Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Elayne Zorn Bibliography: As Part of Weaving a Future: A Panel In Honor of Elayne Zorn

Andrea Heckman et al. — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:03:08 PDT

In honor of our dear friend and colleague, the respected textile researcher Elayne Zorn, we have shaped six presentations around several interrelated political themes: heritage, identity, status, cultural continuity and economic sustainability, especially for the indigenous women and men who make the cloth. The titles and the themes draw inspirations from Elayne’s book Weaving a Future, published in 2004. The first three papers address these issues in relationship to Andean societies of the past, using artifacts and archaeological and historical perspectives. The final three papers, while concerned with broadly similar issues, focus on prospects for the future and explore how weavers, and other textile artists, shape their futures as strongly related to tourism, education of foreigners, and national politics. Together these presentations explore ancient and contemporary Andean textiles as contextual messengers and powerful symbols of status and political affinities as well as how current decisions are affecting the future of textile Andean traditions.

Textile Society of America- Abstracts and Biographies

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:00:57 PDT

TSA Abstracts and Biographies, September 2012.

Art and Politics: Contemporary Arpilleras

Flora Zárate — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:58:07 PDT

In explaining connections between art and politics in my arpilleras (appliquÈ pictures), I discuss themes drawn from my life, my relatives' and other Peruvians' lives, and the experiences of fellow immigrants in the United States. In Alcamenca (Ayacucho, Peru), where I was born, we inherit from our ancestors the arts of spinning, weaving and sewing. In our isolated town, we lived from raising animals, agriculture, and textile production, and by barter except at the weekly market. As a child I wanted to leave, when people returned from the city for fiestas, with new clothes and jewelry. Later we did follow our relatives to those cities. In my town the sky is big and free for everyone, but in huge cities such as Lima, neither the space nor the sky above is yours, the houses are very close together, and pollution darkens the sky. We struggled to learn Spanish (coming from a Quechua-speaking community) and adapt to big city life - transportation, street vending, getting robbed. We dreamed of having our own home, building shanty towns of cardboard houses without running w·ter, and suffering from illness and malnutrition. I also show the national elections, with carnaval-like campaigns, as the media carries endless promises and lies. In my community as well, the parties offer tractors although there isn't even a highway, computers without electricity, and cell phones with no towers. Peru's many economic, political, and social problems pushed us to seek new horizons in neighboring countries, Europe, and for me the U.S. Here, I continue to develop my art, using new themes such as migrants' struggles for legal status.

Clothes Make the Page: Uniforms in the U.S. Capitol

Felicia Wivchar — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:54:09 PDT

When thinking of a uniform in the U.S. Capitol today, the first image conjured is most probably a middle-aged man in a dark suit. Business attire has long been the standard dress for both Members of Congress and their office staff. However, this de facto uniform is not the only dress code for the Capitol complex. Within these grand and historic buildings, it is often taken for granted that spaces will appear pristine and practical functions will be seamlessly maintained. The groups of laborers that have long helped maintain this illusion have also long been clad in assigned uniforms specific to their division - carpenter, painter, electrician, among others. House Pages, students who have (up until the fall of 2011) served as errand runners for Member's offices, are also part of the uniformed class of the Capitol. These useful but essentially invisible people have historically been uniformed, making them clearly identifiable as a separate class of workers within the Capitol. Rooted in the principles of analyzing material culture, this paper aims to investigate and discuss, through examples of historic clothing in the House Collection and archival images, the nature of these garments and how they functioned both practically in regards to labor functions and symbolically as signifiers of difference. The textiles used, the components of the uniforms, and the appearance in relation to other groups of workers will all addressed to this end.

The Political Stitch: Voicing Resistance in a Suffrage Textile

Eileen Wheeler — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:49:09 PDT

While on a hunger strike within the walls of Halloway Prison in 1912, a woman recorded her experience in an embroidered handkerchief. Her deliberate stitching presents us with an intimate artifact that embodies an individual experience and a pivotal collective moment in Western women's history. The textile engages us with her act of resistance in a struggle for a political voice for herself and womankind. This singular textile communicates a powerful sense of self and, with its provocative content, a prescient anticipation of a future audience. Through personal examination of a number of suffrage textiles housed in the Museum of London and an analysis of new historical viewpoints, this study promotes the efficacy of textiles as historical sources. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the construct of voice in textiles is used to challenge 'received' history that has marginalized some experience. Textiles imbued with women's negotiation of historical circumstance during the suffrage movement can be viewed now, on its centenary, as a response to converging social, economic and political factors. The Halloway embroideries juxtapose the 'delicate' domestic skill of embroidery with the grim reality of oppressive prison sentences. Embedded within the textiles of the embroiderers, once dismissed as irrational bourgeois women, was a new political force. Cognizant of the power of symbolism, women employed their amateur craft skills crossing class boundaries to enact resistance and propel enfranchisement onto the public stage. It is timely to examine these acts of commemoration and performance, infused with agency, identity and desire for social change, through the language of textiles.

Textiles and Politics – Dishtowels and Diatribes

Carol D. Westfall — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:41:08 PDT

When a Dutch curator invited my students and me to join an international group of felt makers to create felt balls for peace, I sent mine to them encased in barbed wire. My life has been marked by war. My Dad fought in the Second World War, my high school colleagues in the Korean War and those who returned joined me as freshmen in college. My husband served in Vietnam and various acquaintances in my hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey served in the first Gulf War and now serve in Afghanistan and Iraq. At age 4, I was so frightened by the nightly news broadcasts about World War II that I grabbed a couple of pillows and dove under the bed in order to be safe if the Germans began to bomb Williamsburg, Virginia. Being older, I was more circumspect about my behavior during the Korean War and rarely sought comfort in a cloth. Vietnam was another story. Each evening I was alone in my little kitchen in Baltimore, Maryland. (My 2 children enjoyed time with Daddy while I did the dishes.) So - armed with my dishtowels, I fought many losing but very pithy verbal battles with the likes of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger. I broke my share of dishes but felt so much better at the end of my battles for not only did I cleanse my kitchen but my very soul as well.

