Spring Volume 22, No.2

The Bay Area Forum for artists, Textile Arts Council aficionados & collectors of weaving, rugs & tapestries, baskets, costume & wearable art April 2007 Upcoming Programs and Announcements Volume XXII All programs are held in the Koret Auditorium at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, Number 2 50 Hagiwara Tea Drive, San Francisco. Admission to the programs is FREE to TAC members, $5 for non-members, and $3 for students with I.D. No additional Museum admission fee is necessary. You may enter from the lower garage level or from the main floor near the entrance. PROGRAMS and as a Senior Research Fellow at Central Saturday, April 21, 2007, 10:00 A.M. Saint Martins College of Art & Design, part SILK: PRECIOUS AND POWERFUL of the University of the Arts, London, Mary With Mary Schoeser Schoeser is well qualified to share with us her insights into this fascinating subject. After many The earliest surviving silk cloths, years of teaching, Ms. Schoeser has reduced made from gossamer-thin filaments, the number of public lectures she gives, so this are fragments dated to about 3630 is a rare opportunity to hear from this eminent B.C., and come from the Henan textile scholar and author of more than 100 province in east-central China. The books, essays, and articles about textiles process of producing silk yarn and published in the last 20 years as she discusses turning it into a fabric remained the role of silk in some of the most remarkable a well-guarded secret in China achievements in the history of fashion design. until many generations later. While Saturday, May 26, 2007, 10:00 a.m., caravans supplied wondrous silk The 4th Annual Carol Walter Sinton Program textiles to Persia and Asia Minor, for Craft Art as well as the Roman Empire, the art of making silk into textiles was REVIVAL OF THE RAVENSTAIL developed in the Mediterranean in WEAVING: CEREMONIAL ROBES approximately 330 C.E., with the rise OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST of Byzantium. COAST With Cheryl Samuel Drawing on research for her latest A free reception for TAC members will follow book, Silk, to be published by Yale the lecture. Space is limited; please make your (Photo courtesy University Press in March 2007, noted author, of Francesca reservations through the TAC office (Trish Daly, Galloway) textile curator, and consultant Mary Schoeser will 415 750-3627). discuss the role of silk in contemporary wearable It was while researching Chilkat dancing art and haute couture and will explore how blankets for her first book that Cheryl Samuel that role draws upon our largely unconscious came across an older style robe, one that understanding of this fiber’s scarcity and its had been drawn and photographed by early related sociopolitical significance over the past explorers but was no longer used by the 5,000 years. She will share with us not only a Chilkat Tlingit people. Intrigued, Ms. Samuel history of silk but a glimpse into its future, when sought out existing examples of these blankets, imaginative designers and textile producers will primarily in museums around the world, and Fine Arts be expanding the boundaries of what is possible made a detailed analysis of the techniques Museums of with this extraordinary material. San Francisco used to construct them, assisted by Haida As a noted textile archivist and historic textiles and Tlingit basket weavers. The results of de Young advisor to, among others, the National Trust (UK) her research were published in The Raven’s Legion and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Tail, so named to reflect a major motif in the of Honor Programs continue on page 3, col. 1 1 Chair’s Column Spring is in the air, and exciting things are We can help connect a new generation and our TAC BOARD larger community to the human creativity, care, happening with the Textile Arts Council. We have Laurel Sprigg, Chair and spirituality we all share, as expressed in fibers, more than 530 members now, and we are still Kathy Judkins, the thread we all have in common, if you will. I growing. Interest in textiles is alive and well! Our Vice-Chair suggest to you that all people need to know about website is up and running, and recently updated. Michelle all the forms that textile expression takes because Soon we will be able to keep all members Nassopoulos, it is an elemental thing that all people and all informed of TAC events by email. Our monthly Vice-Chair cultures share. And we need our common ground lectures have been fabulous, and the Ethnic Pat Borg, Treasurer more than ever in this world. Textile Study group has a faithful following. And Paul Ramsey, I encourage you to be curious about all the forms of course, the Westwood exhibit is up at the Secretary