the textile files

Mexico

2009-06-26T11:25:00.004Z

The Endiku Summer Conference 2009: Storytelling, Memories and Identity Constructions, Mexico City, 1 - 5 July 2009

Solveigh Goett, The textile self re/collected: stories from the fabric of life

http://www.enkidumagazine.com/chics/esc/abstracts/09_00104.htm

Yarn Bombing

2009-06-25T12:44:00.002Z

Email from Sean Myatt:

"I came across the phenomenon of yarn bombing the other day, I do not know if you already knew about it, but thought I would forward it to you anyway."

Go to:

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oberholtzer-creative.com/visualculture/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/yarn_bombing1.jpg

Thanks, Sean!

Things to do in the summer: a knot can save your life

2009-06-25T12:33:00.006Z

'Few people realise the great variety of knots in use by sailors, builders and others. There are simple knots for rope ends, knots for joining ropes, ties and lashings, anchor and mooring fastenings, shortenings, and for various other purposes. Everybody should learn to tie some at least of them. There are many occasions when life itself depends on a knot having been properly tied. The great things to remember are that knots should be capable of bearing any kind of strain and that they should be so tied that it is easy to undo them when required. By means of the illustrations any intelligent lad can soon acquire the necessary knowledge, and elaborate directions are not needed. The knots should be practiced constantly, and you will be surprised at the amount of interest they yield."

The Wonder Book of Things to do, Fifth edition, Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London and Melbourne, n.d., p.157

myth, memory and family lore

2009-06-20T14:32:00.005Z

"Knitted in a homely fashion in stripes of multicoloured wool, a bodysuit - one that covers the entire head - hangs forlornly against the gallery wall. It's the handiwork of the mother of Leonid Tishkov, one of five contemporary Russian artists featured in an exhibition that delves into myth, memory and family lore. Next to it there's footage of the besuited artist blindly prancing around on a rooftop, looking down upon a grey urban Soviet-era sprawl.

Tishkov's work, which also includes his childhood bed - a lightbox has replaced the mattress and a miniature figure of the artist perches on the rusted iron bedpost - captures something of the mood of much of the rest of the exhibition, in which we see a craft-based folksy aesthetic knitted to a conceptual sensibility. A certain playfulness vies with a prevailing melancholy.[...]

But if the mood occasionally slips into easy nostalgia, the brutal imagery in the work of Stanislav Volyazlovsky pulls us up sharply: drawings on stained prison pillowcases of masked children sucking on tubes connected to fellow inmates - an allegory, we read, of Russia's relationship to the Ukraine. [...]"

Fisun Guener, Art Review: Past Future Perfect, in Metro, 19 May 2009, p.25

Camping

2009-06-15T18:45:00.002Z

"in regards to sleeping-kit, remember that overcoats will supplement blankets, as will other day clothing as well; make use of these things when necessary, and thus save the carrying of blankets beyond what are really essential. Among the necessities will be a good ground sheet for each camper; this is a cotton fabric sheet, about seven feet by four, rubbered on one side to make it waterproof; any good firm of sports outfitters will supply such an article, and it serves a variety of uses beside that of keeping the damp from rising when one is sleeping. It makes a good waterproof in wet weather, draped around the shoulders; a good holdall for sleeping kit when things are tidied up for the day, and may even be utilised as a washing bowl."

The Wonder Book of Things To Do, Fifth Edition, Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London and Melbourne, n.d., p.17

Confusion

2009-06-12T17:53:00.002Z

“Wenn wir von den Enzyklopädisten reden hörten oder einen Band ihres ungeheuren Werks aufschlugen, so war es uns zumute, als wenn man zwischen den unzähligen bewegten Webstühlen einer großen Fabrik hingeht und vor lauter Schnarren und Rasseln, vor allem Aug’ und Sinne verwirrenden Mechanismus, vor lauter Unbegreiflichkeit einer auf das mannigfaltigste ineinandergreifenden Anstalt, in Betrachtung dessen, was alles dazu gehört, un ein Stück Tuch zu fertigen, sich den eigenen Rock selbst verleidet fühlt, den man auf dem Leibe trägt."

[“When we heard talk of the encyclopaedists talk or when we opened a tome of their awesome work, we felt as if walking between the countless moving spools and looms of a large factory, and with so much rattling and cranking, of mechanisms confusing the eye and the senses, with the sheer incomprehensibility of such a complex enterprise of manifold interactions, in consideration of everything that is involved in making a piece of cloth, one feels almost put off by the coat on one’s own body.”]

Goethes Werke, in Auswahl herausgegeben von Professor Dr. Max Hecker, Verlagsbuchhandlung J.J.Weber, Leipzig, n.d. p. 24

"Suspected thief in a stripy tie"

2009-06-11T21:26:00.003Z

"This man is wanted in connection with a number of bicycle thefts from railway stations across Sussex and the South East.
[...]
Detective Sergeant Paddy Kerr, of the British Transport Police, said the man struck as recently as last week in Worthing. He said: 'He has been captured on CCTV on numerous occasions wearing a dark shirt, distinctive striped tie and sunglasses.