Made in America: Yarns from the Heartland Brown Sheep Company

Wendy Weiss — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:34:28 PDT

Approximately 40 million knitters and crocheters live in the USA. According to Becky Talley, Sheep Industry News, Associate Editor, in 2007 Brown Sheep Co. was the largest producer of natural fiber knitting yarns in the United States. They sell their yarn at local yarn retailers, Internet sales from their own web page and those of their retailers. This paper teases out the story of a family run operation in western Nebraska that serves the appetite of a population of yarn consumers, primarily at the handcraft level. Owner/operators, Peggy Wells, the daughter of Harlan Brown, founder of the company, and her husband Robert Wells, forged relationships with likeminded textile businesses to help sustain one another. First hand accounts from manufacturers in the handcraft textile industry, such Barry Schacht and Jane Patrick of Schacht Spindle Company, will describe how these businesses survive the ebb and flow of passions for handwork, and have evolved over the decades. They have forged a successful collaboration that yields customers and profits to both entities. This paper explores the day-to-day operation of this business and how the owners have adapted to a changing environment. For example, the Wells have implemented sustainable water use practices and have updated equipment from the original used mill machinery. The Wells reflect on their experience in the industry to explore the questions: "What political factors have influenced the production and distribution trends for yarn products in this specialized sector?" and "What is the future for the handcraft textile industry in the USA?"

Making (in) Brooklyn: The Production of Textiles, Meaning, and Social Change

Tali Weinberg — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:21:43 PDT

Brooklyn, NY has become one hotbed of activity for alternative economies defined as small, intimate, and artisanal. This includes emergent practices in "local" and "handmade" textiles?particularly by young women?that have recently caught the attention of scholars. Based on ethnographic fieldwork centered at the new Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, this paper explores how and why producers of such textiles are inscribing their practices of making and the materiality of textiles with new meanings and intentions as they navigate the systems they seek to change. It further explores how their practices, and their understandings of these practices, are linked to globalized systems and ideologies that both constrain and make possible actors' abilities to make the changes they desire. Scholars have begun to tackle this topic in terms of DIY and Craftivism, stating the ways in which these makers "resist" and "rebel" against capitalism and the mass production of commodities. However this paper addresses a set of politically and socially engaged practices that do not fit within these bounds. I discuss local articulations of ecofashion; a newly implemented garden and curriculum for natural dyes; and makers whose fiber art and textile craft engage politics of labor from the domestic sphere to global trade. Beyond resisting and rebelling, the young women I met in Brooklyn during my fieldwork often express their practices in terms that speak more of connection, intimacy, and engagement.

A New Interpretation of Certain Bobbin Lace Patterns in Le Pompe, 1559

Laurie Waters — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:12:11 PDT

Volume 1 of the 16th century pattern book "Le Pompe" was printed by the Sessa brothers for Matio Pagano in 1557. Volume 2 appeared in 1560 with a new set of patterns. These works are among the earliest existing devoted entirely to bobbinlace. The patterns are drawings meant to be interpreted by the lacemaker. Most are highly adaptable to the plaited techniques we now associate with Venice. But more flowing designs are also present (fig 1), and seem to point the way toward tape lace development, or perhaps a side branch that was not fully developed in subsequent years. Little lace from this period survives, and it has been a challenge for modern lacemakers to interpret the more advanced patterns using modern techniques. This may not be the best approach. A new example has come to light which exactly copies one of the Le Pompe designs (fig 2), even matching the scale of the original plate. The piece is of fine linen and of a surprisingly advanced technique bearing little resemblance to modern interpretations. This paper will present a technical analysis of the piece, compared and contrasted to contemporary plaited laces, later tape laces, and modern attempts at copying such designs.

Interior Iron Curtains: United States Textile Design of the Cold War Era

Morgan Walsh — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:04:12 PDT

Starting in 1947 and lasting through the mid-sixties, the political attitudes and cultural mentality of United States Cold War crept into design, imposing codes of conduct by means of material goods and a distinct domestic aesthetic. In direct response to fear associated with the possibility of devastated nuclear landscapes, nature-inspired motifs on curtains and draperies allowed inhabitants to create a controlled situation, enclosing the interior of the home and shutting out the perils of manmade destruction outside. Likewise, seemingly abstract patterns mimic scientific images of atomic energy, atom and h-bombs, and airplanes, providing a new common visual language to help acclimate citizens in an uncertain world through decoration and the use of space. Scholarly research has focused on the influence of modern artists on mid-century textile designers, concurrently aiding in the elevation of textile design from craft to high design. Yet an examination of work by those such as Alexander Girard, Ruth Adler Schnee, and Angelo Testa, among others, shows that the Cold War culture, a largely uninvestigated area, was also deeply imbedded in contemporary design and held similar sway. As containment culture asked, American citizens collaborated with designers to construct the idyllic American domestic space, simultaneously keeping thoughts of nuclear warfare at bay and maintaining high morale. This exploration aims to present thorough research regarding the reciprocal relationship between Cold War culture and textile design, providing a richer understanding of how textiles and politics can be used in tandem to promote political action as well as the aesthetic of an era.

On the Edge: The Artwork of Linda Wallace and Dorothy Clews

Linda Wallace et al. — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:55:05 PDT

Personal engagement with social and ecological issues Two artists, geographically separated, began a loosely collaborative partnership ten years ago, out of which they quietly tilt at windmills. Refuting suppositional barriers, we create, curate, exhibit and challenge the parameters of how contemporary tapestry weaving is defined. Dorothy Clews is quietly, passionately, concerned with ecological issues. Through her tapestries she explores the evolution of something regarded as unchangeable and enduring into something fragile and mutable. Her art work references the slow erosion of the belief that interactions between humanity, the environment and ecology will remain stable and continue to support life, as we know it today. My own art work engages ideologically with those on the perimeter of the societal mainstream and questions the complexities presented by imbedded Eurocentric attitudes to infertility, mortality/immortality, and shifting perceptions of time and beauty. Working in several, related media, all my work is created with small, obsessively repetitive hand movements, making time and the investiture of hours of my life, as evidenced by my mark making, components underscoring the concepts While we each have our own focus, our techniques at times mirror one another. For example, by intentionally allowing their precious, handmade textiles to decay in the earth, to then remove, conserve and re-present them as valued objects, by devoting hours to contemplative weaving and stitching, the artists engage both the conceptual edges of control, creation, reclamation and beauty, and contemporary valuation of time.

