Textile Practices Research Articles

Transformative Power of Stitchery: Sashiko from Cold Regions of Japan and Embroidery Work of the Nui Project

This paper seeks to reveal the transformative power of stitchery by examining textile practices in Japan and articulating how a threaded needle can be viewed as the co-agent of stitchers, infusing their materials with properties in a “processual” and relational manner that reflects the currents of their lifeworld.[1] I will contrast and compare two practices, one ancient and one modern, one responding to life’s necessities and the other simply to the act of stitching. In the ancient world, stitchery was essential for human survival, and later in rural Japan, sashiko stitchery was a medium that connected textiles with daily life, providing for functional and decorative needs. In modern Japan, the stitchery of members of the Nui Project sustains their sense of well-being, which has been observed by the facility staff as the state of “satisfaction or contentment without a goal” which will be elucidated further under the section on the Nui Project[2](Figure One). In both cases, the materials that result from the act of stitching are produced by the movement of hands, eyes, and a threaded needle on cloth. The expressions of stitchers in the two groups are very different though equally powerful in transforming their lives along with the materials they stitch. In the process, they embed cloth with threads that record their experience.

Stitching story and life together: Participatory textile making practices at a Harlem gallery

What brings a tourist from Italy, a lifelong resident of Harlem and a graduate student from a local university together? Crochet hooks, knitting needles, an assortment of green acrylic yarn and time and space for community craftivism. This case study focuses on crossing boundaries through participatory textile making, making time and space for relationship building in the changing neighbourhood of Harlem and practicing institutional stewardship as a ‘good neighbour’. The Walls-Ortiz Gallery and Center – the arts and research space of City Seminary of New York, an intercultural urban theological learning community – affords an opportunity to explore what happens when lives and stories are stitched together through participatory textile practices. Through the lenses of the EcCoWell learning neighbourhood approach and craftivism, this documentation and reflection of data from collaborative yarn bombing and community quilt-making projects over the past two years provide insights on lessons, challenges and opportunities of these community-oriented practices.

Small objects as a transmitter of telling stories of belonging and migration

My parents migrated to Australia in the late 50 s, my father and his family from The Netherlands and my mother and her family from Finland. Once here they recreated their interiors to feel like they were in their homelands. I grew up in these spaces and have inherited some of the objects that adorned them. The experience of these interiors contribute to this essay as a reflection on domestic spaces and the collection of objects within them. I respond to these objects through my art practice and surround myself with them at home because they feel like they are part of me and have helped me construct my identity as a first-generation Australian. The small objects I have collected and the stories attached to them are central to my art practice and part of my daily life. A mixture of functional and non-functional items; precious in terms of memories, they are keepsakes, souvenirs, some are whole and some just fragments. My interest is not in valuable or rare collections, the art of collecting or museological practices, but rather, creating personal memory museums that deal with the migrant experience. The objects I selected were all diminutive, often no larger than the palm of an adult’s hand because I wanted to explore the intimacy inherent in small objects. The processes and applications used in the painting and textile works, capture and amplify the significance of everyday objects in the construction of identity. Material exploration, painting, drawing and textile practices allow insightful discoveries into experiences related to migration, and narratives of belonging. To place these in a critical context, I draw upon the writing of Svetlana Boym on migrants and their connections to objects and on Susan Stewart and Gaston Bachelard on souvenirs and miniatures.

Traces of the absent: Evidence of textile production in the foothill region of jujuy, argentina (2000 AP)

Tropical environments present a constant challenge for archaeological research: the disappearance of hundreds of materials due to poor conditions for their preservation. In this case, the best examples are those materials connected to textile practices. Fibers of different origins are not expected to survive in such adverse conditions, since by their organic nature they are degradable. Nevertheless, differents elements implicated in the chaîne opératoire of production and the contexts in which they were used, can provide evidence that demonstrates the existence of the seemingly absent, and advance the knowledge of the technical aspects of this class of materials. Here, we present the findings of textile imprints in the valley regions of San Francisco (2000 BP) and analyze the implements that were used for their production, as well as ceramic representations that point to the possible use of these for clothing. The findings of imprints of knitted textiles that could have been made with yarns from Bromeliaceae family reveal the persistence of one class of textile that reaches from the hunter gatherer period (8000 BP) up to today among the populations of the Chaco and the Andean foothills.

