New Year, new textile events!

On Wednesday 17th January 2024 the Oriental Rug and Textile Society (ORTS) will hold their first in person lecture of the year in London. The speaker is Avalon Fotheringham of the V&A, and her subject is Connecting Threads: New Investigations into Madras Handkerchief Exchanges between South India and the Caribbean.

“Connecting Threads is an AHRC+NEH funded humanities project dedicated to exploring how Indian cotton weavers and their customers across the Global South impacted wider fashion histories. The project is now entering the second phase of its pilot case study, which focused on the South Indian ‘Madras Handkerchief’ and the impacts of its consumption in the Caribbean. This lecture will summarise the project’s findings, including new discoveries which shed light on the possible origins of Madras and the importance of the Caribbean market to global trade and fashion.” – ORTS website

The talk begins at 18:30 GMT and is free for members. Guests are welcome upon payment of a small fee, but do need to contact Dimity Spiller in advance.

Linen Day, Roseau, Dominica – A Market Scene, by Agostino Brunias, c.1780. Yale Centre for British Art.

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Also taking place on Wednesday 17th January 2024 is the first online lecture in a series hosted by the Washington-based Textile Museum. These lectures will all be given by authors who have contributed to the most recent issue of the Textile Museum Journal. The speaker is Nikolaos Vryzidis, who specialises in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean. He will be discussing a fourteenth century Asian silk in a monastic Greek manuscript. Dr Vryzidis will demonstrate how the “study of this rare and intricately patterned textile can contribute to our knowledge of the importation and dissemination of Asian silk damasks and damask-like fabrics in late medieval Europe.” – Textile Museum website

This online talk begins at noon EST, 09:00 PST, which is 17:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

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On Thursday 18th January 2024 the Katonah Museum in New York State will hold an online talk linked to their current exhibition on Syrian textiles (which closes on 28th January). In Syrian Textiles Up Close leading experts Deniz Beyazit and Julia Carlson will “discuss how the fine garments designed and created by skilled artisans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reveal social and cultural traditions.” – Katonah Museum website

This free talk takes place at 14:30 PT, 17:30 ET, 22:30 GMT.

Man’s abaya (cloak), from Aleppo or Damascus, late 19th-early 20th century

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The London Antique Rug and Textile Art Fair (LARTA) runs from Tuesday 23rd to Sunday 28th January 2024 in Battersea Park. According to their website this is “the UK’s leading annual fair dedicated to the appreciation of antique rug and textile art. Our specialist event brings together quality decorative pieces and interesting collectors’ items presented by some of the UK and Europe’s most dynamic and knowledgeable dealers.

Our aim is to promote this vibrant art form to a wide audience, and offer a tempting array of textiles and weavings for sale. The scope of our interest is broad, and includes weavings from the Far East, Central Asia, Persia, India, Turkey, the Caucasus as well as from Europe and Africa, and from all periods up to the early 20th century. Customers typically include collectors, interior decorators and designers, private buyers and international dealers.” – LARTA website

Information on the exhibitors can be found on their website.

Image from a past LARTA Fair. © The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair / John Englefield

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Wednesday 24th January 2024 sees the second of the Textile Museum talks by authors featured in its journal. The speakers are Anna Jolly of the Abegg-Stiftung and Corinne Mühlemann from the University of Bern. They will be discussing two velvet Iranian letter pouches, which are currently held in the Danish National archives. They believe that the letters which these pouches once held can help to date the textiles to pre-1637.

“By placing the two letter pouches in the context of diplomatic exchange between the Safavid court and a European court, this case study highlights the role luxury textiles played in 17th-century Iranian diplomacy.” – Textile museum website 

This online talk begins at noon EST, 09:00 PST, which is 17:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

© Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen. Photo by Pernille Klemp.

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On Saturday 27th January 2024 the Textile Museum Associates of Southern California will host and online talk by Professor Walter Denny entitled How We Look at Turkish Carpets: James F. Ballard and a New Way of Collecting. In this talk Professor Denny “will focus on carpets from the Ottoman Empire acquired by early 20^th century American collector James Ballard.  Ballard’s collection, today divided between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum, has influenced a century of American carpet collecting and changed the way we look at carpets made in Anatolian workshops, villages, and nomadic encampments.” – TMA/SC

This Zoom talk takes place at 10:00 PT, 13:00 ET, which is 18:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

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The final talk in the Textile Museum journal series takes place on Wednesday 31st January. This time the speaker is Yu-Ning Chen and her subject is Mosurin Wool Textiles in Imperial Japan.

“Chen discusses military-related patterns on mosurin fabric, representations of mosurin in print media, including Japanese prewar textbooks, and descriptions of both the consumer culture surrounding this fabric and the female factory labor involved in its production in modern Japanese literature.” – Textile museum website

This online talk begins at noon EST, 09:00 PST, which is 17:00 GMT and you can register for it here.

Photo courtesy of Mukogawa Women’s University.

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Next some OATG news. Our AGM will take place on Saturday 17th February 2024 at 14:00 in the usual venue of the Ashmolean Museum Learning Centre. The formal proceedings will be followed by a Show and Tell, which is always a lively event. The Eventbrite invitations will be sent out in due course.

Image from a previous Show and Tell

Those who attended last year’s Show and Tell may remember Peter Umney-Gray and his scissor bags.

Short (24.2cm) and long (44.8cm) scissors with appropriate Shahsavan bags (29cm and 47cm), showing how short bags could possibly have been used for short sheep scissors.

