I have spent a lot of time trying to better understand textiles, their formal vocabulary, manual production processes, and cultural and sociological backgrounds.
It all started in 2015 with an invitation to Felicity Brown to talk about her work in my studio in Frankfurt. I met her in Dubai and have dreamed of working with her ever since. I am very grateful that my dream has come true.
Since then, I haven't been able to stop researching textiles and experimenting with their processes. My library grew, along with my collection of tools, weaving frames, hand spindles, needles, fibers, yarns, fabrics, and attendance at workshops.
In retrospect, I wonder why I ever lost sight of textiles as an artistic material—after all, that was my initial interest.
After school, I wanted to become a fashion designer and being me I had to learn the craft first. During my men's tailoring apprenticeship at the award-winning Schmidt bespoke tailors in Sauerland, I changed my mind and decided to become a costume designer for theater and opera. My path led me to Dortmund, where I worked as a men's tailor and then as a costume and stage design assistant. During my time at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where there is a stage design class, textiles disappeared from view as an artistic material. Nobody was sewing, weaving, or using them for artistic processes, and I completely forgot about it.
Today, I know that my research time was completely justified. Especially after reading the fantastic book Worn by Sofie Thanhauser from 2022. She describes the history of clothing in a way that made me realize why, although we live in clothes, we hardly know anything about their economic and cultural-historical significance and also why we have left the processes of production to industry, with the enormous consequences for us as humans and for nature.
I am very happy to have found this book! It clearly sets out the big picture. If a year ago I thought I couldn't afford to spend my precious time on less important and interesting things, now I know why I couldn't have invested my time better.
Since the Stone Age, textile production has taken place exclusively at home and was dominated by women. The decline in appreciation of this textile handicraft in the Western world began in the 13th century with the introduction of guilds. Over time, the guilds suggested that home-produced textiles were of poorer quality than the goods distributed by the guild. Gradually, everything that women did was seen through this lens. Eventually, they were no longer allowed to work at home to earn a living. Thanhauser impressively notes that this development took place during the Age of Reason!
When I combine these observations with my experiences in the art world, I am no longer surprised that textile arts have fallen out of the canon of fine arts. It is also not surprising that we consequently think the domestic sphere is not relevant and does not provide content for art. This might also explain why we value fashion design above all else, but not the ways and means of production, and why we are hardly inclined to pay the people who make textiles a fair wage for these complex work processes.
In general, I find it exciting and inspiring to think about how individual observations form a whole.
Another observation I make is that, fortunately, women have never really stopped working together and sharing their knowledge with the next generation. Usually, this happens outside of collective attention. The joy of working with your hands and the feeling of togetherness and empowerment is the driving force behind it.
My greatest source of research on traditional crafts today is found among indigenous peoples who have never stopped practicing and passing on these often ritualistic and important methods of making clothes and jewelry.
Imagine using a backstrap loom. It consists only of a series of wooden sticks and a belt around the hips. The warp is tied to a tree, and the other end is tied around your hips. Your body determines the tension of the thread, which, the more evenly it is maintained, creates an evenly woven piece of fabric. To do this, you need a particularly precise sense of your body. The slightest change in your posture is recorded in the fabric.
Imagine your grandmother showing you, when you are 8 years old, how to draw your dreams in patterns, which become the designs for the molas, a reverse appliqué form that originated in Panama. And then, dress yourself in your dreams!
Imagine wearing a scarf with a long fringe and not thinking anything of it. We have been wearing fringes since the invention of string. The first surviving item of clothing is a fringed skirt, worn by young women for around 20,000 years. It was a symbolic garment that neither warms nor covers the shame. Archaeologists assume it symbolized fertility, associated with hair and pubic hair. Fringes originated in this context.
With the knowledge of how to twist a cord—making long and durable fiber organizations by twisting originally short and less coherent fibers—everyday life became easier. Things could be connected, like arrows to wooden sticks. They served as a means of transportation and as a knotted net for fishing. It was a revolutionary invention. The flax plant was cultivated.
If textiles were better preserved, like stone or bronze, we would probably be talking about the String Age. From there, it took centuries before weaving was invented! This does not mean that mankind was less intelligent, but rather points to the complexity of the concept of warp and weft.
If you want to know more about this, I recommend the book by Elisabeth Wayland Barber: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times .Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years : Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
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