He walks around cycle racks and talks on a mobile phone as if he is finishing off an important call before catching a train. As soon as the cycle area is clear, he gets to work to remove property."

The Argus, 4 June 2009, p.19

"WPCs in bra peril"

2009-06-11T21:17:00.003Z

"Women cops have been told not to wear wired bras on duty - in case they are shot.
A Home Office memo warns that metal objects worn under protective armour can be driven into the body when hit.
The Police Federation's Julia Roper-Smith said: 'Body armour has to be close fitting. Do not wear underwired bras. There are no bullet-proof bras.'"

The Sun, 8 May 2009, p.29

For Germany's approach to the bra problem in the police force, see Archives, 15 August 2008

Button tales

2009-06-11T18:51:00.003Z

"Louis XIV spent the equivalent of £3 million on buttons during his life time."

from:
Museum display text 'Button World'
Manchester City Art Gallery

Also at Button World:

"Buttons that tell a story"

"Buttons are often storytellers and over the years buttons have been made to reflect some of the world’s most famous tales from cast metal Aesop’s Fables buttons (1880 – 1900) to wooden Snow White and the Seven Dwarves buttons (1937 – 1940). "

http://www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/exhibitions/index.php?itemID=16&tab=resource

Guerra de la Paz

2009-06-03T13:48:00.001Z

"Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz [...] plunged headfirst into the unknown, seeking to fathom the common lore that binds humanity in an Ariadne's thread across the globe. [...]

The Cuban artists, who have collaborated under the name Guerra de la Paz since 1996, share a studio in Little Haiti, where they have plumbed the neighborhood's streets and shops for the discarded materials that make up their art.

To create the eye-popping mermaids, unicorns, witches, warlocks, and angels in their show, they play the role of backyard archaeologists, dumpster-diving and rifling through piles of clothing at local shops that work in the rag trade shipping used garments in bulk to Haiti.

'These businesses toss out furs, sequined items, and stuff like prom gowns in the dumpster,' de la Paz explains.

Adds Guerra: 'What we collect from these places, thrift shops, and friends and family is the driving force behind our work.'"

By Carlos Suarez De Jesus
Miami New Times
January 22, 2009
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/guerra_paz_articles.htm

see their work at http://www.guerradelapaz.com/

Red Rubber Bands

2009-05-30T11:57:00.003Z

"They're everywhere it seems , and we're nothing if not helpful.

So, as a public service, we're going to collect the nation's discarded Royal Mail red rubber bands. Don't ask me what we're going to do with what we're sent. We're not sure yet.

But please, send YOUR discarded red rubber bands to:

iPM Red Rubber Band Collection
Room G601
BBC News Centre,
LONDON
W12 7RJ.

BBC News magazine has these ten OTHER uses for them....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7985359.stm"

Eddie Mair, BBC Radio 4 PM, 6.4.2009,
We want your red rubber bands!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/specialred_rubber_band_collect/

Honest Threads

2009-05-28T09:41:00.002Z

“The concept is simple: Häussler borrowed items of clothing from individuals who provided her with a story about them and a photo of the item in use. So a pair of black patent leather shoes loaned by the Mirvish family was accompanied by a text attesting that these shoes were a part of Ed’s everyday apparel and a photo showing him wearing them to throw out the opening pitch at a Toronto Blue Jays game.

Other stories and artefacts were more moving, even heartbreaking. Georgiana Uhlyarik’s yellow hat, for instance, was knitted by her mother in Romania the year Georgiana was born. Molly Sukaitis’s white wedding dress honors her marriage to the man whole life included escape from a Nazi concentration camp and eventual emigration to Canada, where, she writes, “he reckoned that everyone except aboriginals were foreigners. And Leo Kabilisa’s plain white shirt was given to him by a friend as they made their narrow escape from Rwanda in the midst of the 1994 genocide that devastated the country.

Honest Threads presented clothing as objects that have become invested with extraordinary significance and poignancy. To intimately share in these stories can be an emotionally costly experience, but if Iris Häussler has accomplished anything, it is to remind us that this is a price well worth paying.”

Gil McElroy, Iris Häussler: Honest Threads, in FiberArts Magazine, Summer 2009, Volume 36, Number 1, p.56

Pablo Neruda: Oda a los calcetines - Ode to My Socks

2009-05-27T10:28:00.006Z

Oda a los calcetines

"Me trajo Maru Mori
un par
de calcetines
que tejió con sus manos
de pastora,
dos calcetines suaves
como liebres.
En ellos
métí los pies
como en
dos
estuches
tejidos
con hebras
del
crepúsculo
y pellejo de ovejas.