The Twenty-first Century Voices of the Ashanti Adinkra and Kente Cloths of Ghana

Carol Ventura — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:41:05 PDT

Craft production and use are continually adapting to meet the needs of consumers and the market in order to survive. The Adinkra and Kente cloths of Ghana are no exception, having maintained their visibility and viability by addressing changing and challenging economic and political realities. Fabric strips are sewn together to produce rectangular Adinkra and Kente cloths that are wrapped around human bodies in styles determined by gender and rank. These cloths are not only beautiful, but communicate as well. Old and new symbols representing proverbs, beliefs, and politics are woven into Kente and printed onto Adinkra cloths. Commemorative fabrics are produced to mark special occasions. Adinkra means "good bye," and was only worn during funerals, but today is seen elsewhere and communicates much more. Adinkra and Kente cloths are also metaphors for the Ashanti, who join together to form their extended family, ethnic group, religious community, and nation. Today many types of Adinkra and Kente cloths are produced to satisfy the demand for less expensive products. Adinkra and Kente patterns and colors are also found on inexpensive industrially produced cloth used to produce men's and women's western styled clothing. Patterns and colors that were at one time restricted to the Asantehene and his family are now available for all in a variety of media. This research (done in Ghana in 2008 and 2009) will look at Ashanti Kente and Adinkra production adaptation and the political messages communicated by color combinations, symbols, and how the cloths are worn.

Marie Watt's Forget-me-not: Stitched in Wool, a More Human War Memorial

Rebecca Head Trautmann — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:33:11 PDT

In large wall tapestries, towering blanket stacks, small stitched samplers, and complex installations, Marie Watt explores the personal and collective memories embodied in wool blankets. The artist employs old blankets that are worn with use, faded in color, and stretched out of shape to evoke memories of the many ways blankets comfort and protect us from birth until death. Forget-Me-Not: Mothers and Sons (2008) is an installation piece conceived in response to Watt's dissatisfaction with media coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the young lives lost in combat. Desiring to personalize and humanize the stories of soldiers killed in the wars, she created a series of small, hand-stitched memorial portraits. In the installation, the cameo-like portraits hang from a web made from reclaimed wool blankets that surrounds and envelopes the viewer. An accompanying, more abstract piece titled Blossom, comprised of hundreds of handmade fabric blooms and a large basalt stone, memorializes the civilian lives lost in the wars. This paper examines Watt's use of "reclaimed" wool blankets to create a very different kind of war memorial, one that employs color, texture, and story to stir memory and emotion, that builds a sense of community and creates an intimate space for contemplation and remembrance. Watt draws inspiration from Joseph Beuys's concept of social sculpture, his interest in the creative potential of all people, and his belief that art can and should have a role in shaping society and the world.

The Reluctant Reformer: May Morris’ United States Lecture Tour of 1909-1910

Natasha Thoreson — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:30:01 PDT

Known in America both as the daughter of beloved British Arts and Crafts leader William Morris and as the talented designer and embroiderer of Morris & Company's sensational Fruit Garden portieres, May Morris arrived in New York in October 1909 to begin a five-month lecture tour of the United States. Bombarded by questions from an excited press relating to her work and the Arts and Crafts movement, Morris was caught off-guard by questions on a topic she did not expect: her thoughts on America's burgeoning women's rights movement. As a woman confidently treading new ground in the textile arts, Morris was expected to use her tour as a platform to advocate for both her art and her gender. Though initially hesitant to engage in American politics, May Morris emerged an outspoken advocate for trade unions and guilds for female textile artists. However, she also emerged a bitter enemy of those she felt limited women's rights to fair wages and creative work, including American Arts and Crafts leader Gustav Stickley. This presentation will offer new scholarship about May Morris' American lecture tour and discuss her ideas on the state of female textile artists in the challenging political environment of early twentieth century America. By attending suffrage rallies in New York City, living at Hull House for a month in Chicago, and dazzling women's clubs and handicraft guilds everywhere in between, Morris used her celebrity to build trans-Atlantic camaraderie between women in the arts during this exciting time of activism and awakening.

The Politics of Textile Entrepreneurship Loja Saarinen and Her Weaving Studio in the Cranbrook Art Community

Leena Svinhufvud — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:23:47 PDT

In 1925 the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (1873¨-1950) was commissioned to design the campus for Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (USA). The patrons were the newspaper magnate George Gough Booth and his wife Ellen Scripps Booth, by then also well known patrons of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Eliel Saarinen moved to Cranbrook and all of his family was deeply commited to this project. Educated originally in sculpture, Loja Saarinen (1879-1968), the wife of Eliel, founded in 1928 the Studio Loja Saarinen to produce textiles for Cranbrook buildings. This weaving studio soon merged its activities into the programme of the Cranbrook Academy of Art (est. 1932) and Loja Saarinen headed the weaving department until 1942. Loja Saarinen has later been acknowledged as pioneering American textile artist. Her role in the Cranbrook project, however, remains ambiguous. This paper will look at her work as entrepreneurship and examine the Cranbrook community in a wider economic and social historical context. The concept of bourgeois modernity has been used to describe the complex networks of industrialists and artists that produced the framework for emerging modern architecture and design in Europe in the early 20th century. Using this concept, I will examine Loja Saarinen as an economic actor and discuss the meanings of her studio in the Cranbrook project. This paper relates to my current research project on hand weaving as medium for woman designers. My academic framework is in art history, design history, economic and social history and gender studies.

Knitting as Scholarship

Susan M. Strawn — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:15:08 PDT

Knitting is ubiquitous, an unremarkable part of everyday life that tends to fade into the historical background. Unfortunately, the craft of knitting has also suffered from sad associations with impoverishment and from its reputation as frivolous, Victorian-era "women's work." Women have in fact written much of their personal and social history in textiles, including knitting. Making textiles is "the key to the inner story of the existence of women," wrote textile scholar Candace Wheeler. The scholarly study of certain hand-produced textiles?especially quilting and weaving?was overlooked in the past. Such study has now been acknowledged as a valuable way to understand cross-cultural artistic, social, and historical experiences, for women in particular. Knitting, however, remains largely neglected by scholars and curators despite the extraordinary popular interest shown within contemporary society. Therefore, a review of literature was conducted, which revealed the contributions of a relatively small but significant number of scholarly works focused on knitting. In this paper for the panel, I present an overview of refereed publications, dissertations, and exhibitions to date. In addition, I summarize the range of disciplines for which knitting has proven a valuable topic of study and elaborate on the specific contributions to these disciplines. Knitting may follow the same trajectory as quilting, which in the past was overlooked and undervalued and now is appreciated in collections, exhibitions, and a designated study center. Knitting offers a similar potential for valuable contributions to future research, scholarship, collections, and exhibitions.

