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Midsummer’s green along the flanks of the Pyrenees in Basque country welcomed us as we drove from Donostia (San Sebastian) west to Gernika and Bilbao. The mountains to the south physically separate this area of northern Spain from the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. To the north lies the Atlantic with its vast expanse of water, gentle waves lapping at the shore. The mountain slopes here are profoundly uplifted and folded – nature’s deformations of the plane – and the steep valleys and rushing rivers exhibit visible geometric perspectives of geological forms. To be here in summer makes one especially …

From Folding And Cutting To Geometry And Algorithms: Integrating Islamic Art Into The Mathematics Curriculum, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Drawing upon visual forms of expression prevalent in Islamic arts and architecture, this workshop offers handson experience for understanding basic concepts in geometry, with reference to algorithms in processes of patternmaking. Art teachers and math educators may learn a variety of strategies for classroom teaching, adaptable for K-12, to acquaint students with principles underlying patterns in Islamic art. Such patterns relate to the history of mathematics at a time when Baghdad was an intellectually vibrant center of patronage, and al-Khwarezmi was engaged in the development of what we now call algebra and algorithms. Students may explore these ideas through their …

Islamic Art: An Exploration Of Pattern, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

As an historian of Islamic art in the Department of Art History at the Maryland Institute College of Art, I am continually learning as I endeavor to teach my students about pattern. Teaching about pattern in Islamic art has facilitated my own exploration of geometry in ways that also benefits my students. This visual presentation explores the results of a single assignment that pertains to coloring a linear plate reproduced in Bourgoin’s classic work [6], Arabic Geometrical Pattern and Design.

Symmetry And Symmetry-Breaking: An Approach To Understanding Beauty, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Considering the relationship of symmetry and beauty, the author examines three textiles from the collection of Doris Duke at Shangri La in Honolulu. Referring to abstract expressionism of the 20th century as antithetical to symmetry, and the Arts & Crafts Movement of the 19th century as countering the insistency of industrial mass production, Bier explores the relative roles of symmetry and symmetry-breaking in the construction of three embroideries (called suzani, after the Persian and Tajik word for “needlework”), using as her point of departure a recent research initiative, the Shangri La Suzani Project. The study of colors, motifs, stitches, designs …

Patterns In Time And Space: Technologies Of Transfer And The Cultural Transmission Of Mathematical Knowledge Across The Indian Ocean, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

This article explores the potential role of textiles in the transfer of mathematical knowledge from the Indian subcontinent to the central Islamic lands and west- ward to an emerging modern Europe through an inquiry into prospective tech- nologies of textile manufacture and pattern-making. Ikat textiles of the ninth and tenth centuries, found in Egypt but presumed to be from Yemen, serve as a means to explore possibilities of numeration and treatment of the spatial dimension. An initial attempt is made to separate patterning from the technology of textile pro- duction in an effort to treat the mathematical possibilities that patterning …

Mathematical Aspects Of Oriental Carpets, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

When one looks at an Oriental carpet in the context of Western art, one usually perceives a richness of colors and patterns, and perhaps the contrast between central field and surrounding borders. A careful observer might notice the appearance of superimposed plane patterns in the central field and multiple linear patterns in the surrounding borders. Each of patterns, whether in the field or the borders, is composed of various design elements, which in combination are repeated according to the principles of symmetry, often with the addition of symmetry-breaking (Bier 1992, 1997, 1998, 2000a). The mathematical principles of pattern making according …

Islamic Art At Doris Duke's Shangri La: Playing With Form And Pattern, Carol Bier, David K. Masunaga

Textile Research Works

Shangri La is the historic home of Doris Duke in Honolulu. It is filled with installations of Islamic tilework and other arts. Open to the public in late 2002, by reservation for tours arranged through the Honolulu Academy of Arts, today this home serves as a museum in which a walking tour can provide extraordinary visual opportunities for the study of geometry and pattern both in the arts that are installed and exhibited, and in the surrounding plantings and landscape. The house offers a plethora of educational opportunities, for which its full potential has not yet been tapped. A new …

Spanish And Mamluk Carpets: Comparisons Of Decoration And Structure, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Two recent exhibitions, Carpets of Andalusia and Mamluk Rugs from Egypt, at The Textile Museum afforded a rare opportunity to compare two radically different rug-weaving traditions from the perspectives of design and weave structure. While not often evident to the casual viewer, there is a significant relationship between design, pattern, and weave structure in all Oriental carpets. The opportunity to explore such differences warrants careful examination and critical viewing.

The Mamluk rugs all probably date from the last quarter of the 15th century. They comprise a cohesive group defined by color, a geometric style, and similarity of weave characteristics. The …

"Indigo" From Encyclopædia Iranica, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

INDIGO (Pers. nil), the common name of a broad genus, Indigofera, with numerous species, widely distributed throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas. A member of the leguminous pea family, indigo is variously classified as an herb or small shrub; its stalks are long, bearing raceme flowers. It is usually perennial, but in some areas annual. Native species are known from Arabia, including the Yemen, and around the Indian Ocean. In some sources Persia is not listed among those regions in which indigo occurs in a natural form (e.g., the website mentioned below). Hans Wulff (p. 192) mentions two local species …

Mamluk Rugs From Egypt: Jewels Of The Textile Museum's Collection (Exhibition), Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Mamluk rugs are considered by many to be among the most beautiful of any rugs ever created. The brilliant reds, greens, and blues (figs. 1 and 2) are reminiscent of rubies, emeralds and sapphires; whether this was an intentional evocation is not known. But The Textile Museum's holdings of Mamluk rugs, unparalleled in the world, are truly the "jewels" of the collection. Simply by virtue of the fact that they date from the late 15th century, Mamluk rugs comprise one of the most significant groups of classical carpets. Their lustrous wool and wondrous color, as well as their geometric designs …

Carpets Of Andalusia (Exhibition), Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

The fall of Granada in 1492 reestablished Christian dominion in Spain after centuries of Islamic rule. The rapid expansion of Islam from Arabia in the 7th century encompassed the rich cultural legacy of the Late Antique world, forging a unified empire throughout the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean lands and across North Africa to Spain within a short span of several decades. Arab and Berber armies had crossed into Spain in 711, generating at once an effort that lasted for many generations to restore Christian rule. In Islamic times, the Iberian peninsula was called al-Andalus, or Andalusia. Although we have …