Stitching Together: Participatory textile making as an emerging methodological approach to research

Arising from a recently formed research network, Stitching Together, this article introduces a collection of case studies that critically examine participatory textile making as an emerging methodological approach to research. The twenty-first-century resurgence of interest in textile processes such as knitting, sewing and weaving, whether as individual practice or community-based initiative, builds on a long and culturally diverse history of collaborative textile-making activity. This resurgence, combined with the familiarity, accessibility and flexibility of textile practices, has influenced a recent growth in the use of such activities as a means of inquiry within diverse research contexts. The article considers the ways in which collective textile-making projects privilege social encounter as a format for learning skills, creating friendships and consolidating shared interests. It goes on to discuss how researchers are drawing on these characteristics when devising new projects, highlighting the quality of experience afforded by textile making, the diverse forms of data generated and the variety of ways in which these participatory activities can be set up. Recognizing that this research approach is far from straightforward, three key methodological themes are then considered: the multifaceted nature of the researcher’s role and the complexities of relationships with participants and other stakeholders; the difficulties that can arise when using such familiar textile processes; and the opportunities, and complexities, of co-producing knowledge with participants through collaborative textile activity.

Women’s Tapestry and the Poetics of Renewal: Threading Mid-Century Practices

This essay considers women’s tapestry weaving in the Mediterranean Middle East in the 1960s. At once a mode for experimental arts pedagogy, envisioned social uplift, and critical creative inquiry, the medium held possibilities for the expression– and often fusion– of artistic and social concerns. Artists’ negotiations of the tensions demarcating “fine art” from “handicraft” assumed gendered dimensions in art schools and studios, where weaving’s association with the feminine was often reinforced. Women designed and wove tapestries through innovative collaborations and formed a constellation of interconnecting textile and design practices. While dynamic in their confluences and divergences over time, these modernist practices and affiliated artistic networks have been overshadowed by the work of male-dominated lineages. Focusing on the poetics of renewal and “new blood” explored by artists Safia Farhat and Etel Adnan, this essay threads personal and conceptual practices and approaches underlying women’s tapestry production.

Place-based Textiles in Post WWII Poland

When WWII broke out, textile art faculty Stefan and Helena Galkowski left the Arts Academy in Crakow, Poland to take refuge in the countryside. There, they continued their artistic practice, utilizing materials close at hand - undyed sheep’s wool – to make work they regarded as carrying on a distinctly Polish and politically-charged weaving tradition. After the War, even sheep’s wool was scarce. Polish textile artists like Magdelena Abakanowicz seized upon a plentiful local material – sisal – to improvise new textile art-making methods and forms. In the wake of WWII, the nascent Polish communist government saw in pre-WWII artisan cooperatives connected with the arts academies in Crakow and Warsaw a model for post-war economic development. Under the auspices of an agency called Cepelia, the government organized a nationwide network of artists and artisan cooperatives that undertook primary ethnographic research on rural textile practices and then produced limited editions of textile art inspired by folk traditions. Cepelia also exported blankets, kilims, and tapestries to retail outlets in the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands. Emboldened by new international connections they were able to forge, Polish textile artists joined a vanguard of fiber artists who entered works in and traveled to the Lausanne International Tapestry Biennials (1962-1995). This paper will consider how Polish textile artists created place-based artwork in response to post-WWII material constraints, ideological shifts, and centralized governmental efforts to promote a nationalist Polish identity rooted in folk traditions to both local, national, and global audiences. It will review the experiments in materials, the varying visual iconographics of works made to articulate and “sell” a new Polish national identity, and the perhaps unintended consequences of Cepelia’s national and international reach.