deYoung! that textile arts take. I challenge you to leave Your board had a productive all-day retreat in aside exclusionary ideas of one textile form being Patricia Christensen January to set plans for the coming year and considered true art and the others not quite art, Marion Coleman to discuss the direction of our organization for one better than another. Human creativity is the Mary Connors many years to come. John Buchanan, director magic in it all. I challenge you to embrace not only Sue Friedland of the museum, took time from his very busy ancient weavings and ethnic hand work, but also Linda Gass schedule to let us know about his plans for the quilts, fashion, modern fibers, and contemporary Hansine Goran Fine Arts Museums. Sheila Pressley, director fabrics being designed on the computer and Serena Harrigan of educational programs at the FAM kindly woven on power looms. All of it is wondrous. We Ana Lisa Hedstrom explained the museum’s outreach programs with are fortunate to live in a time when a fabulous David Holloway San Francisco schools. Your board is now hard variety of textiles are available to more people than Darlene Jurow at work putting together plans to help with the ever before. At the same time, more people than Barbara Kelly museum’s overall goals and to ensure there will ever before have access to ancient knowledge, are Gerry Masteller be textiles in the mix for generations to come. We able to document it and keep it alive and active. Cynthia Shaver are finding great speakers for the coming year, The human need for visual and tactile expression Advisory Board: and working with the FAM staff to include textiles is something that draws us all, and these threads Peggy Gordon in their school outreach programs. If you are connect us to our common history. It seems to me Karine Langan interested in participating in educational programs that it is our job to nurture that connection, in all its Barbara Shapiro at the museum, contact board member Patricia forms. Gretchen Turner Christensen at 415 312-4993 to volunteer. Share your enthusiasm for textiles with someone Susan York Thanks to the wonderful film about the Chinese new this spring. Invite a friend or family member Miao country, generously shown by Eleanor to attend a TAC lecture with you or to see a textile Coppola in January, and to your help, we raised exhibit. Or show a young person how to make $3000 that is dedicated to TAC lectures, speakers’ something with his or her hands using fibers and fees, and speaker expenses. We are also planning cloth. Share the joy. a larger fund to support all TAC educational Yours truly, programs, and this will be our fundraising focus in the near future. Laurel Sprigg Sharing our love of textiles is not only part of our TAC Chair organizational mandate, it is imperative to insure that there is a new generation eager to learn about this wonderful connection to our collective past. But the museum collection needs people to come see it and to care about it. Without interested people, it is only boxed items in storage. TAC Newsletter 2 Programs continued from page 1 Saturday, June 23, 2007, 10:00 A.M. garment. This publication has been hailed by CARING FOR YOUR noted anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss as a TREASURES: “masterpiece” that “should be required reading INTERPRETING MUSEUM for all textile specialists, anywhere in the world.” CONSERVATION METHODS In addition to being honored by scholars, Ms. FOR YOUR HOME Samuel was adopted into a Chilkat Tlingit family COLLECTION and given the name Saantaas which translates With Beth Szuhay, Associate “Ancient Threads.” Conservator, Textiles, Fine Arts Please join us for this unique opportunity to Museums of San Francisco (Photo courtesy of Laurel Sprigg) learn more about the art of the Pacific Northwest Have you ever wondered how museum Coast. In addition to her lecture, Ms. Samuel will conservators care for the museum’s collections The Textile Arts hold a workshop on Sunday, May 27; details are and prepare them for exhibition? Beth Szuhay, Council has always below. Associate Conservator of Textiles, will give you been committed to Cheryl Samuel is an internationally acclaimed a virtual behind the scenes peek at storage and the support of this weaver, researcher, author, and teacher. Author exhibition preparation for the museum’s textiles in vital department of The Chilkat Dancing Blanket and the highly her slide lecture. Ms. Szuhay will also discuss how of the museum, praised The Raven’s Tail, Ms. Samuel has spent these conservation techniques can be translated and regularly funds more than 20 years working with the indigenous into practical applications to care for your home internships and peoples of the Pacific collections.

Load more