Textiles:  The Woven Voice of Culture  Copyright 2008, Viktorya Allen

[The following essay assumes familiarity with Elizabeth Barber's Women's Work, The First 20,000 Years .  I wrote this essay in response to the book, and also as a way to weave together my study of Textiles and love of women's history as it is relative to fiber.  I have edited slightly to accommodate a reader who may not have read Berber's work.  Cited references follow at the end of this essay.]

    As makers, we get as close  as possible to an object so we can observe how it is made;  sometimes more is revealed than we expect.   This is what happened to Barber.  From an ancient fragment of wool, in trying to replicate the ancient design, Barber made a mistake:  she wove the replica backwards. 

She discovered structural evidence about the original weaving:  the ancient weaver’s eye measured the placement of colored threads, rather than weaving from a formalized pattern.1  That in and of itself was the woven text in that ancient fragment of cloth and singularly is the weaver’s woven-voice.  It becomes collectively that voice of culture as well.   The wool cloth was spun and woven.  In that process of accumulation information, lies subtle underpinnings of the culture of that time.  Wool was gathered and spun, it was also woven.  These bring up questions about civilization — raising sheep and about what type of loom was used?   Fortunately, anthropologists now are reading textiles, and observing what of culture is spoken to by the very pieces that they are 'reading'.   Barber’s weaving brought her as close to the object as possible;  she read the text of that woven-voice, which in that mistake, offered up more in-depth investigations of woven textiles.  

    People of various cultures communicate in their own symbolic code through textiles.   This is mostly the context of Barber’s “Elements of the Code” from Women’s Work, The First 20,000 Years. 

   It goes without saying, the size and color of the human body vary somewhat.  And because of our relative sameness, humans have invented and continue to invent a textile-language to communicate very specific information about who they are in what fibers they wrap around their bodies.   How is this accomplished?

• Particularly in one culture, a textile string-skirt announced female-readiness for childbirth.2  
  
• In another culture, when a knight was in his armor and during battle, banners of cloth flagged his identify.3 
  
• Elsewhere, stories are pictorially conveyed in cloth:   major works of art such as the embroidered Bayeaux Tapestry from the eleventh century  to the works of the displaced Hmong who depict on their textile surface stories of air raids on their homeland in the late twentieth century.4  
  
• And yet in another culture, weaver’s wrap circular warp-threads as an analogy of life’s continuity5;
  
• Slavic stitches of embroidery around openings in garments protect the wearer from evil spirits6; 
  
• And finally in certain cultures, textiles announce both secular and non-secular space.7

    In Barber’s examples, respectively, textiles communicate fertility, identify the personal and public persona, relate pictorial stories for the benefit of those who can’t read, illustrate the life cycle, provide protection and define space.  Broadly speaking, the making of textiles is indigenous to every culture—textiles transcend boundaries and provide a means of communication which are understood, admired and at times feared. 

    For the most part we live clothed.   Even as we sleep, the body may slip around on satin, feel the weight of cool linen sheets, or sink into a tightly-woven 100% cotton goose-down comforter, and feel that cotton encased pillow softly hug the back of the neck.  This is an intimate sleep relationship some of us are have with textiles.  We also have a tactile relationship with textiles while they are on our body.  Then beyond the tactile is the visual, whereas viewing textiles on others is a sensational experience.   Color stimulates sight.   Fingertips respond to the physical stimuli of touching texture, sent by a tactile memory-message from the brain.  Most who make fiberworks have a tendency to want to touch fabric, whether it is on a bolt or on someone's body.  Only good manners or a system of taboo will keep in that check. 8

    From a personal perspective, I am a maker of Wearable Art.  I observe, collect, and make textile art.  I may start with an idea, but as I get closer and closer to the art itself, it not only takes over and directs the making of it, but sometimes, if I listen, new discoveries are virtually at my hand. 

There is a further element that goes beyond the making of wearable art, and that is the actual wearing of it.  It is an energetic phenomenon.  For instance, I never wear a highly decorative garment when I am tired, because I can’t physically respond to appreciators who want to discuss the garment or touch it.    If I am dressed in beige monotone, I am communicating my need to blend into the landscape of humanity.  I do not want to be noticed, nor discuss my textile art, nor be touched.  

This was at first an unconscious act, but over time, I noticed this cause and effect textile-language communicated by my own body.  Whether cloth is worn on the body or is otherwise displayed, culture is communicated in a woven voice of culture.

---

Works Cited


1.  Barber, Elizabeth Wayland.  Women’s Work, The First 20,000 Years.  New York:  W. W. Norton & Co., 1994. p 17-24.

2.  ibid, p.150.

3.  ibid. p 148.

4.  ibid. p 154.

5.  ibid. p 160.

6.  ibid. p 162.

7.  ibid. p 152.

8.  Allen, Viktorya.  Address:  Network for Wearable Art:  “Women’s History in Fiber”.  Sonoma, California.  29 March 1994.