An experiential investigation into the embroidery practices of the Chernobyl Babushka

This article contextualizes and personalizes a cohesive and cogent line of enquiry into the textile practices of the Babushkas of Chernobyl through empirical research centred upon observing, recording and gathering testimonies and histories in the field. Chernobyl, as place (or rather non-place), is the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident of 1986. Post-accident, 91,200 people were evacuated from areas around Chernobyl and it is now deemed to be uninhabitable. At the time of this research, there were 128 people remaining, their legacy the declining remains of a forgotten community, with a loss of their strong textile heritage. The ‘Embroidery as a Language’ project was implemented in order to discover how a common interest, i.e. embroidery, within the context of action research methodology could be used to encourage stronger connections and understandings between transnational communities and as a consequence promote the sharing of relevant and new information about regional embroidery, in turn preserving the past and taking it forward into the future. Alongside building an archive, the preservation of their history through personal experiences and narratives is paramount and this article reflects the focus on the self-settlers of Chernobyl and their embroideries as an ongoing initiative and an experiential poignant investigation that has developed over the past four years and during my ten separate visits to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Designing for Multiple Expressions: Questioning Permanence as a Sign of Quality in Textiles

Developing alternative materials and methods of production and recycling is crucial to achieving more sustainable, circular textile practices. In addition to these, a shift in how textiles are perceived may well be needed. Textile practice has long sought to create textiles that, regardless of their material or post-production treatments do not subsequently change in expression, eliminating the fading of colors and wearing out of materials. Questioning this in order to evaluate quality, durability, and aesthetics may open up for greater circularity through extending product lifetimes, and allowing change to be embraced rather than delaying the signs of aging. This paper presents work that challenges the notion of permanence as a sign of quality in textiles by shifting the focus towards creating textiles that are capable of developing different visual expressions over time. By examining the natural changes in color of materials in plain and Jacquard-patterned woven textiles made of several materials, this paper explores the possibilities relating to designing textile patterns that can evolve in multiple different directions from one starting point. Textiles woven with a combination of different materials were used in various contexts, including outdoors, in order to explore how the materials reacted. The resulting color combinations varied depending on what conditions the material was exposed to, suggesting a more versatile view on the aesthetics of textiles. The results indicate that various colors, patterns, and structures can be achieved from one starting point, indicating that an alternative definition for quality, based on the aesthetics of change, may be viable. The natural aging of materials could be used in design processes to embed evolving patterns, colors, or structures in textiles, reconnecting textile products with the inherent, changeable qualities of materials.

Seeing Raw Fibers: Collaborating with Fiber Farmers to Develop Tacit Knowledge in a Fiber Sorting, Grading, and Classing Apprenticeship

In an effort to dig deeper into slow fashion in a local context, this case study research draws attention to the quality of raw fibers to inform clothing and textile design practices. A unique standardized system of sorting, grading, and classing raw fibers is developing in the United States to help fiber farmers with small flocks, and a variety of fiber animals such as sheep, alpacas, and goats. The system aims to help farmers learn about fiber quality, develop higher quality products, and earn more sustainable incomes for their farm businesses. This research is an outcome of taking Basic and Advanced Fiber Sorting, Grading, and Classing courses, and doing the Fiber Sorting, Grading, and Classing apprenticeship. It uses Actor Network theory as a framework to outline the practice-based approach that requires continuous “reflection-in-action” with a variety of natural fibers. The objectives of this study were to (1) gain hands-on experience sorting and grading raw animal fibers sourced directly from farmers, and (2) obtain feedback from a Master fiber mentor to learn from the process. This study presents results of completing approximately 30% of the apprenticeship program with over 70 alpaca, wool, and mohair fleeces from five fiber farms during Winter 2016, Spring, and Summer 2017. A majority of the fleeces, 60, were sorted in direct collaboration with a fellow fiber apprentice who is an alpaca farmer. The accuracy of sorting and grading was 73% and the process led to tacit knowledge with natural fibers. This study presents an Actor Network Theory analysis diagram to visualize the fiber apprenticeship process. Overall, this study provides deeper insight into assessing fiber quality to determine optimal clothing and textile designs for slow fashion localism.

