Artist Statement
The making of woven cloth is at the core of my artistic practice. In my work I use both the industrial Jacquard loom and the traditional hand loom in parallel research. This connective process activates both my textiles and structures to exploit their potential for sculptural surfaces and forms. My investigation into weaving and textiles is inspired by the qualities inherent in their structure, production, design, craft, and history. My work involves the reinvention of manufactured materials and familiar textiles such as corduroy. I create work that is based in place and material research using mainly recycled and repurposed materials I find or create.
I have been researching weft cut textiles including corduroy and fustian. Fustian is a fabric made by weaving two or more sets of wefts, or fillings. The word has come to denote a class of heavy cotton fabrics, some of which have pile surfaces, including moleskin, velveteen, and later renamed and rebranded as corduroy. Fustian most likely originated in Al-Fusṭāṭ, now part of Cairo, about AD 200, and eventually spread to Spain and Italy, where there were guilds of fustian weavers in the 13th century. As the material became popular its production spread northward; southern Germany and Switzerland had a rising fustian industry in the 14th century, and French weavers were making fringed and roughened fustians in the 16th.
By the 19th century cotton was being used for the warp as well as the filling especially in the weaving centers in Manchester, England. In all fustians one of the sets of filling yarns is made up of floats (yarns that skip over two or more adjacent warp yarns). When a pile fabric is desired, the weft floats must be cut, a process originally performed by hand with a fustian knife but now done mechanically.
For me the fustian and corduroy textile structures represent an example of the early transition from home or cottage-based workshops to the consolidation to mills with industrial production and material. As the Industrial Revolution expanded its reach both hand weaving and hand cut textiles were subverted. In England, the cutting of fustian had always tended to be a cottage industry, carried on in homes or small workshops close to weaving mills and manufacturers of the cloth. The cutting required a careful eye and a steady hand, but the fustian cutters were seen as unskilled labor.
My goal is to bring the artists hand and contemporary sensibility to the process of fustian cutting and weaving. I find inspiration in repurposing and the reinvention of a variety of industrial and machine-made materials I can integrate into my work. The ubiquitous nature of the materials I use are interesting to me because they usually defy desire and beauty: cotton, re-purposed plastic tape and gimp, recycled polyester, industrial dyed feathers, retro-reflective safety tape, phosphorescent and holographic tapes.
I have been researching weft cut textiles including corduroy and fustian. Fustian is a fabric made by weaving two or more sets of wefts, or fillings. The word has come to denote a class of heavy cotton fabrics, some of which have pile surfaces, including moleskin, velveteen, and later renamed and rebranded as corduroy. Fustian most likely originated in Al-Fusṭāṭ, now part of Cairo, about AD 200, and eventually spread to Spain and Italy, where there were guilds of fustian weavers in the 13th century. As the material became popular its production spread northward; southern Germany and Switzerland had a rising fustian industry in the 14th century, and French weavers were making fringed and roughened fustians in the 16th.
By the 19th century cotton was being used for the warp as well as the filling especially in the weaving centers in Manchester, England. In all fustians one of the sets of filling yarns is made up of floats (yarns that skip over two or more adjacent warp yarns). When a pile fabric is desired, the weft floats must be cut, a process originally performed by hand with a fustian knife but now done mechanically.
For me the fustian and corduroy textile structures represent an example of the early transition from home or cottage-based workshops to the consolidation to mills with industrial production and material. As the Industrial Revolution expanded its reach both hand weaving and hand cut textiles were subverted. In England, the cutting of fustian had always tended to be a cottage industry, carried on in homes or small workshops close to weaving mills and manufacturers of the cloth. The cutting required a careful eye and a steady hand, but the fustian cutters were seen as unskilled labor.
My goal is to bring the artists hand and contemporary sensibility to the process of fustian cutting and weaving. I find inspiration in repurposing and the reinvention of a variety of industrial and machine-made materials I can integrate into my work. The ubiquitous nature of the materials I use are interesting to me because they usually defy desire and beauty: cotton, re-purposed plastic tape and gimp, recycled polyester, industrial dyed feathers, retro-reflective safety tape, phosphorescent and holographic tapes.
