Dricsscn Photo/Jennifer Park, courtesy of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
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T h e exhibition a n d its larger project are intende*
to encourage textile design an d p rod u ction in
new , mostly d ig ita l technologies, m ost previously
u navailable on a sm all scale.
Below top:
HilDriessen,
IVhitevxar,
2002, cro-
cheted bowl dipped
in porcelain, fired, image
then digitally manipu-
lated for design of
Jacquard-woven fabric.
Bottom:
Pauline Verbeek-
Cowart,
Felt Lace
X-Change,
2008,detail,
merino wool, Dornier
industrial dobby loom,
hand-finished {h. no in,
w. 41 in}.
form ) on her chest and forehead (
Adam
Kadmon 1
and
Adam Kadmon 2 ,
2006).
K ari M erete Paulsen also depicts our cul-
tural era in her 22-foot-long w eaving
20.02.2002-a contemporary picture,
2002,
that documents one special day in her life,
w ith im agery o f computer circuit boards,
architecture, trains and the ubiquitous
rolling chair at the com puter desk.
T h e w ork in the Boutique Clothing and
Interior T extiles categories reminds you
just h ow drop-dead gorgeous a piece o f
cloth can be, particularly those designed
to drape on a body or enhance the architec-
tural environments w e occupy. Pauline
V erbeek-C ow art’s cloth in the exhibition
included extraordinary textile structures
that allow for not only the usual interlace
o f fibers, but dual layers that loosely inter-
lace a second time, giving the cloth a dyna-
mism that is in tension with the softness
o f the extra-fine merino w ool and m ono-
chromatic palette
(Felt Lace X-Change,
2008). Tim Parry-W illiam s’s w ork demon-
strates a refined and minimal aesthetic, in-
fluenced by his year in O kinawa. H e begins
by handweaving exclusively w ith unusual
natural fibers such as nettle, banana and
paper yarns that are then incorporated with
synthetic yarns on a pow er loom to create
exquisite subtleties in the hand o f the cloth.
Collaborators Leslie A rm strong and A like
Fox use alpaca for sensuous coats and jack-
ets, where an open pattern in the cloth
is created relative to the drape and cut o f
the garment. W h ile designing beautiful
textiles for interior spaces does not involve
how cloth reacts on the body, other artists
consider how the w ork interacts w ith the
body in architectural space. Ismini Samani-
dou uses a digital Jacquard loom to recre-
ate photographs o f peeling walls as w oven
wall fabrics or screens, using Photoshop
to intensify the qualities o f impermanence
and beauty found in decaying surfaces
(Hidden,
2006).
Beyond the poetics o f the w ork, a fasci-
nating part o f this exhibition is how these
artists propagate the evolution and survival
o f textile forms by looping back w ith an-
other technological iteration. Jacquard
looms are considered the precursor to the
computer and brought complex structures tc
mass-produced cloth in the last century. As
these technological descendants cross-polli-
nate again, the possibility o f beauty and
quality affordable to more than the wealthy
reinvigorates an ideal o f the A rts and
C rafts movement, even more needed today,
in the age o f W al-M art. +
The exhibition is at the Fine A rt Museum,
Western Carolina University, Cullowhee,
January 22-March 8, and travels to the Canon
Gallery, Gregg Museum o f A rt & Design
at North Carolina State University, Raleigh,
August 20-October5. The 55-page catalog is
S 6from the center,
craftcreativitydesign. org
feb/maro9 american craft 04
