Textile Society of America
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Date of this Version
2024
Document Type
Presentation
Citation
Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium
Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles, November 12-17, 2024, a virtual event
See also Marcelynbennettcarpenter.com
Abstract
In my Handwoven Drawings series, I developed an innovative method that unifies drawing and weaving. I draw and paint on the surface of soft wood, hand cut the wood into thin strips, and then weave the painted strips back together on a floor loom. The Handwoven Drawings teeter between drawing and textile and beg categorization. The drawing on wood could be thought of as traditional cartoons that instead of guiding a tapestry become the textile itself. The horizontal cuts across the wood articulate lines of weft undulating across the work creating a new sensibility within a woven structure and a drawing. The warp intersects the drawing superimposing its structure becoming three dimensional marks. I am both the drawer and the weaver collapsing the distinction of designer and maker. The textile is both hard and flexible and can withstand gravity becoming architectural at times. The process of making becomes metaphorical. There is the creation of the drawing, its destruction when it is cut up, and finally its reintegration when woven back together on the loom. A new structure emerges: a dynamic unification of drawing and thread, the Handwoven Drawings.
Included in
Art and Materials Conservation Commons, Art Practice Commons, Fashion Design Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Graphic Design Commons, Illustration Commons, Museum Studies Commons
Comments
Published by the Textiles Society of America
Copyright 2024, the author. Used by permission