Blinded by the Veil

Laura Stemp-Morlock — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:12:42 PDT

This paper considers how the intersection of religious ideology, gender, culture and history affect the role Muslim women in QuÈbec navigate for themselves in a society suspicious of veiling. QuÈbec's proposed niqab ban is the latest in a series of events spotlighting the friction between the province's avowed secular policy and its residents for whom religion is not a private practice. When Muslim women wear their veils in public, many QuÈbecois perceive this as a hostile practice directly confronting their "secular values" of equality and liberty, and a symbol of repressive social values and structures. While this is a common debate throughout the Western world, QuÈbec has a unique history underwriting these events. Les QuÈbecois are a minority in the predominantly Anglophone Canada, who are fiercely proud and protective of their culture and language. This heritage is older than the nation itself, and these rights were enshrined when Britain gained control of New France. This past is very much present in the lives of modern QuÈbecois, and is further influenced by the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s (in which QuÈbec overthrew centuries of Catholic hegemony in favour of a secular state). Canada's official federal policy of multiculturalism is a direct response to Francophone language and culture. But does QuÈbec's hostility toward public displays of Islam, and its associated oppressive religious rule, accurately reflect these Muslim women's lived experiences? And do these women understand the Francophone cultural context in which they live? Or, are both sides blinded by the veil?

The Parenthetical Notation Method for Recording Yarn Structure

Jeffrey C. Splitstoser — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:04:38 PDT

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 six two-ply yarns, each Z-spun-S-plied, the resulting yarn being doubled and twisted S.) Using a depictive (diagrammatic) method of recording structure (Image 4), albeit unambiguous, nonetheless proved difficult-to-impossible to reproduce as text on a printed page (i.e., it must be treated as an image). As an alternative to these unsatisfactory methods, I developed a new technique called parenthetical notation, which can describe any yarn, however complex, in a way that is both intuitive and flexible. Using parenthetical notation, the yarn in Images 2 and 3, for instance, is described as S(2z(12z+6S(2z))). Among its other practical benefits, parenthetical notation makes it easy for researchers to tabulate yarn structures so they can be sorted and statistically analyzed. In this talk, aside from presenting a brief history of yarnstructure notation, using examples from my research, I will demonstrate how parenthetical notation works so people can apply it to their own projects.

Knitting the News and other Stories

Adrienne Sloane — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:01:42 PDT

Knitting shapes have long been defined by the human form. By moving the context of knitting from clothing geometry to sculpture, knitting becomes a medium with a link to a rich and complex fiber tradition that has the power of history behind it. Aspiring to dissolve the boundaries between craft, art and politics, I knit to rejoin the frayed and unraveled places I see around me. As I work, I am responding viscerally to the constant assault of the unsettling news that pours out of the radio in my studio. To protest recent wars, I have often worked with body and flag imagery. My most recent work A House Divided responds to the national political logjam and was knit in summer of 2011. This is a disassembled and knotted flag, an image of which I will be sending to all members of Congress as a protest of current partisan politics. Marrying a background in anthropology with a passion for textiles I have also consulted on (and been inspired by) knitting projects in Bolivia and Peru where the local economics are entwined with political realities. While the structure of my work is knit, I use whatever tool suits the material to achieve desired effects. This includes knitting machines, needles or even a jig for heavier gauge wire work. I am interested in technical excellence and all my work is knit to shape.

Political Voices of Three Left Coast Artists: Gyongy Laky, Linda Gass, Linda MacDonald

Barbara Shapiro — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:55:17 PDT

Northern Californian has a long history of protest and political involvement. For Linda Gass, Gyongy Laky and Linda MacDonald the passion they bring to political issues is reflected in their artwork and the paths their lives have followed. Based on personal interviews and research, this paper will shed light on their views and the artistic means used to express them. Each of these artists is engaged in political activism in her own way. In each case we are drawn in by the form, beauty or humor of the textiles. Closer inspection makes us think deeply about significant political issues. Linda Gass is a silk painter and quilter who thinks globally and acts locally. She has studied where the water used in her Silicon Valley neighborhood comes from, where it is treated, and where garbage and waste go. The delicacy of her medium belies the gravity of water policies she illustrates. Her artwork has become the banner for her political activism. Gyongy Laky's sculptural assemblages of field cuttings with textile antecedents lament the misuse of natural resources. Her legacy at UC Davis Textiles Dept attests to her commitment. Recent work has a strong anti-war message. Words take on a deeper meaning when modeled by Laky's deft hands. Forest conservation issues have long been subject of Linda Mac Donald's painted wholecloth quilts. Humorous imagery is her vehicle for serious content. Her ongoing engagement with "big lumber" is documented in her art. For all three artists, political fever informs their life and art.

Textiles' Treasure from Jericho Cave 38 in the Qarantal Cliff Compared to other Early Medieval Sites in Israel

Orit Shamir et al. — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:46:05 PDT

768 textile fragments were discovered at a cave near Jericho, Israel. They display a remarkable variety of materials (silk, cotton, linen, wool and goat-hair) and techniques suggesting their diverse geographical origins. Most significant are the silk fragments made in various techniques, some of them requiring sophisticated looms, and a large group of textiles with S-spun linen warps and Z-spun cotton wefts which is unique to the site. Most of these fragments were parts of clothing (e.g. trousers, tunics, coifs). Others could be recognized as bags, wrappers and strips for tying. Why was such a large quantity of used textiles stored in the cave? It can be assumed that the people who stored them there were rag collectors or merchants who collected them for the paper industry which was introduced by the Arabs from China through Central Asia in the eighth century CE and became popular in the region using mainly textiles as its raw material. Because of the unrest due to the frequent fighting between the local population and the various conquerors who invaded the area in the tenth-thirteen centuries, they couldn't return back to the cave to take the textiles with them. This political situation enabled us to discover these finds at the cave.

