The Textile Artist: Sculptural Textile Art: A practical guide to mixed media wire sculpture

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Covering is a slow process and I am very meticulous because I want to pay tribute to the women who have made the embroideries and also because I have a bad conscience for cutting them up,” she explains to My Modern Met. “I want people to take a better look at the things we throw away, the things that are regarded as useless. My items become artifacts from a bygone era, disguised, dressed, and camouflaged. I give them a second life in a new context.” Experimentation and innovation with knitted forms are central to Yu-Mei’s artist identity, whether applying these skills to applications on the human form or making objects through structural explorations. Though Ahmed works in painting, video, and installation art, the Azerbaijani artist is most known for his fantastical carpets and embroideries. In these works, he playfully riffs on traditional weaving patterns, creating new rugs (though sometimes ripping apart old ones) that feature optical illusions, acid drips, and pixelated glitches. Ahmed’s process begins on the computer, where he uses Photoshop to create these psychedelic distortions. He then prints the design to-scale on paper before handing it off to a team of 20 to 25 weavers. Hannah Ryggen was a modernist textile artist whose works engage both with the formal experiments of twentieth century art and the folk traditions of her native Norway. Working partly under the influence of Northern-European Expressionism, and coloring her pieces with dyes grown in her garden, she produced organically colored, experimental tapestries that were nonetheless steeped in tradition, telling stories of love, life, war, death, and hope in a potent visual language. Ryggen was a political artists: anti-fascist and bitterly opposed to the political dictatorships that overran Europe during her lifetime. Among those leaders Ryggen most despised was Adolf Hitler. In this tapestry she depicts the consequences of his Nazi invasion of her town in Norway in 1940 during World War II. As author Figgy Guyver explains, the title refers to “the date that martial law was declared in Trondheim by occupying powers,” while the piece “depicts the tragic execution of prominent citizens”.

By twisting two strands together in my fingers, I start to make the cord or string. This is essentially a two-ply thread. If a strand of fibre is twisted in one direction it will generally un-twist itself when you let go. So I use a ‘ZS’ twist structure to join the two strands of thread or fibre together. The strands are twisted together in such a way that they pull against each other and won’t unravel. Albers attended (and later taught at) the Bauhaus school in Germany in the early-1920s and she continued to work as part of the movement. Although women were admitted to the progressive institution and completed the foundation courses alongside their male peers, they were encouraged to specialize in arts and crafts, particularly weaving. In a 1968 interview with Sevim Fesci, Albers admitted that she initially resented the pressure to pursue weaving, but she later found the restrictions of the medium to be liberating. "I felt that the limitations and the discipline of the craft gave me this kind of like a railing. I had to work within a certain possibility, possibly break through, you know." Her persistence and experimentation set a liberating precedent for women artists to experiment with textile arts. As she herself noted, "Art is something that makes you breathe with a different kind of happiness". Albers helped lay the foundations for the increased acclaim that textiles arts garnered later in the 20 th century. Artist Tammy Kanat thinks beyond the conventional rectangular loom to create massive organic shapes. The pieces often resemble nature. Some of her most recent creations look like flowers blooming on the wall with tantalizing combinations of earthy hues, wrapping, fringe, and knots. Born Annelise Fleischmann, Anni Albers was a German American textile artist and printmaker, one of the first ones to disrupt the usual binary between art and craft. As a young woman interested in painting, Albers was discouraged from pursuing art by Oskar Kokoshka, but in spite of this, she enrolled at the Bauhaus school in Weimar in 1922. At the time, the school wasn’t very liberal when it came to the art education of women, and Albers was prevented from joining the workshop she wanted with her husband Joseph Albers. Alice Fox: Found objects often form a starting point for my work. These might be gathered on walks in my local area or further afield.Textile artists have long forged their own way, but they can be especially rebellious when it comes to 3D art. In addition to amazing aesthetics, textile sculptures also feature a remarkable nod to engineering. Leisa used metallic vinyl to create the individual hanging pieces, and then she stuffed each with traditional batting. But before sewing everything together on her beloved vintage Bernina 807, Leisa grabbed a very sharp pair of dressmaker shears and sliced into the vinyl. She had planned to do so to create a feathery feeling, but she was later rewarded to discover the slits made the pieces swirl and curl as viewers walked by the sculpture. Priscilla Edward’s artistic practice is rooted in contemporary textiles but encompasses a broad range of materials, processes and techniques. Her work explores themes relating to identity, memory and nostalgia drawing inspiration from her collections of found objects, ephemera, literature and film. She has exhibited across the UK, Sweden, Germany and the US and is part of ‘Decorum’, a group of artists exhibiting mixed media textiles and embroidery. Besides being inspired by nature, I am also inspired by the material itself. Encountering different types of material in daily life is important to me. Sometimes I’ll come across a material that I find mesmerizing, and it will draw me in and stir my imagination. Benjamin wanted to be a part of the gallery’s creative use of materials, and the gallery owner was excited about Benjamin’s work as well. Inspired by the gallery’s name, Benjamin sought to create a work emphasising texture, hands and touch. He researched a variety of hand poses that evoked a sense of gentleness, calm and contemplation. But he ultimately chose an image of his grandmother’s hands to conjure a sense of thought and remembrance.