Violentas calcetines,
mis pies fueron
dos pescados
de lana,
dos largos
tiburnes
de azul ultramarino
atravesados
por una tranza de oro,
dos gigantescos mirlos,
dos cañones:
mis pies
fueron honrados
de este modo
por
estos
celestiales
calcetines.
Eran
tan hermosos
que por primera vez
mis pies me parecleron
inaceptables
como dos decrépitos
bomberos, bomberos,
indignos
de aquel fuego
bordado,
de aquellos luminosos
calcetines.

Sin embargo
resistí
la tentación aguda
de guardarlos
como los colegiales
preservan
las luciérnagas,
como los eruditos
coleccionan
documentos sagrados,
resistí
el impulso furioso
de ponerlos
en una jaula
de oro
y darles cada día
alpiste
y pulpa de melón rosado.
Como descubridores
que en la selva
entregan el rarísimo
venado verde
al asador
y se lo comen
con remordimiento,
estiré
los pies
y me enfundé
los bellos
calcetines
y
luego los zapatos.

Y es ésta
la moral de mi oda:
dos veces
es belleza
la belleza
y lo que es bueno es doblemente
bueno
cuando es trata de dos calcetines
de lana en el invierno."

Ode to My Socks

"Maru Mori brought me
a pair
of socks
knitted with her own
shepherd's hands,
two socks soft
as rabbits.
I slipped
my feet into them
as if
into
jewel cases
woven
with threads of
dusk
and sheep's wool

Audacious socks,
my feet became
two woolen
fish,
two long sharks
of lapis blue
shot
with a golden thread,
two mammoth blackbirds,
two cannons,
thus honored
were
my feet
by
these
celestial
socks.
They were
so beautiful
that for the first time
my feet seemed
unacceptable to me,
two tired old
fire fighters
not worthy
of the woven
fire
of those luminous
socks.

Nonetheless,
I resisted
the strong temptation
to save them
the way schoolboys
bottle
fireflies,
the way scholars
hoard
sacred documents.
I resisted
the wild impulse
to place them in a cage
of gold
and daily feed them
birdseed
and rosy melon flesh.
Like explorers who in the forest
surrender a rare
and tender deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stuck out my feet
and pulled on
the
handsome
socks,
and then my shoes.

So this is
the moral of my odes:
twice beautiful
is beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a case of two
woolen socks
in wintertime."

by Pablo Neruda
translated by Margaret Sayers Peden

"Ode to My Socks - Oda a los calcetines" from SELECTED ODES OF PABLO NERUDA.
Edited /translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. Copyright (c) 1990 Regents of the University of California, (c) Fundacion Pablo Neruda.
http://www.forks.wednet.edu/FHSMAIN/LangArts/sanchez/Ode%20to%20My%20Socks.htm

Pants

2009-05-19T17:31:00.004Z

"PALM BEACH, Florida - Long before the number was redolent of bailouts and bank failure, David Neff decided that Trillion was the perfect name for his clothing store here on Worth Avenue, the town's boulevard of luxury retail.
The idea was to brace customers for the astronomical price tags - $6,800 for a sport jacket, $800 for a button down shirt - and to convey unparalleled opulence.
[...]
Then the meltdown vaporized the portfolios of multimillionaires here and, soon after, a beloved Wall Street wizard and Palm Beach homeowner named Bernie Madoff was unmasked as a fraud.
[...]
In Trillion, a lot of regular customers haven't been since Hurricane Madoff struck in December - including, of course, Mr. Madoff himself.
The last time he was here, he became enamored of a $2,000 pair of worsted spun cashmere pants, which Trillion didn't have in his size, and had to be ordered from Italy.
After the slacks arrived, but before Mr. Madoff could come by for a fitting, he was arrested.
'I remember I heard about the arrest and I went directly to the store to charge those pants on his credit card,' recalls Mr. Neff. 'But the card had already been canceled.'
So, what happened to the pants?
'They're in the racks,' Mr. Neff says, nodding toward the trouser section, 'over there.'"

David Segal, Poor in Palm Beach, or Feeling That Way, in:
The New York Times, Articles selected in Association with The Observer, 17 May 2009, p.7

Tea and mending

2009-05-18T12:16:00.003Z

"So then Arthur settled to his law work and I to my 'parlour work'. We gave this name to any kind of sewing, from a story of my mother's. She had invited an old servant to come for tea, and the reply was: 'thank you, mam, I'll come when I have a bit of parlour work that I can bring.' When she came she brought a pair of her husband's trousers to mend."

