What Price Knowledge?

 

Textile Design Theory in the Making

I have been making my way through this book, not because it is difficult to read (although it does use academic language) but because of the concepts it is presenting.

For me, this is a book to be taken in small bites, savored on the tongue, chewed thoughtfully, digested slowly.

I have for many years tried to describe the design process for me.  I have used various words, none of which really described how I felt about the process.  

The concept of 'matrix' was new to me in this context, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the word matrix encompasses:

Womb; the place in which a thing is developed; substance between cells; rectangular array of quantities in rows and columns that is treated as a single quantity (among other things).

That last is so directly germane to weaving I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before.  But now that the concept has been presented to me, I begin to see the 'truth' of it.

Matrix incorporates all the 'it depends'es of how a textile comes into being (be it basketry, knitting, weaving, etc.)

There is much to think about contained between the pages of this somewhat slim (250 pages including glossary, references and index) volume, but the concepts are huge.  Hence, the slow steady intake of what the author(s) are presenting.

Prof. Igoe also talks about the storytelling of textiles.  Someone called me a storyteller early in my career, and I embraced that concept and always incorporate my stories in my writing and speaking.

So much of textile terminology has been adopted by other technologies, especially computers, because the idea of storytelling embraces all human endeavours.  The fact that we have used textiles for thousands of years as a metaphor validates the use of 'stories' in thinking about creating textiles to this day.

This book is not, perhaps, for everyone, being part philosophy, part introspection, part exploration of *how* we think.  It isn't 'cheap', but what price knowledge?

As a person involved in the creation of textiles (and writing to support teaching the creation of textiles) this book has been a welcome introduction to concepts far beyond what I am used to as a designer.  It does not tell me *how* to create, but perhaps *why* I create.  Why I find weaving endlessly interesting.  And why it is, at times, so difficult to pass the knowledge of creating cloth to others.  

Because change one thing, and everything can change.  Every piece of the puzzle affects every other piece of the puzzle.  And until you get the threads into the loom, interlace them, and then wet finish them, you never really know if you have managed to create the vision you dreamt of in your mind.

The book is an academic book with an academic price.  However, the paperback version is being launched in February 2023 and you can pre-order it now.  

If you are, like me, interested not just in how, but in the why of creating textiles, this may be the book for you.  If you find weaving (or other textile arts) intellectually stimulating, you might enjoy this thought provoking look at how we think about how we create textiles.

If it is too expensive for personal purchase, maybe a guild library might invest in it and make it available to a larger audience.