Anticipating the Silk Road; Some Thoughts on the Wool-Murex Connection in Tyre

Jane Schneider — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:33:15 PDT

Taking a lead from John Murra's well-known 1950s argument for the importance of textiles to Inka rulers' power, wealth, and capacity for expansion, this essay considers the possible role of "textile rivalries" among the urban centers of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean as they maneuvered for position in a "world system" of communication and exchange. A brief comparative overview suggests several variables that elevate a cloth tradition to exceptional reputation and prestige -- the kind and quality of fiber, labor-intensive refinements in spinning and weaving, the range and saturation of colors, the iconography and aesthetics of pre- and postloom decoration. Such an overview further reveals a challenge, frequently encountered and acknowledged in many textile traditions: how to produce a lightweight (easily transportable) fabric in colors that consistently attract the eye (above all, shades of red). This challenge will be used to frame a reflection on the emergent power of Tyre, a precocious Phoenician trading city where exotic raw materials, skilled labor, and big ideas came together in what must have been a smashing textile for its time: fine woolen cloth dyed with the "royal purple" of the murex shellfish.

The Politics of Textiles Used in African American Slave Clothing

Eulanda A. Sanders — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:27:23 PDT

Onasburg, homespun, and linsey-woolsey (Warner & Parker, 1990), broadcloth and Negro cloth (Hunt & Sibley, 1994; Warner & Parker, 1990; Williams & Centrallo, 1990) and kersey (Hunt, 1996) are typical textiles used to create the clothing worn by slaves and are often described in narratives written by African American slaves. The stories of African American slaves are a wealth of information on the lives of all individuals living in chattel environments, but particularly slaves who were usually not photographed. Since textiles are used to create inherently personal items, they are often described in narratives to help the reader's understand the complexity of the narrator's life. The guiding question for this research is whether there is an historical and/or political link between the production of these textiles for slave uniforms and the production of natural fiber crops in the United States through the use of slaves as labor? In this paper the researcher will provide an overview of typical fibers and fabrics used to create slave clothing based on information gained from published African American female slave narratives and a review of literature. In the presentation, the researcher will also compare textile information to records of crop production in the south eastern region of the United States between 1830 - 1865 to determine if and what textiles were produced specifically for slave clothing. The presentation will also include how textiles produced for slave clothing represent the slave's position in society prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. Hunt, P. (1996). Osnaburg overalls, calico frocks and homespun suits: The use of 19th century Georgia newspaper notices to research slave clothing and textiles.

Sleeping Amongst Heroes: Copperplate-printed Bed Furniture in the "Washington and American Independance [sic] 1776; the Apotheosis of Franklin” Pattern

Whitney A. J. Robertson — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:18:01 PDT

The proposed paper will investigate the history and iconography of copperplate-printed bed furniture in a pattern known as "Washington and American Independance (sic) 1776: The Apotheosis of Franklin" or "The Apotheosis of Franklin and Washington," produced in England for the American market c. 1795. The pattern features two of America's founding fathers surrounded by representations of liberty and various aspects of the American Revolution. After a brief overview of the development of cotton "washing furnitures" and the copperplate-printing technique, the paper will then look critically at the pattern's iconography in the context of contemporary prints and copperplates featuring revolutionary and patriotic themes. Bed furnitures made from this pattern were ubiquitous-- or remarkable-- enough that many extant pieces are present in the collections of museums ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to smaller organizations like Anderson House and Dumbarton House in Washington, DC. The paper will conclude by using provenance records and written materials to approach questions about the use and ownership of these hangings. Who owned these textiles, and where did they live? What kinds of chambers were they used to decorate? What sort of people fell asleep surrounded by images of America's most celebrated heroes, or ushered their guests into rooms adorned with the symbols of American liberty? By analyzing these pieces from origin to end use, this paper aims to develop a deeper idea of how domestic textiles contributed to the political environment of everyday life in the fledgling American republic.

Felt Space: Responsive Textiles, Fabric Dwellings and Precarious Housing

Kirsty Robertson — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:12:43 PDT

Recently, a number of architects and designers working with smart textiles and responsive architecture, have created projects that re-imagine architectural and domesticate space as deeply and emotionally imbricated in the lives of its inhabitants and occupants. These projects suggest an ambient felt space that has untapped possibility for creating communities of sentiment that might in turn offer a radical potential for rethinking both space and connection. In each case, works draw on new and old technologies, and also on an etymology of networking built directly into the language of textiles - the material, the interwoven, the connective, the tissue. From the fleece jacket/building Sweaterlodge, (the recent Canadian entry to the Venice Biennale of Architecture), to several knitted houses, and a room of breathing pillows, artists, architects and designers have begun to ask how tactile space might encourage new modes of thought and being, and might lead to radical forms of community building. My argument, however, takes a slightly different path, and analyzes such structures in their very materiality, connecting them to other forms of fabric dwellings - tents, bivouacs, emergency shelters - that are often associated with precarity, exile, and loss of community. Moving from refugee camps and housing shelters created by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, to high tech laboratories and art exhibitions, this paper analyzes both the utopian and dystopian extremes of fabric dwellings, suggesting that in textiles can be found a metaphor for the precarity of home in the twenty-first century.

The Influence of Tribal Conflict, the Great Game, and Trade on Qaraqalpaq Costume

David Richardson — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:07:22 PDT

Formed as a small confederation of Turkic tribes on the middle Syr Darya in the mid-sixteenth century, the Qaraqalpaqs continually sought defensive alliances with the more powerful sedentary states and nomadic hordes that surrounded them, even attempting to gain the protection of Imperial Russia by swearing allegiance to the Empress in 1743. As the Qazaqs of the Junior Horde steadily forced them south into their present homeland in the Aral Delta they increasingly came under the domination of the Khivan Uzbeks. The material culture of the Qaraqalpaqs was not only changed by the cultural influence of the Khivans but came close to annihilation as a result of increasingly repressive taxation. It was rescued thanks to the Russians, who began their military advance into Turkestan in the mid-nineteenth century culminating in the conquest of the remote Khanate of Khiva in 1873. The majority of Qaraqalpaqs finally became citizens of Russian Turkestan. Russia's newly emerging textile industry was quick to exploit its newly-opened colonial markets. As the prosperity of the Qaraqalpaqs began to improve they not only gained exposure to Khivan semi-silk ikat, pure silk sashes, polished alacha and the culture of farmed cotton, but also had access to Russian woollen broadcloth, inexpensive printed chintz and woollen shawls. Over time they began to incorporate these new textiles into their costume. At first the changes were modest but by the start of the twentieth century the new textiles had inspired stunningly new decorative embroidery designs and dramatic new fashions.

