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Toronto/Conference: Cloth Cultures: Future Legacies of Dorothy K. Burnham. The ROM Toronto hosts an uncommonly large collection of nalbinding objects from Late Roman times. The eleven objects at the ROM, mainly socks for adults and children, are produced in a special nalbinding stitch, the so called Coptic or Tarim-stitch. Most of the socks have a separate big toe and were made to be worn with thong sandals. Dorothy Burnham was the first researcher to publish a detailed article on the manufacturing of these socks in 1972, making a point on a topic that was neglected for a long time in archaeological textile research. Despite the various other finds of such objects, scattered in museums all over the world, her article is still the main source concerning the manufacturing of late Roman nalbinding socks. Thanks to the Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship 2016 it was possible to examine the manufacturing technique of the ROM’s socks in detail and to carry on Dorothy Burnham’s work. The socks did reveal information about their production process, but also about the use of these about 1500 year old items of Late Roman life. The comparison of the socks in the ROM’s collection with other examples sheds light on general questions like the yarns used, common patterns and possible ways of mending. Finally, Roman depictions of people wearing these socks give a face to what we now would regard as a fashion faux pas – but what was probably en vogue in Roman times.
This thesis demonstrates that advancements in communication, technology and media are providing new inspiration, tools and techniques to quilt artists and have enabled them to transform the 1960s art quilt into a new hybrid form: quilts that reference the sciences in new and specific ways and in doing so, create new access to the sciences. Science-infused art quilts have evolved naturally from art quilts because quilt artists desire to educate, inspire, and express and influence culture by artistically employing and referencing the sciences. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has played a major role in the making and the enhancement of quilts up to modern day. Today, STEAM is a new innovation that couples the sciences with art and design; STEM + Art = STEAM, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics). In the twenty-first century the public debate about innovation has focused increasingly on the role of art as an important source of creativity and a new term has been forged to designate the broadened definition of the foundational fields: STEAM. To some degree, art quilts have always embodied the ideas embraced by STEM but twenty-first century quilts have evolved into still broader stylistic and conceptual categories and often function as the "A", the art component in STEAM.
2016 •
One Hundred Good Wishes Quilts (OHGWQ) are a contemporary form of material culture that commemorates an American family’s adoption of a Chinese child. Made and/or coordinated by parents in the midst of adopting, OHGWQ are community-based objects constructed from fabrics donated by a large number of family, friends, and acquaintances. A practice that spread largely via the internet starting around 2000, the OHGWQ tradition is based upon a host of phenomena and contexts: the sudden growth of China adoption in the late 1990s and 2000s; indigenous patchwork and quilting practices in China and the U.S.; the Western history of cultural appropriation; and present-day forms of web-based communication. Drawing on interviews with nearly two dozen adoptive parents, this research utilised a phenomenological approach to explore the experience of making a OHGWQ, a form of material culture never previously studied. The work explores how OHGWQ function on the individual or personal level, in such ways as celebrating a significant moment in a family’s history, making the adoption process seem less onerous and interminable, building support for a non-traditional method of family-building, and giving makers the opportunity to participate in a form of “everyday creativity” (Gauntlett 2011). The thesis also examines the OHGWQ’s place and meaning in the lives of those who organise and/or make the projects and within American society and culture at large. In particular, the thesis demonstrates that the OHGWQ project plays several “in-between” roles, functioning as a link or transitional device in each case: between being a non-maker and a maker, between disparate Eastern/Western cultural practices, between various groups of people, and between pre- and post-adoption senses of identity for the family as a whole and potentially for the adoptee. In essence, it is argued that OHGWQ connect people, cultures, and ideas.
Ch. 4 of Woven Threads: Patterned Textiles of the Aegean Bronze Age, Ancient Textiles Series 22, Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, pp. 105-130.