Peter’s book Scissor Bags & Sheep Scissors in the Nomadic Tradition has now been published. With 292 pages and 299 illustrations this should surely satisfy any readers’ curiosity about this subject! It is available for £55 plus postage from Argali Publishing.

“Scissor bags, and the end-pivot sheep scissors they contained, have not until now been given the attention they deserve. The utilitarian purpose and ephemeral nature of these mainly woven objects by nomadic pastoralists have meant that not many of them survive….. The results of field research among the Shahsavan of Northwest Iran, the Sarıkeçeli Türkmen of the Toros Mountains, Türkiye, and the Uygurs of Xinjiang help to shed light on this tradition….” – Peter Umney-Gray

Inscribed end-pivot sheep scissors, Iran, lying on a scissor bag.

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OATG members who were unable to attend recent events will be glad to know that the recordings of the talks given by Sheila Fruman (Pull of the Thread: Textile Travels of a Generation) and Patricia Cheesman (Unravelling Tai Textiles from Laos) are available to view via the password-protected section of our website. Click here, then on the Members Resources link and enter the password.

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Another busy month for textile lovers…..

I was delighted to read a new article by Elmira Gyul, who I have known for many years, in Voices on Central Asia. Her chosen subject for this article is A Brief History of Collecting Abr Clothing from Uzbekistan. The richly illustrated article looks at the fascination these brightly coloured fabrics have held for foreign visitors to the region, both historically and in the present day.

An Uzbek woman’s dress, known as a kurta, from the region south of Samarkand. Late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Richardson Collection.

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This Saturday, 28th October 2023, Japan House London are holding an in person event which will also be livestreamed on various formats and available to watch as a recording later.

“The culture of Okinawa is distinct from having long been influenced through trade links with China, Korea and Southeast Asia. Bingata resist dyeing techniques originated at the time of the Ryūkyū Kingdom (present-day Okinawa) and date back to the 14th century. The design of bingata textiles draws inspiration from the stunning natural beauty of the subtropical Ryūkyū archipelago. Its turquoise seas and diverse fauna and flora are represented on these vibrantly coloured and meticulously crafted textiles.” – Japan House website

 The talk and demonstration by Odo Azusa and Ueda Miki will look at the history of bingata, as well as its current state and what the future may hold. Click here for full details and to reserve your ticket – either in person or online.

Credit: Chinen Bingata Laboratory

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A new exhibition will open this week at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. Entitled The Secret Codes: African Nova Scotian Quilts it is curated by David Woods (the designer of the quilt depicted below) and runs until 28th April 2024.

The exhibition “brings together historic and contemporary quilts from makers connected to Nova Scotia, embodying the stories and voices of the community…… [it] includes more than 35 quilts and a selection of 8 paintings that highlight the various functions of quilts over time: as decorated blankets in the home, as possible codes of communication for enslaved people seeking freedom, as records of family history, as a celebration of Black women and culture, and as inspiration for other art forms.” Museum website

Preston, 2007. Designed by David Woods. Quilted by Laurel Francis. Images on quilt courtesy the Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia.

The museum will also hold a hybrid moderated conversation with the curator on Thursday 2nd November 2023. Click here to register for the event, either in person or online.

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If you happen to be in the Chicago area you might enjoy a gallery talk taking place on Monday 30th October 2023 at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“Join Janet Purdy, associate curator of textiles, for a discussion of the history of the colorful, industrially-printed textiles known as kanga and the social and cultural symbolism expressed in their designs and proverbs. Explore eight works on display in the African galleries spanning five countries.” – Museum website

Kanga, Early or mid-20th century
Tanzania

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Thursday 2nd November is a very busy day. Not only is there the talk at the Textile Museum of Canada mentioned above, but also an online talk hosted by the Fashion and Textile Museum, London. This is linked to the new exhibition The Fabric of Democracy and curator and design historian Amber Butchart will look at the themes behind it, examining ‘how textiles were used as a tool of the state across the political spectrum, from communism to fascism.’ Click here for more information and to book.

WW2 Salvage Your Rubber Scarf by Jacqmar on loan from Paul and Karen Rennie Collection. Credit © Jonathan Richards

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2nd November also sees the opening of a new exhibition at the British Museum entitled Burma to Myanmar. This will run until 11th February 2024 and is definitely high on my list of things to see. I’m not sure how many textiles will be on show, but several are mentioned in this well-illustrated blog written by the curator Alexandra Green. I hope to report back on this further later on.

Detail of textile hanging with scenes from the Ramayana, Myanmar, early 1900s.

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Members who attended our AGM at the beginning of the year may remember that Peter Umney-Gray showed us a scissor bag from his collection and spoke passionately about it. He has been working for some time on a book about this subject, Scissor Bags & Sheep Scissors in the Nomadic Tradition, which will finally be published later next month.

“Scissor bags, and the end-pivot sheep scissors they contained, have not until now been given the attention they deserve. The utilitarian purpose and ephemeral nature of these mainly woven objects by nomadic pastoralists have meant that not many of them survive….. The results of field research among the Shahsavan of Northwest Iran, the Sarıkeçeli Türkmen of the Toros Mountains, Türkiye, and the Uygurs of Xinjiang help to shed light on this tradition….” – Peter Umney-Gray

Inscribed end-pivot sheep scissors, Iran, lying on a scissor bag.

With 292 pages and 299 illustrations this book should surely satisfy any readers curiosity about this subject! It will be available for £55 plus postage from Argali Publishing.

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