The Kanga, A Cloth That Reveals- Co-production of Culture in Africa and the Indian Ocean Region

Phyllis Ressler — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:35:50 PDT

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 machine printed cloth, inexpensive and worn for daily use, it continues to carry a high degree of value across diverse societies far beyond the east African coast where it is thought to have originated. Its historical connections within and beyond the African continent present a view of cultural co-production and exchange not often acknowledged in this region. Background materials for the research were drawn from a multi-lingual literature review and more than 50 interviews which have been collected over a two year period, by the principle researcher in collaboration with The National Museums of Kenya, Department of Cultural Heritage team of Anthropologists. This research contributes to a small but scholarly collection of data on the Kanga, filling a gap in the study of African textiles.

Towards a Proactive Outreach Political Strings: Tapestry Seen and Unseen

Linda Rees — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:28:16 PDT

This paper focuses on two factors that directly affect visibility in the field of tapestry: instruction and analytical dialog in university programs and visibility in art exhibitions and publications. A casual debate in 1998 lead me to the disturbing conclusion that contemporary tapestry in America had few documented critical reviews of trends in our recent history or about the artists producing tapestries in the last half of the 20th century. It was not the first time I had wished for more commentary regarding major developments shaping our direction. However, this time I had a means to contribute my part by chronicling the prolific career of Muriel Nezhnie Helfman, who chose challenging topics and expressive imagery, especially her "Images of the Holocaust" series. Through documenting Nezhnie's contributions, and getting the book, NEZHNIE: Weaver and Innovative Artist into print, I gained a greater overview of the problems the medium faces. The decreasing number of textile programs at universities that offer tapestry instruction also reduces the potential for academic research about the contemporary field. Scanty coverage in weaving journals, with only occasional survey articles, has not helped either. Being editor of an international tapestry newsletter for 6 years provided me one means to encourage communication about our ongoing progression in lieu of expecting a diminishing academic base to have resources for the task. Awareness of these underlying reasons for taking a proactive approach in promoting and recording contemporary tapestry's developments can create the visibility the medium deserves.

Liturgical Vestments for Cathedrals During the French Concordat Period (1801-1905) A Political Strategy

Maria Anne Privat Savigny — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:01:53 PDT

After the Concordat of 1801, the French Church has a new status: the Cult Administration has been founded and becomes a powerful mean for controlling and financing religious art projects as well as a strong political implement for each political regime during the 19th century. We propose to study the impact of this policy on the orders and financing of pontifical vestments for bishops when they celebrate the Mass in their cathedral. Pontifical vestments are at the center of the Mass celebration as a symbol of the agreement existing between the State and the Church. This financing policy has been done by all the political regimes in the French 19th century through the Cult Administration and also through the prince personal "liste civile", especially during the Monarchie de Juillet and the Second Empire. We propose to demonstrate how and why the pontifical vestments for cathedrals became an efficient and strategic politic mean.

From Feed Sack to Clothes Rack: The Use of Commodity Textile Bags in American Households from 1890 – 1960

Margaret Powell — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:54:36 PDT

Women of the World War II home front adjusted to war related fabric shortages and rationing through the use of ingenious alternatives. While yard goods were subject to war rationing, and ready to wear garments were redesigned to use less fabric, a segment of the American population took advantage of another option. These families continued to create a number of attractive garments and household items throughout the war from a type of cotton percale which was available for free and classified as an unrestricted industrial good. The cotton commodity bag or cotton feed sack, gained popularity as an alternative to traditional yard goods throughout rural communities. This tradition began at the turn of the 20th century and continued to grow with the support of grain manufacturers and the Department of Agriculture, which published a number of pattern booklets designed specifically for commodity bags. Three 100 lbs sacks of grain could make an average sized adult dress and packaging companies hired notable fabric designers from Europe and New York City to create colorful dress prints for their cotton packaging. This tradition continued into the 1960s, bolstered by the annual industry sponsored Cotton Bag Sewing Queen contest. The contest was held at state fairs nationwide throughout the 1950s and 1960s to maintain consumer interest in the cotton bag at a time when the paper commodity bag began to grow in popularity with manufacturers.

Ancient Emblems, Modern Cuts: Weaving and the State in Southeastern Indonesia

Ian Pollock — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:44:34 PDT

Since antiquity, the peoples of the modern state of Indonesia have used textiles to communicate identity. Lines of male and female descent, clan and caste, allegiance to kingdoms both old and new, religion and spiritual accomplishment, and many other identifying characteristics are encoded into the hundreds of discrete textile traditions that continue to thrive across the archipelago. For the last fifteen years, the Indonesian state has actively engaged with traditional textile culture in ways that co-opt and alter these systems of meaning. The evolving relationship between traditional weavers and the state offers a window onto a nation struggling to reconcile its past with its future. In 1997, the government of the southeastern province of Nusa Tenggara Timur ordered government employees to purchase uniforms made from local traditional cloth. In a concurrent move, the Ministry of Industry formed weaving cooperatives in villages around the region, and encouraged them to mass-produce versions of local textiles using simplified motifs and time-saving chemical dyes. The new policies set in motion a slow, grinding battle over the meaning of textiles, and the identities of the people who weave and wear them. This paper will address the social, economic, and spiritual issues surrounding this unique intersection of textiles and politics: are traditional textiles commodities, or sacred heirlooms? Are the women who weave them skilled artisans, or priestesses? What is the proper relationship between the state and the older social systems expressed in textile culture? What is the meaning of "traditional" textiles produced in factories in Java, or made into Western-style garments?