Albers considered texture to be particularly important in her artworks, noting that "Besides surface qualities, such as rough and smooth, dull and shiny, hard and soft, textiles also includes colour, and, as the dominating element, texture which is the result of the construction of weaves. Like any craft it may end in producing useful objects, or it may rise to the level of art." To achieve texture, she often combined materials, here utilizing three textiles with different properties, but in other works she incorporated more unusual elements such as horsehair, paper, and cellophane. As Brenda Danilowitz, chief curator at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, states: "For Albers, weaving combined art, architecture, and engineering. Her quest was to devise ways for her materials - the threads themselves - to create the visual and textural action in her work." The story of Judith and Joyce Scott is one of the most gripping stories in the art world. Born with Down Syndrome, the now internationally acclaimed sculptor Judith Scott was separated from her fraternal twin Joyce at the age of seven. Due to an undiagnosed loss of hearing in early childhood, the artist was labeled as uneducable and sent away from her family to a private care institution. As there was no deeper understanding of disability and mental health at the time, Judith Scott spent over three decades separated from her sister, deprived of any educational or aesthetic stimulation. In 1985, however, her sister Joyce became her legal guardian and decided to bring her to her home in California. Two years later, Judith was enrolled in the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, where she eventually discovered her talent for fiber art. Today, she continues to work with silk to create depictions of her own life through the medium of tapestry, which is typically associated with religion as opposed to ordinary day-to-day life. Zangewa’s works are autobiographical but prevailing themes evolve as her life does. Each of Zangewa’s works are hand-sewn and, according to the artist, are her way of “expressing [herself] and embracing [her] femininity.” The fabric murals created by Zangewa are evocative and elevate the most mundane tasks to a higher level. Billie Zangewa, “Mother and Child,” 2015 continued) I also enjoy the element of ambiguity that tends to be built into much of my work. My intention with the fabric pieces is not just to mimic nature or the natural world but rather to communicate the perceived sensory experience of encountering the subject in nature. The mechanization of industry from the 18 th century using steam and water power sped up textile production considerably and the introduction of new technologies, such as the invention of the flying shuttle in 1733 and the power loom in 1786, helped to lower the cost of making fabric and increased its availability. Machines were also increasingly used for the construction of textile items and they took over the production of most sewn and knitted goods from the early-20 th century.

Painted cottons had been produced in India from the 14 th century and they were first imported to Europe from the 17 th century. These increased in popularity in the 1700s, as trade networks grew and designs were adjusted to appeal to European tastes. European traders also brought printing technology to India and printed cottons gradually superseded hand-painted ones. Towards the end of the 18 th century, cotton mills in France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands began to produce their own printed cottons and this caused the import trade from India to diminish. Car boot sales were a weekly highlight of my childhood so, by nature, I’m a gatherer and collector of the worn out, unloved and discarded. I find beauty in the detritus of the everyday, including old clothes, household linens and timeworn draperies carrying the marks of time and discarded memories.’ I allow myself a lot of freedom, and the flexibility and creativity in my mind is not restricted by categories or rules, which I believe is very important to an artist.

The styles and types of textile art created in any given period has been shaped by numerous factors including fashion, innovation, and availability of materials, and these elements of social, cultural, and technological change have consistently impacted the appearance, design, and production of textile art. Until the 19 th century only fabrics from animals and plants, such as wool, cotton, and silk, and dyes derived from natural sources were available. This changed with the invention of aniline, or coal tar dyes, in 1854. British chemist, William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered mauveine, a purple dye, while trying to synthetize the anti-malarial drug, quinine. He went into production and other colors followed shortly afterwards including vibrant pinks, greens, and yellows. These dyes were more intense and colorfast than their natural predecessors and could be manufactured on a much greater scale, making strong, bright colors more accessible to the general public. The Unicorn Rests in a Garden is one of a series of seven tapestries from the narrative series The Unicorn Tapestries. Heralded for their remarkable condition and quality, these works are some of the finest and most famous examples of weaving from the Late Middle Ages. Each tapestry depicts a scene in the hunt for the unicorn by a group of noblemen and hunters, all donning their finest clothing and weapons. Every scene is brimming with lush vegetation, detailed depictions of people and animals, and the enigmatic unicorn. To show distance, people and buildings are shown significantly smaller in the top register of the tapestry, creating a sense of perspective. As the hunt progresses, the unicorn becomes weaker, culmulating in the final scene, The Unicorn Rests in a Garden, with the creature in docile captivity, showing that the hunters were successful in their chase. In the Middle Ages, the unicorn was a multifaceted symbol, representing everything from the sacrifice of Christ to mystical associations of immortality.The tools are rusty and many are broken. I wanted to explore ways of working with these objects, either by working into them or by adding other materials, to create something unique.