Self-narrating cloth: The aesthetics of (a) weaving

Synergy - DRS International Conference 2020, 2020

This paper responds to the theme of processes, and poses the question: what methods and tools of design could be utilised in order to connect the user to textile making processes, in particular, the time involved in hand weaving? I share insights that I have gained from my own creative practice and postgraduate research and draw on diverse literature including the work of Bauhaus designer and weaver Anni Albers. I reflect on how by attempting to aesthetically capture my own processes in cloth, the weaving act is revealed as a sometimes-flawed marker of time. The potential outcome of this research is the development of a framework for textile designers and weavers that privileges cloth as a conduit for temporal connections between maker and user. I posit that amplifying traces of time through the design of textiles may connect the eventual user/wearer to the ‘pulse’ of (a) weaving.

Linking threads of experience and lines of thoughts: everyday textiles in the narration of the self Textiles have accompanied the embodied self from the beginnings of humanity, throughout the journey of life. Human life without textiles is unimaginable: not only our bodies and environments, but also our memories, thoughts and theories are clothed. Focusing on the everyday textiles often overlooked by force of habit, such as sheets, socks, towels and curtains, this arts-based project traces the textile self in all its expressions, exploring the manifold ways of meaning making through the tacit textile knowledge we carry, quite literally, on our skin.

The appearance of textiles, which by common perception is their main attribute, is shaped by many different factors, such as the raw material, ornamentation and structure, both as an external form and a manner of connecting fibers and other elements of textiles. It is not always realised by contemporary artists and designers that the same factors also determine the durability, conservation and storage methods. The paper briefly describes the main factors constituting textiles, showing how important the awareness of their role is to all who deal with textiles, from artists and designers, conservators and critics, to visitors to a gallery and museum exhibitions. It also shows that historical textiles, contemporary textile art and industrial textile products only appear to constitute separate independent worlds and in fact influence each other

Making, often described as thinking through the hands, is widely acknowledged as an intelligent activity (Wilson 1998, Ufan 2004). The validity of practice-based research conducted through visual and sensory propositions rests on the premise of knowledge beyond text. Thinking could even be understood as a form of making rather than the reverse (Harrison 1978), thought emerging from action (Bickle 2003) and, emphasizing process over preconceived outcome in the dialogue between maker and material, making as a form of weaving (Ingold 2000). Imagining the fabric of life made from a continuously looped thread rather than the intersected threads of warp and weft (Kraft 2004), thinking becomes knitting. Following such lines of thought, knitting socks could be scholarly research (Goett 2008) and research conclusions presented in crochet: time, perhaps, for textile practitioners to reclaim woolly thinking as their methodology of choice. While the intellectuality of making might differ from the intellectuality of writing (MacLeod 2000), making is by no means a mute affair devoid of words. Wrapped in the verbosity of the inner voice that accompanies all endeavours, thinking through the hands leaves the mind free to meander while attending mindfully to the task at hand in a continuous process of mutual cross-fertilization, one thing, thought or gesture leading to the next. For the textile practitioner there is a special relationship between threads and words, text and textiles: beyond joint etymological roots embedded in an ongoing tradition of communal practices of making and storytelling, evident in the metaphors we live by (Lakoff & Johnson 2003) and the concepts we think with: not only our bodies and environments, but also our thoughts, feelings and memories are clothed, while the materials and processes we work with are imminently storied. Manual and mental practices inextricably linked, imbued with tacit knowledge, lived experience and narrative imagination: we are born into stories as we are into textiles.

This essay posits that the simple process of bringing two divergent threads together to form cloth is a powerful endeavour. Informed by ancient craft, technique and metaphor the act of weaving remains to this day a powerful tool to express complex ideas and to tangibly illustrate beauty and abstraction. As a weave major, I am interested in exploring the transformative power of weaving in my practice as an emerging designer and also the broader discourse of artisanship and art. This essay investigates the transformative power of weaving through three key themes: i) Time honoured metaphor; ii) Politicising materiality and process through reconceptualising constructions of femininity, non- western cultures and modern art, and iii) Future potential through an exploration of domain shifts. Particular reference is made to the pervasiveness of weaving as a metaphor in ancient and modern vernaculars and how this has traversed time and space to maintain its relevancy today. The complex relationship between women and textiles will briefly be discussed in relation to woman’s traditional role as child-rearer and how this has inextricably linked women with textiles. The political potential of weaving will be explored in the context of the Fiber Arts movement emerging in the 1960s and spearheaded by Mildred Constantine and Jack Lenor Larson. The pioneering work of Lenore Tawney will be discussed in relation to her ‘open warp’ technique, which proved to be controversial for defying categorisation both within the modern art context and also within the weaving fraternity. The work of Anni Albers and Sheila Hicks is then examined within a political framework, which sought to challenge the dominant modern art praxis denying women and non-western people their place as artists within their own right. Working outside this system and co-creating with native weaving practitioners, Albers and Hicks were engaged in a political act. Particular reference is made to Albers’ latter works ‘Monte Alban’ and ‘Ancient Writing’, where her linguistic sensibility was innovatively woven into the pieces. This complex array of meaning and codes became a signature of her work as an artist, weaver and designer. Hicks’ works are further examined in relation to her pioneering spirit living amidst the sexual and cultural revolution of the 1960s. Her extensive travels and observations of different societies and their cultural practices informed her work with an ethnographic quality challenging the status quo. Richard Sennett’s illuminating concept of ‘domain shifts’ is introduced in respect to new artists emerging with a particular weaving focus. While the three profiled artists work with different mediums and from different conceptual frameworks, each artist poignantly reinterprets the weave structure while respecting its historical lineage. I conclude with my own reflections on the transformative power of weaving and what it means to me as a weaver and an emerging designer. I believe in the transformative power of weaving, through co-creation, innovation and an observance of those who have gone before to challenge, subvert and create true works of beauty.

