Before I embarked on my textiles path, I was probably quite naïve about what textiles meant. My first experience of textile was at secondary school where you did Textiles in technology which involved making a pair of very unfashionable shorts and what I thought was beautiful embroidered cushion cover, which I still have.
I have always enjoyed sewing and crafts, but more on a more practical sense. Making PE bag, patchwork quilts and Christmas decorations. This is what textiles meant to me, fabrics like cottons, silks and wool used to make practical thinks likes clothes, blankets and things you would use every day.
It wasn’t until I started working in a secondary school and walking into GCSE and ALevel lesson and realising there is more to textile than I thought. I began to investigate textiles a bit further, something had caught my interest. I began on my journey with my textiles foundation course it really opened my eyes to the world of textiles.
I hadn’t realised there was so much that came under textiles. It’s not just fabrics, it could include wire, plastic netting, leaves and paper. Any material can be used to make a textile piece. What I am struggling more with is although it can be used as a textile piece would others classify it as a textile?
Some artists work that springs to mind of unconventional textile artists.
Shelia Hicks
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-10-textile-artists-who-are-pushing-the-medium-forward
Suzumi Noda
Hsiao-Chi Tsai
https://www.vesselgallery.com/artist-detail/242845/hsiao-chi-tsai-and-kimiya-yoshikawa
I decided to search the definition of textiles to gain some clarity:
Textile
plural noun: textiles
1. a type of cloth or woven fabric.
Looking at this description the list of items I have listed wouldn’t be classified as a textile, but I think if you can stitch into the material then it can be considered a textile. It all comes from experimenting with the material working out how it can be used and manipulated.
There are so many ways in which a textile holds a story or a memory. A Wedding dress, a babies first outfit, or a special piece of fabric. They all hold a memory and a story to tell, from marks left on an piece that reminds you of an event that happened. Some items can have a special smell that an item holds. That reminds me of a christening blanket that my Nan had washed and at the christening at the font the godparents all commented on how lovely it smelt and it was a smell that always reminds me of my Nan.
How the item has been made also creates part of the pieces story, how many peoples have touched the textiles and left their mark. This reminds me of the first patchwork quilt I completed which had originally been start by my Nan. My Nan had picked some of the fabrics and I added my choices to of fabrics the blanket, this blanket was then given to my second daughter as a baby. That blanket has so many memories and a story to tell.
There are also textile pieces in history, museum pieces such tapestries with tell a historical story as well as each thread holding so much to tell. What was the threads made of, when was it made and who made it?
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