California Design 2004

The Textile Arts Component  ~ by Kathleen Hanna


The extraordinary variety of work created by fiber artists for California Design 2004 attest to the tremendous developments since the 1940's when Fiber Arts became a creative medium in California. At the time, Ed Rossbach was teaching Textiles with a focus on his interest in basketry at UC Berkeley.

His enthusiasm for textile arts spread to San Francisco State University; The San Francisco Tapestry Workshop; California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, CA; Pacific Basin Textile Arts, Berkeley, CA; and Fiberworks, Berkeley, CA. prompting Jack Lenore Larsen to refer to the San Francisco Bay Area as the "Vatican for Fiber Arts". The list of influential artist/teachers included Trude Guermonprez, Janet Levine, Kay Sekimachi, Lydia Van Gelder, Helen Pope, Marjorie Livingston, Inger Jensen, Pat McGaw, Lia Cook, Nance O'Banion, Carole Beadle, Candace Crockett, Barbara Shawcroft, and many more. 

In the present exhibition the variety of work now termed Fiber Art is evident. The elegant simplicity of Marion Hildebrandt's "Calycanthus", formed from spice bush branches tied with waxed linen twine, strikes us as the ultimate statement about basketry - perhaps the oldest craft devised by humans.

Joy Stocksdale's uses a very personal technique to create “Circle Flowers" a delicate three-dimensional hanging made from polychromatic screen-printed silk which has been stiffened and then cut into shapes. The 3" depth adds to the illusion of a garden and forms wonderful shadows on the wall. 

Courtney Skott has made a new version of campfire seating. Her "Tree Stools", perhaps the ultimate in "faux finish" are formed from a plywood structure upholstered with hand dyed, quilted and embroidered silk and hand stitched wool.

Luci Lytle transforms recycled corrugated cardboard in her “Mosaic Screen.” Using a box knife, she cuts elements to form a complex pattern one would normally associate with more precious materials. 
In Carol Durham's "Shaman Shorts" humor is added to the mix. Combining gut, gold leaf, viagra pills and viagra advertisements in her 12" tall sculpture, Durham uses one of the earliest fiber media, animal intestines, to make a contemporary social comment. 
George-Ann Bowers combines triple weave pick-up technique in cotton, wool, rayon, silk, and textile paints with an armature in a
woven wall sculpture titled "Annie Creek." This three-dimensional work takes on it's own vibrant life “off the wall.”
Using a more traditional flat tapestry technique, Tricia Goldberg creates an unusual illusion of landscape by weaving the image of canceled Japanese stamps in an oversize scale
38" high x 49" wide. The attention to every detail in cotton, wool & silk yarns is
impressive. 
Deborah Corsini has turned the traditional wedge into an eccentric weave using
non-traditional materials - plastic (from San Francisco Chronicle delivery bags) and
metallic novelty yarns. This 19”x13” piece appropriately titled "Adrift", has a life of its own.
Jacob Alexander's use of stitched, hand painted cotton canvas in a non-traditional approach to the kimono image, makes a strong graphic impact with black lines and random bits of color in the wall hanging he calls “C-Minor.” 
Quilting, yet another textile technique included in the entries, is represented by Sonya Lee Barrington's "Untitled #1." Her expert craftsmanship in hand dyeing, appliqueing and quilting creates a marvelous composition of whirling circles against a dark backdrop with curving edges. 

As the computer continues to influence our society, it also has had an impact on the textile arts especially in the weaving world. We have come full circle with the loom influencing the development of the first computer and now the computer aiding in the design capability and also the mechanical efficiency of the loom.  

 Industrial Jacquard looms, first developed in the 19th century, are now run with computers. In the early 1990's computerized jacquard weaving became available to the handweaver. Looms are now made in Norway, Switzerland and California for artists who create one-of-a-kind or limited edition works.
The weaver still puts the warp on the loom and throws the shuttle back and forth. The main difference between these new looms and the traditional handloom is that each warp thread can be controlled individually. Artists can create images as hand drawn sketches, photographs, graphic images, etc. which can then be scanned into the computer. The designs must then be reduced in colors to be able to be woven. Next the image is taken into jacquard weaving software that in essence "fills" each color with a weave structure. This information is then sent to the loom that in turns physically lifts the threads in sequence. This technique requires weaving skills combined with a creative eye to make a good product.

 Sheila O'Hara is one of a growing number of artists who are taking advantage of this hand jacquard technology. Sheila rents time on hand jacquard looms in Berkeley, CA, where she weaves a limited edition series of jacquard tapestries. In her "St. Helena Reflection", she has manipulated one of her photographs to create a new landscape in lush cotton. 

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