2002

This is a position paper of sorts, arguing that the experience of making a textile is an important component of understanding it, and we should be encouraging textile researchers to include hands-on experiments as part of their investigation. Some TSA members will take this idea for granted because they have first-hand experience with textile making, and may find it overly obvious. The point is hardly new, and archeologist Elizabeth Barber made a strong case for the value of textile "reconstruction" in her 1994 book, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years. 1 Nevertheless, this is not a universally shared assumption, and it flies in the face of some of our dominant cultural paradigms. Many who study textiles come from disciplines where the "making" component is undervalued, and it is left out of many textile history programs. The issue of technical competency is generally not part of professional dialogue-I don't think I have ever heard it discussed at a professional conference, for example. I happily take the risk of seeming obvious by addressing it here. I document ways that the bias against hands-on investigation is embedded in our culture, and offer examples of the critical insights that emerge from trying to reproduce historic textiles or experience how they were made.

TEXT & TECHNE, 2023

Spun and spooled, woven and worn, saturated in pixels and pigments – textile interactions hum with the gestures and stories of their makers and wearers. Deeply tied to the migrations of people, power, and knowledge across continents and time, fabrics encourage a multi-directional reading of our society. Women have played a significant role in this language, which predates the written word and is entangled in socio-economic dynamics. This case study documents the non-linear exhibition concept development for Women Designers and Textile Design, opening at the Centre de Design in Montreal in November 2023. Women’s multidimensional designs are presented through a composition of circular installations, rooted in the gestures which transform threads. These reference spinning textile rhythms and rotations, but also to the circularity of sustainable textile practices. The exhibition concept draws on research in traditions of communication, fashion and textile exhibition practice, as well as historical and design research. This constellation presents historical breakthroughs in the field; the links between tradition and innovation; the transmission of emotion; and advanced experimentation. It ranges from the tactile to the intangible, from 2D to 3D, from material to virtual, from the decorative to the political. Tactile, luscious and olfactive narratives of disciplined natural fibres awakened the senses of civilizations, ensured non-verbal transmission of rituals and traditions, and redefined art. Textiles authored by women lead the way for computational innovation and bio-fabrication. Cloth harnesses knowledge, as well as aesthetic and emotive properties. Exuberant prints, meditative repetition of stitches, the uproar of quilts questioning world disorder – all tell stories and unravel emotions. The display concept includes a research library, workshops encouraging tactile interactions, as well as multimedia recordings, including a podcast. The exploratory study contributes to the research of textile poetics with multi-directional exhibition readings.

This article reflects on the development of an audiovisual methodology applied to a PHD research approaching cultural and social perspectives of knitting as an activity historically associated to the feminine, which is at the same time, a creative and political activity. This research gathered some historical and cultural perspectives about textiles and analyzed the experiences of weavers who have taken the practice beyond the manual exercise in order to position it as a highly reflective process, which stimulates dialogue as well as individual and collective healing. To weave is narrate, evoke the memory to restore dignity when the knitting about stories permeated of violence and pain are taken to a political and public domain. This is an act of resistance because allow women to sow their autonomy to trace paths to social transformation. This article explores in a precise way, the process of filming five documentary videos as a creative approach to the various ethnographic questions that were raised throughout the research, and at the same time, as a way of interacting with the communities of weavers and negotiate my presence in the field. The audiovisual work, in addition to an exhibition of textiles and workshops, were together the methodological route that allowed to build a bridge to connect weavers at different latitudes, mainly among amuzgas weavers in the State of Guerrero, Mexico and weavers of memory in Colombia. Both collectives were able to stablish a symbolic dialogue through their woven stories. Generating a powerful reflection as women, recognizing the value they deserved to their manual and artistic work related to memory. This process has given those women the possibility to transform positively their lives.

in K. Babayan & M. Pifer, An Armenian Mediterranean (Palgrave MacMilan), 2018

textile - weaving - clothing - art - film -Armenian diasporic visual culture

2012

The Textile Reader is the first anthology to address textiles as a distinctive area of cultural practice and a developing field of scholarly research. Revealing the full diversity of approaches to the study of textiles, the Reader introduces the theoretical frameworks essential to the exploration of the textile from a critical and creative perspective. Content is drawn from a wide range of genres - blogs, artists' statements and fiction/short stories as well as critical writings - organised in themed sections covering touch, memory, structure, politics, production and use. Introductions to each contribution contextualise the varied content, which include extracts from both classic and contemporary writings. Each thematic section is separately introduced and concludes with a bibliography of further reading. Selected authors include Anni Albers, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Sarat Maharaj, Rozsika Parker, Sadie Plant, Peter Stallybrass, Catherine de Zegher and Alice Walker.