A London Family 1870 - 1900, A Trilogy by M. Vivian Hughes, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto 1946, p.555

"Quaint aberrations"

2009-05-18T11:11:00.003Z

"My late students [...] were pleased, I'm sure, to be able to turn the tables on me by giving me instructions in domestic work. They knew much more about sewing than I did, and taught me how to cut out, how to place a pocket, put in sleeves and other mysteries. As for knitting, I could soon turn a heel and was able to make quite elaborate patterns in fleecy white wool. Arthur assured me that he could knit too, but didn't hold with patterns. One evening when I was making a little woolly jacket of basket pattern, I left it to go into the kitchen. On my taking it up again, I found that Arthur had done a row to help me.
'But it's all wrong for the pattern,' I cried.
'No matter,' he said, 'you'll find such quaint aberrations all the time in really artistic work. Look at the Persian rug. And the small wearer won't notice the oddity, you'll see.'
So I kept it."

A London Family 1870 - 1900, A Trilogy by M. Vivian Hughes, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto 1946, p.547

Motherhood & tea-towel

2009-05-12T08:05:00.003Z

"This Kahlil Gibram-esque sense of parent-as-caretaker rather than as owner is of course also the thing that, as they slam the front door shut for the last time, [...] ensures that I will feel like an old torn tea-towel, crumpled up, chucked into the cupboard under the sink and duly consigned to a future of dusty pointlessness after years of domestic frontline duty."

Kathryn Flett, Upfront
The Observer Magazine, 10 May 2009, p.5

Shirt and Self

2009-05-12T07:59:00.003Z

"Seeing a white shape in the garden in the half-light, Nasrudin asked his wife to hand him his bow and arrows. He hit the object, went out to see what it was, came back almost in a state of collapse.

'That was a narrow shave. Just think. If I had been in that shirt hanging there to dry, I would have been killed. It was shot right through the heart.'"

Idries Shah (1993), The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, The Octagon Press, London, p.57

Body and cloak

2009-05-07T13:28:00.002Z

"Nasrudin's wife ran to his room when she heard a tremendous thump.

'Nothing to worry about,' said the Mulla, 'it was only my cloak which fell to the ground.'

'What, and made a noise like that?'

'Yes, I was inside it at the time.'"

Idries Shah (1993), The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, The Octagon Press, London, p.61

Loden

2009-05-06T10:24:00.003Z

"Some time after her father's death, she took his 'Lodenmantel' - the green Austrian overcoat which he had worn - and after carefully cleaning it and repairing it, hung it in the wardrobe of her own bedroom. There it would remain, unused, almost until she died. But for as long as she lived she would wear the mantle of her father's authority, endeavouring as she did so to guard the kingdom that was her inheritance."

Richard Webster, Why Freud was wrong: sin, science and psychoanalysis, Harper Collins Publishers, London 1996, p.430

Mailied - May song

2009-05-01T15:32:00.002Z

"Am Ersten Mai
Gehn Vater und Mutter in einer Reih
Kämpfen für ein bessres Leben.
Fron und Armut darf’s nicht geben:
Da sind wir auch dabei.

Grün sind die Zweige
Die Fahne ist rot.
Nur der Feige
Duldet Not.

‘s ist Monat Mai.
Im Acker die Hälmchen stehn Reih an Reih.
Gute Ernte – gutes Leben!
Lasset uns die Hand drauf geben
Dass es die unsere sei.

Grün sind die Fluren
Die Fahne ist rot.
Unser die Arbeit
Unser das Brot!"

(On the first of May, Father and Mother walk in a row, fighting for a better life. There should be no drudgery or poverty, that's why we join in.

Green are the branches, the flag is red. Only the coward tolerates need.

It's the month of May. On the fields there are rows of green shoots. Good harvest - good life! Let's shake hands that it may be ours.

Green are the fields, the flag is red. Ours the work, ours the bread!)

Bertolt Brecht, Kinderlieder (1950)
Die Gedichte von Bertolt Brecht in einem Band, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt, 1984, p.974

Everything is a knot

2009-04-27T19:43:00.002Z

"The Buddha undid the knot that tied the victim to the sacrificial pole. But at the very moment he was undoing it, he explained that everything is a knot. From their vantage point in the heavens, the spies of Varuna, god of knots, were watching."

Roberto Calasso (1999), Ka, translated from the Italian by Tim Parks, Vintage, Random House London, p.367

Card from friends in Bochum

2009-04-27T19:35:00.001Z

http://www.nikkes-berlin.de/
Hand-printed on recycled fabric, sold by Stueckgut, Bochum/Germany

Easter card from my daughter

2009-04-27T19:12:00.004Z

"Oxfam works with others to overcome poverty and suffering. This card is supplied by Oxfam Activities Ltd. which covenants 100% of its taxable profits to Oxfam by gift aid.Traidcraft plc has sourced this Fair Trade card from Bangladesh. It is handmade using traditional embroidery techniques and cotton paper."

Found object

2009-04-20T20:30:00.000Z