Prevalence of Allergic Rhinitis and Individual Prevention Practices Among Textile Workers in Vietnam

The object of this study is to estimate the pervalence of rhinitis symptoms amongst textile workers and individual prevention practices currently used by workers in textile factories in Vietnam. A cross-sectional study was conducted in two textile garment companies in the Nam Dinh province of Vietnam from May to October 2016. A total of 1082 workers in all stages of the textile production process participated in the study. Itchy nose and sneeze were the most common symptoms (with 46.9% and 46.9%, respectively, followed by itchy (33.2%) and runny nose (24.5%). Duration of cotton dust exposure per day were positively associated with face mask use (OR=1.90; 95% CI= 1.24 - 2.90) regular face mask use (OR=2.5; 95% CI=1.87 – 3.33) and nasal spray before working (OR=4.2; 95% CI=1.49-11.83). A high pervalence of allergic OR is observed amongst textile workers in Vietnam highlighting the need for preventive measures to reduce exposure to cotton dust.

Hilvanar tecnologías digitales y procesos de tejido o costura artesanal: una revisión crítica de prácticas

El presente artículo busca identificar las tensiones y encuentros que existen entre los saberes asociados a lo textil y artesanal, y los relativos a la tecnología y la informática. En particular, el artículo se enfoca en tres tipos de diseño de tecnologías de la información: en primera instancia, en aquel orientado a la construcción de repositorios digitales de prácticas textiles artesanales; en segundo lugar, en el desarrollo de interfaces tangibles de usuario inspiradas en la materialidad de lo textil y, por último, en iniciativas que, para idear tecnologías digitales, se centran en el potencial creativo de los lenguajes-materiales de la producción textil artesanal. El artículo se cierra con una reflexión establecida en torno a las posibilidades de co-aprendizaje que emergen de los encuentros que se dan entre tecnología digital y tejido o bordado artesanal.

Margaret Beaufort, Royal Tapestries, and Confinement at the Tudor Court

The English royal household ordinances document the important role tapestries played in Tudor court ceremony. This paper re-examines one specific aspect of the 1493 ordinances: whether or not Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, dictated the textile practices surrounding royal childbirth. Once widely believed to have done so, scholars have abandoned the idea for lack of evidence. The issue is more complicated than it seems, in part because of longstanding bibliographic error and also because texts associated with two events involving Margaret — the birth of Princess Margaret and the publication of William Caxton’s Blanchardyn and Eglantine — suggest that she was highly attuned to the importance of royal spectacle as mandated by the household ordinances.

Appraisal of marigold flower based lutein as natural colourant for textile dyeing under the influence of gamma radiations

Maintaining colour strength and fastness of the fabrics dyed with natural colourants had been the major constraint of utilizing plant based dyes in modern textile practices. The present study was concerned with the extraction of lutein dye from marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) flowers and role of gamma radiation in improving colour strength and fastness characteristics of the extracted dye. The investigation of dyed fabric in spectraflash showed that gamma ray treatment of 30kGy was the optimum absorbed dose for surface modification to improve its dye uptake ability. Good colour strength was obtained when irradiated cotton (RC, 30kGy) was dyed with extract of radiated marigold flower powder (RP) at 70°C for 85min, keeping M:L of 1:50 using dye bath of pH 5.0. The results from mordanting experiments revealed that 7% of tannic acid as pre-mordant and 5% of Cu as post-mordant were the best treatments to improve colour strength. It was found that gamma ray induced extraction of lutein from marigold flowers had a potential to be utilized as natural dyes in textile sector to produce yellowish green shades.

Made-by-hand: [Re]valuing traditional (Japanese) textile practices for contemporary design

Abstract Textiles touch all our lives – from the cradle to the grave – and serve increasingly diverse purposes. Historically, and as one of the first industrialized commodities, the skill and knowledge required to construct fabrics to clothe and furnish has dominated cultures worldwide. Contemporary Japanese textile design draws on countless traditions of often ancient but sustained craft practices. These traditions both respond to and employ the natural condition of things, exercising heightened and honed sensibilities to material know-how. Discussed through the discipline of woven textiles and, in particular, ‘traditional’ Japanese production systems, this article seeks to identify the location and distribution of both practical and aesthetic expertise in textile making and its transferable value for contemporary practices. The article presents case studies of surviving vernacular ‘cottage’ industries, where highly organized systems of knowledge exchange, spanning agricultural fibre production to direct technical instruction in thread making, ensure effective engagement with and ‘management’ of very specific materiality. The notion of intangible cultural property will be discussed in the context of inherited knowledge and how traditional social hierarchies and knowledge systems have served to nurture and perpetuate the sharing of skills and understanding through generations of textile makers and making.

