Textile
Design Theory in the Making (copyright 2021)
Elaine Igoe,
et al
BloomsburyVisual Arts (publisher)
When the
student is ready, the teacher will appear, so the saying goes. Sometimes the student winds up with the
teacher they need, not the teacher they thought they wanted.
So it was
with this book.
When I saw
it mentioned, I assumed it was a book on design principles for textile
designers, and because I’ve always felt a little unsure of myself when it comes
to design theory, I thought this might be just the book I wanted.
Turns out
it is the book I needed.
Prof Igoe
has delivered a meaty book, one which I got the most out of by taking small
bites, chewing thoroughly, and digesting over time while I let the questions
she was asking settle into my mind and wound up with the most effective
clearing away of mental cobwebs since I was a brand new weaver.
In very
short order new approaches to thinking about weave structure were happening and
I was grabbing good old fashioned graph/point paper and working out
logistics. Before I could do anything
much of note, I needed to prove the concept so I got a warp into the loom with
a very simple approach to see if it was going to weave up into something
appropriate for my current needs.
As I wove I
thought about how I could push, pull and prod the threads to create something
more complex, and once I had the warp off the loom set about getting the run of
tea towels wet finished so I could see how it would develop once done.
By then I
had come up with the next iteration and that went into the loom, where I
watched the threads make their way through the weave structure and came up with
a 3rd and then a 4th version (with several steps to get
from 3 to 4.)
What I did
not expect was how this change in thinking would begin to impact my approach to
teaching and writing about weaving.
Since I am
a weaver, primarily, the idea of a textile being a matrix immediately opened my
thinking to that concept and as I work through the current series I am sure
other ideas will occur to take me further along this path. But it is also stirring up my desire to teach
more and therefore write more.
To say that
this book has been a force for positive change in my weaving practice would be
an understatement.
I am grateful
for Prof Igoe’s honesty in her research and exploration of how we think about how
we think about creating textiles and for providing answers to questions I didn’t
know I needed to ask. (And that bit in italics is not a typo - stop and think about it for a minute.)
The book
has an extensive glossary (much appreciated as some of the terms were new to
me) and a lengthy bibliography for those who want to dive further into the
literature. The index is thorough and
helpful to cross reference topics.
For a fresh
look at designing textiles, this book might be the door through to a new way of
thinking about textiles and how to design them for others as well.
The book is being published in paperback form this month.
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