The Influence of Computer Technologies on Contemporary Woven Fiber Art

It is generally agreed upon, by both the participants in the field and those few who have chronicled it, that the fiber art movement as we know it today began with Jean Lurcat in France in the late 1950s. He was among the first, if not the first, to make designs or cartoons specifically for the medium of tapestry. Previously, paintings were translated into the medium of tapestry. As well as creating the design or cartoon, he personally oversaw the actual weaving process. This direct connection between the process and the concept or image, the manual and the mind, laid the groundwork for the fiber arts of today. In 1962 Lurcat founded the Lausanne Tapestry Biennale, the international exhibition whose contents have profoundly influenced the course of this field. In fiber art, textiles are separated from function and, instead, focus on the maker\u27s expressive need. In this pursuit, historic techniques and constructions are used in new configurations. These processes offer the artist new methods of effecting visual and physical form, scale, and content. In the sixties, the results of these manipulations and interpretations were massive, excessive, and often three dimensional. In the late seventies and eighties, this unrestrained exuberance was modified. Concern was expended on the quality of the cloth as well as on the subtlety and specificity of the expressive content. More recently, the visual expressions of the portion of fiber artists who are weavers have been influenced by the possibilities inherent within computer technologies. The link between the computer and the loom is specific. They are both based on binary principles. It is said that the Jacquard loom was inspiration for the invention of the first computer. As Emily DuBois points out, Thousands of weave structures are derived from two simple positions of the warp—up and down. In the same way, the computer performs thousands of tasks based on two positions called 0 and 1. In weaving, these positions are notated on graph paper by a filled-in or black square when the warp is up and a white one when it is down. The 0\u27s and 1\u27s become the machine language of the computer

Drawing on Tradition

Over the forty years that I have been weaving, my work has changed conceptually and technically. In the late fifties, after studying in Aubusson, I worked in the tapestry technique. What I perceived to be a rigidity within the working process pushed me toward investigating ways of incorporating the spontaneity of the painters of that period into my textile art. The integration of resist-dyeing along with the use of supplementary wefts provided the potential for changes and additions during the weaving process that I sought. The imagery on my work then was formed by and contained within the supplementary wefts. Eventually I became interested in integrating the images into the base cloth - no longer treating them as an addition and using more specific pictorial images. In order to accomplish this change, I felt that I needed more technical information. I travelled from Kansas to the Cooper-Hewitt in New York to study textile analysis with Milton Sonday. He taught me how to analyze samples of drawloom cloth - how to see textile structures in a completely different way than I had as a handweaver. My idea was to translate the drawloom structures I saw at the museum into weaves that I could use on my 12-harness loom in my studio. Before I had time to adapt these drawloom structures to my floorloom, I received an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) grant that allowed me to purchase a large, 72-inch wide, 32-harness, computerized loom. Obviously the translation of the drawloom structures was more feasible on my new loom. After a period of experimentation and learning, I began the work which involved me over a decade

Reality and Virtual Reality: Extending the Tradition of Compound Woven Structures

The following papers examine the uses of compound woven structures in contemporary textile art and the methodologies employed to produce this art. Using the working methods and investigations of three teachers/textile artists, these papers will address the interrelated role of high-tech equipment and handwork that gives today\u27s artists the ability to continue the exploration of these traditional structures with a new flexibility and freedom. Collectively the papers will illustrate the creative choices the artists make in using technologies to translate their textile ideas into tangible works of art. A compound weave is a woven structure composed of more than one set of either warp or weft or more than one set of both, with compounding achieved by adding sets of elements and/or by combining complete weave structures

Textiles sismographes : Symposium fibres et textiles 1995, actes du colloque = Textiles sismographes : Texts from the Colloquium

A collection of texts presented at a colloquium on fibres and textiles by 11 artists, 12 critics and teachers, and students. The authors puzzle over the notion of a "textile identity" and the problem of successfully integrating theory and practice in textile work. Essays are printed in original language with corresponding brief French or English abstracts. Biographical notes. 39 bibl. ref