Maria Shaw and Anne Chapin. "Palace and Household Textiles in Aegean Bronze Age Art"2016 •
Co-written with Maria Shaw, this is Ch. 4 of Woven Threads. Book abstract: Woven textiles are produced by nearly all human societies. This volume investigates evidence for patterned textiles (that is, textiles woven with elaborate designs) that were produced by two early Mediterranean civilizations: the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, that prospered during the Aegean Bronze Age, c. 3000–1200 BC, contemporary with Pharaonic Egypt. Both could boast of specialists in textile production. Together with their wine, oil, and art, Minoan and Mycenaean textiles were much desired as trade goods. Artistic images of their fabrics preserved both in the Aegean and in other parts of the Mediterranean show elaborate patterns woven with rich decorative detail and color. Only a few small scraps of textiles survive but evidence for their production is abundant and frescoes supply detailed information about a wide variety of now-lost textile goods from luxurious costumes and beautifully patterned wall hangings and carpets, to more utilitarian decorated fabrics. A review of surviving artistic and archaeological evidence indicates that textiles played essential practical and social roles in both Minoan and Mycenaean societies.
Jacquard , n. 76, dicembre 2015
La Maglieria come Design: ripensare le avanguardie Un’esperienza personale e didattica2011 •
Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the meanings of making traditional arts and crafts among older, retired women living in rural Crete, and the contribution of these occupations to wellbeing. Previous relevant research, conducted mainly in the United ...
CAMERA ROLLING, SPEED…AND ACTION: EXHIBITING THE CONSERVATION OF BANNERS THROUGH FILM The Textile Conservation Studio (TCS) based at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, United Kingdom has been a centre for the conservation of banners since 1990. A survey undertaken to analyze the effectiveness of the public’s access to the TCS through a panoramic viewing window prompted debate amongst the museum’s exhibition and conservation teams. In response, a film project was initiated to demonstrate some of the skills and time involved when conserving a banner. This paper will report the collaborative efforts of completing the film project. Specifically, this article presents the outcomes of filming the conservation of the Amalgamated Stevedores Labour Protection League banner ca. 1918; a two-sided, oil painted silk banner designed by George Tutill. This case study introduces the overall aims and objectives of the exhibition manager as well as the challenges faced by the textile conservator in presenting and ensuring that appropriate footage was captured for public understanding. Further outcomes include the relationship between the film producer and the textile conservator and their collaboration during filming. Trust and flexibility involving all parties was essential in order to make the project work and to allow for a successful learning process for all involved.
2019 •
2006 •
Middle East Studies Association Bulletin 26:13-38
Costume in the Middle East. Co-authored with Yedida Stillman1992 •
Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International
Pedagogy of the Post-Racial: The Texts, Textiles, and Teachings of African American Women2015 •
PhD University of Edinburgh
The Voice of Cloth in Yvonne Vera's Fiction2006 •
1992 •
C. Bouchaud and E. Yvanez (eds.), Cotton in the Old World, Proceeding of the conference held in May 2017 at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Revue d’Ethnoécologie 15
Cotton in ancient Sudan and Nubia: archaeological sources and historical implications2019 •
Chapter 9 of Woven Threads: Patterned Textiles of the Aegean Bronze Age, Shaw, Maria C. and Anne P. Chapin, eds. Ancient Textiles Series 22, Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, p. 239-256.
Anne P. Chapin, "Observations, Summaries, and Conclusions" of Woven Threads2016 •
In Divine Domesticities: Christian Paradoxes in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Hyaeweol Choi and Margaret Jolly (Australia National University Press, 2014).
"Bibles, Baseball and Butterfly Sleeves: Filipina Women and American Protestant Missions, 1900-1930"Pacific Arts, n.s. Vol 3-5. Special triple issue in honour of Jehanne Tielhet-Fisk.
Pacific Textiles, Pacific Cultures: Hybridity and Pragmatic Creativity2007 •
The Journal of Economic History
The Survival of Handloom Weaving in Rural Canada Circa 18701993 •
Art News New Zealand Autumn 2019
Sharing the love: Garden of Memories at Malcolm Smith Gallery2019 •
Latin American networks: Synchronicities, Contacts and Divergences.
Stitching the Social Fabric against Violence and Oblivion. The Embroidering for Peace and Memory Initiative Revisited through the Lens of Caring Democracy2020 •
2015 •
2004 •
2003 •
Making Time: The Art of John Corbett 1974-2013
Catalogue essay: 'Making Time: The Art of John Corbett 1974-2013'2012 •
Barbara Thomas