History Under Foot: Politics, Patriotism, and the “Liberty Rug”

Amy Poff — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:37:29 PDT

In January 1918 President Woodrow Wilson was given a Karnak Wilton carpet woven by the Shuttleworth Brothers Company of Amsterdam, New York, and inspired in part by the Statue of Liberty lighting ceremony he officiated in 1916. Featuring at its center the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by symbols of America's past and present, the rug remained at the White House throughout Wilson's presidency. Presented shortly after America's entrance into World War I and just weeks after Wilson's now-famous "Fourteen Points" speech, this "Liberty Rug" provided a symbolic narrative of the triumph of American progress while serving as physical proof of the country's manufacturing prowess. More than just a chronicle of history, however, the Liberty Rug was an emblem of the period's cultural embrace of order and industry, as well as the fervent patriotism associated with Progressive-era political notions of expanding American democracy. This presentation will discuss the Karnak Liberty Rug's manufacture and primary motifs as they relate to issues of national identity, and political and industrial power in America during the war. A brief introduction will address the history of American carpet manufacture and the role of the Shuttleworth Brothers Company in particular. In addition, the rug will be situated within the broader history Western of carpet-making and politics. Finally, I will discuss the relatively shortlived popularity of the rug, and what that may suggest about America's changing politics. Key research sources include marketing materials, period news and popular accounts, and literary references.

Fallen Soldiers

Vita Plume — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:28:55 PDT

My work confronts the aftermath of war. In my woven and dyed pieces, I reflect upon the impact of war on my ÈmigrÈ Latvian household imbued with the memories of the refugee survivors. My work addresses the reality of living in Canada, within a family and a culture divided by the Iron Curtain. My use of visual icons to investigate the dislocation, historical context, personal fear, and cultural mythology reveals that the perception of my family was as much a product of the immigrant imagination as it was the experience of the Cold War. I moved to the United States in the weeks before Sept. 11, 2001. Now living in a country fighting two wars, both in the name of democracy (Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom), the psychological legacy of my own family's experience produced discomfort and anxiety. My examination and reflections on these wars led me to produce a textile installation displaying woven portraits of the eyes of the fallen soldiers. To date I have woven all 157 Canadian solders who have died in Afghanistan and 160 US soldiers, just 2.7% of the over 6,000 who have died in both wars. The installation serves as a space of reflection, provoking a confrontation of the incongruities between the messianic mythology of war and its devastating personal repercussions.

Deceptive Textiles: Lister’s Velvet Loom, Resilitex, Decoys for WW II, Britain

Barbara Setsu Pickett et al. — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:17:36 PDT

Here are two extraordinary tales where ingenuity and knowledge of velvet technology served the military defense of England. Richard John Humphries of the Humphries Weaving Company is renown for his expertise on fine silk production for royal regalia and restorations. He told me how he acquired his lathe-turned, teak velvet bobbins. He had salvaged his velvetloom and velvet wire collection from the closure of the Warners mill in 1971. However, he had no velvet bobbins. One day a person from the War Department approached him with the theory that a cloth could shield the fuselages of aircraft and prevent heat-seeking missiles from locking onto them. The woven fabric would have polyester thread crossed with nickel-plated copper wire. First Richard tried warping with the polyester and inserting copper wire. However, the specifications were extremely exacting and the slight unevenness of the beat exceeded the tolerance level. In a stroke of genius, he switched, wound the wire on made-to-order bobbins, polyester for weft. Success, he wove these anti-radar shields for helicopters for years. Eugene Nicholson, former Keeper of Industrial Technology at the Bradford Industrial Museum, related that the Lister's Manningham Mills grew to prominence with the advent of its face-to-face velvet powerlooms. In WWII it developed a top-secret cloth crucial to Patton's decoy army. Listers, the King of Plush, modified its velvet technology, produced a double pile fabric that could be coated with rubber and inflated into 3-D forms. From aerial surveillance these balloons would appear to be military trucks and tanks.

An Andean Colonial Woman’s Mantle: the New World and its Global Networks.

Elena Phipps — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:07:08 PDT

A Colonial Andean tapestry in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its central field filled with European-style scrolling designs, a central motif attributed to a misunderstood Asian phoenix or dragons, border imagery that combines Old Testament biblical references and Andean women wearing their traditional llicllas (shoulder mantles) and acsus (wrapped dresses) and Renaissance grotesque creatures exuding from the corners, has it all. The intersecting meanings between the religious, cultural, social and political elements of a global world that is linked through trade and exchange in the 16th- 18th centuries is manifest in the design and technique of this unique and engaging tapestry. Made by Andean weavers, following traditions of the region, woven with native camelid-hair yarns, in a tapestry technique that extends back to the Inca era, it draws from influences of European concepts of history, functionality and narrative, yet distinctly originating in the New World. This paper will explore the interwoven elements of culture and identity through an examination in detail, of this and related Colonial Andean textiles.

Identity, Innovation and Textile Exchange Practices at the Paracas Necropolis, 2000 BP

Ann H. Peters — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:53:59 PDT

Elayne Zorn's detailed ethnographic research demonstrated interrelationships between the organization of textile production, exchange relationships within and beyond Andean communities, persistence and innovation in style, and the meanings ascribed to textile-based iconography. We seek to demonstrate that all these issues can - and should - be addressed in the analysis of textile assemblages from documented archaeological contexts in the southern Central Andes, revealing evidence for complex and historically dynamic socio-political relationships. The Paracas Necropolis cemetery, approximately 150BC-AD200, is the largest set of relatively well-preserved and well-recorded burials documenting early complex society on the desert coast of the Central Andes, one of the few regions of the world preserving evidence of textile history and its social contexts. In the Necropolis sectors, conical mortuary bundles constructed around each buried individual incorporate layers of large cotton plain-weaves, fine garments elaborately embroidered in polychrome camelid hair, and regalia created with diverse textile structures, product of one to six or more post-mortem rituals. Based on the physical evidence, we model production processes of the textile artifacts and their use to construct the mortuary bundles, transforming the recently deceased into an ancestral figure. Distinctions in technique and style permit us to construct style groups that can be traced among different burials, to consider the cemetery as the residue of practices that mobilized social networks and changing relationships of power among polities in the surrounding region. While our analysis includes all artifacts in each Paracas Necropolis assemblage, textiles appear consistently as the principal material agent of social significance.