Dorcas legacies, Dorcas futures: Textile legacies and the formation of identities in ‘habitus’ spaces

Abstract Feminist legacies of the handmade are visible through the rhetoric of the material archive. For a textile practitioner this might traditionally have been through the creation of the sampler, a physical display created to demonstrate the technical skill or creative prowess of the maker. The voices of hidden textile practices might also be revealed by oral stories and narratives, which lie dormant in newspaper listings and archives. Other textile legacies are embedded within the modes of transmission of knowledge contained within spaces or other ‘habitus’ that traditionally sit outside the boundaries of more traditional institutional spaces of textile learning. Textiles as objects hold meaning, are related to different aspects of memory and knowledge, and generate significance by and for different social, gendered and cultural groups globally. This article explores how Dorcas Clubs – a charitable organization of philanthropic women formed at the beginning of the nineteenth century – did this through the migratory experience of women, whether through notions of class boundary, physical space or travel. It is argued that Dorcas Societies, through their transformation,

Cannon Mills and Kannapolis: Persistent Paternalism in a Textile TownTimothy W.Vanderburg. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2013.

Cannon Mills and Kannapolis: Persistent Paternalism in a Textile Town Timothy W. Vanderburg. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2013.This is a comprehensive history of what was once America's largest manufacturer of household textiles, that in many ways exemplified the textile industry and industrial paternalism in the postbellum South. However, its particular strain of paternalism was both much more powerful and enduring than elsewhere. From its foundation and the establishment of its company town Kannapolis (near Concord, northeast of Charlotte, North Carolina) during the late 1880s until the mid1980s, Cannon Mills operated as a paternalistic company controlled by a small group of insiders. Its founder James William Cannon and his associates on the board of directors ran the firm from its creation until 1921, when his son, Charles, took over. He would lead the firm until his death in 1971. While other companies in the textile industry were getting rid of mill villages and the vestiges of paternalism, Charles Albert Cannon was leading the firm in the mode established by his father. Kannapolis became the nation's largest unincorporated town, a distinction it kept until 1984. Thus, this firm's paternalism lasted long after most of the industry had changed to modern, bureaucratic management, which included the deployment of and resources practices, based on insights from the applied behavioral and social sciences.As the author points out, southern textile mill paternalism resembled the paternalism of northern textile mills, which, in turn, was modeled after English textile practices. By the early 1800s, for example, textile firms in Rhode Island and Massachusetts were providing a range of provisions for their workers. Pioneered by two companies in Waltham and Lowell, Massachusetts, this paternalist approach to manufacturing became known as the Waltham (sometimes called the Lowell) system. Northern industrial paternalism influenced the development of the textile industry in both the antebellum and postbellum South. Eventually, paternalism declined in the North, and industrialists replaced it with bureaucratic authority marked by impersonal business relations-a pattern that was followed by the southern textile industry that had settled in the southern Piedmont (xiii).Timothy Vanderburg claims that James Cannon exemplified the typical southern textile industrialist. Although industrialization was changing the nature of work and human relations in the workplace, he and other southern industrialists continued to have a strong belief in the role of a genteel upper class. In his The Mind of the South (1941), Wilbur Cash argued that the paternalism of the Old South plantation system was evident in the mill towns of the New South. The mill owners provided for their operatives like the plantation owners supplied their slaves with necessities; deference and fear were key elements of paternalism during both periods. But Vanderburg insists that this comparison should not be taken too far. Cotton mill operatives, unlike slaves, could also demonstrate their discontent with their employer by leaving, although, if they did so, they usually found themselves working in another cotton mill under a similar industrial regime. He furthermore points out that New South industrialists also held a strong belief in individualism and the sanctity of contracts. These beliefs led to a strong antiunion bias. Workers, they thought, should present their grievances to mill superintendents and owners personally, without the specter of collective bargaining or the influence of outside agitators. Yet, New South industrialists still would feel the burden of noblesse oblige: A tenuous balance existed between their desire for profits and their social obligations to improve the community. Enlightened self-interest often settled this conflict (3-4). Mill village paternalism was a pre-eminent manifestation of this tension between profits and community interest. …