“By your exertions conjointly with ours”: British printed cottons in Brazil, 1827-1841

Sarah B. Parks — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:42:27 PDT

Beginning with the arrival of Portuguese colonists in 1500, Brazil attracted the attention of traders throughout the Atlantic world. England's close commercial and political ties with Portugal, and later with Brazil itself, allowed British merchants to dominate trade with the South American state. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the production of printed cottons in Britain had expanded thanks to technical and chemical innovations. Simultaneously, the new nation of Brazil developed trade policies favoring British goods, including desirable printed textiles. In 1834, just twelve years after declaring independence from Portugal, Brazil became the single largest market for English printed cottons. A letter-book known as the Potiers Diary presents an invaluable lens on the execution of the textile trade with Britain during the first decades of Brazil's independence: It records the correspondence sent from five British merchant firms operating in three Brazilian port cities between 1827 and 1841. The letters capture market reactions to specific prints, as well prices and import duties. Conflicts within Brazil, competition among importers, and evolving trade regulations shaped the conduct of business among these traders. Cotton goods, in particular, provided a medium through which British merchants, forbidden from direct participation in the slave trade, could profit from the importation of Africans to Brazil?a trade that continued until 1856. This paper will explore how these merchants negotiated local and trans-Atlantic politics in the trade in British printed cotton to Brazil during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, through the lens of their correspondence.

Challenging the Politics of Creating Art in the 21st Century: An Artist/Educator's Perspective

Claire Campbell Park — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:35:04 PDT

The politics of creating art pertains to assumptions relating to a given cultural sphere or theory that are concerned with power and status in society. From the perspective of an artist and educator, I will question prevalent assumptions in the contemporary culture of making and teaching art, and present alternative approaches inspired by textile artists from diverse cultures. What makes art "strong" - must we assume attitudes and mediums traditionally in the male domain? Are art students encouraged to "fit in" to the current scene, as opposed to developing their own creative integrity? Does "pushing the envelope" necessarily mean "beyond sacred"? What are the pressures to create art quickly? Is craftsmanship of any significance in contemporary art? Is there an expectation to create for and market to elites only? Examples of work and creative philosophies from both traditional and contemporary textile artists will be included, such as; D Y Begay, Itchiku Kubota, James Bassler, Moroccan Berbers, Mary Babcock and myself.

Dahomey Appliqués and the Politics of Production

Holly Paquette — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:24:44 PDT

The graduate course entitled Ethnic, Dress, and Textiles offered in Fall 2011 at the University of Rhode Island was organized around the Textile Society of America's 2012 Symposium theme: Textiles and Politics. One of the goals of the course was to become active participants in our field by learning how to become independent researchers and developing the skills to present this information to a wider audience. Following this concept and the goal of the class, I centered my research on the political significance of West African appliquÈ wall hangings originating in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Politics surrounding West African appliquÈs can be found throughout its timeline starting with its origins and ending with its tourist trade. The West African tourist trade produces these textiles in a wider social circle generating questions of what is "authentic" and who owns the rights to the traditional designs of a Dahomey appliquÈ cloth. The research presented in this paper closely examines the political motive that encompasses the Dahomey appliquÈ tourist trade and its effects.

The Political Handkerchief, A Study of Politics and Semiotics in Textiles

Emma Osbourn — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:18:09 PDT

Over many thousands of years there have been political, social meanings woven into the very fabric of cloth. Fabric is politically and semiotically charged even before it has any further imagery added to it. With the production of cheaper cotton and mass printing techniques in the eighteenth century the handkerchief, kerchief or bandana become the perfect vehicle for political messages, signifying complicity or resistance to political ideologies. I will trace the rise of the use of propaganda handkerchiefs from political protest such as Berthold's Political Handkerchief, which was a British working class newspaper that was printed onto cotton in 1831 to avoid a tax on paper, to American examples, which exist from the early 19th century. I will be examining examples of handkerchiefs which are expressions of nationalistic ideologies, such as commemorative handkerchiefs from the Boer and First World Wars, these reinforced the propaganda messages of the ruling classes, messages of duty, aimed at both soldiers (men) and women. I will be looking at World War 2 Jacqmar scarves, assessing both agitation and integration propaganda within these contexts; following through to the use of handkerchiefs in American Political campaigns. Using the work of the Structuralists - Barthes, Baudrillard, LÈvi- Strauss as well as Gramsci and Marx, I will examining the historical relationship between cloth, propaganda and semiotics, and using these to explore the notions of the handkerchief as a complex form of political communication; to look at these ideas not as mutually inclusive or exclusive but to explore their shades of complexity.

The Mamluk Kaaba Curtain in the Bursa Grand Mosque

Sumiyo Okumura — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:08:09 PDT

A Kaaba curtain is a door curtain which covers the door of the holy Kaaba, the most sacred site of Islam in Mecca. Upon the occasion of the conquest of Egypt and Hejaz by Sultan Selim I in 1517, Selim I donated a Kaaba door curtain to the Bursa Grand Mosque, one of the five most important mosques in the Islamic World. This Mamluk curtain is very different from Ottoman Kaaba curtains in both its shape and design motifs. It is noticeable that five fragments, including a piece of inscription, hang down from the upper border. We see a similar shape in the piece of the Mamluk curtain in the Topkapı Palace Museum Collection. Although the Mamluk Kaaba curtain is quite worn, it is decorated with beautiful Dival embroideries, using white and yellow gold metallic threads. Blazons of the Dawadar are visible within the embroidery. We also examine and compare six Mamluk textiles and one Mamluk carpet in the Washington Textile Museum collection, which also bear Mamluk blazons. With the reading of the inscription, this paper will bring to light the Kaaba door curtain in the Bursa Grand Mosque, and consider the background of Mamluk-Ottoman political relations. We will discuss the blazon of the Dawadar and how its holders' importance and enormous power are reflected in textiles. The paper will also trace the origin of the Dival embroideries.

The Shoso-in Textiles of the Era of Emperor Shomu

Atsuhiko Ogata — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:57:20 PDT

The textile collection of the Shoso-in, the treasure house in Nara, Japan represents the history of the textiles of the Nara Period (8th century A.D.) It has been stored under the auspices of the Imperial Household Agency in the special facility since the 8th century, when the collection was first organized. The textiles in the collection provide a full picture of Japanese textiles of the period, and come from several sources. These include the textiles from the daily life of Emperor Shomu (reigned 724-749) donated by the Empress Komyo after his death, the textiles used for the ceremony of the great Todai-ji Buddhist temple and the clothes of artisans working in the Todai-ji temple, among others. Owing to the preservation and repair of the Shoso-in textiles over the past hundred years since the Meiji era (19th century) until today, the textile collection counts over 100,000 items. This is one of the most important repositories of eighth century oriental textiles that have been preserved worldwide. The paper will present the history of the Imperial textile collection, and focus on several of the most important examples.