Carol Bier's website for 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning play "Disgraced "at Berkeley Theater

• Professor Carol Bier, who now lives in Berkeley, California, and who I know from the Textile Museum in Washington DC in years past , --- a historian of Islamic art, created this website on geometric symmetry and pattern—key elements characteristic of much Islamic art, and central to Disgraced’s Emily’s artwork—focused on oriental carpets.  The website is:  Symmetry and Pattern  The Art of Oriental Carpets. 

Tracing Patterns of Textiles in Ancient Java TAC DE Young Museum .

Saturday, October 10, 2015, 10 a.m. TRACING PATTERNS OF TEXTILES IN ANCIENT JAVA (8TH-15TH CENTURY) With Sandra Sardjono, PhD Candidate, History of Art, UC Berkeley 

This was an illuminating effort on the part of someone who has served as a conservator of Javanese texiles in a museum, and then as a curator at LACMA, and now is doing her Phd at U Cal Berkeley.  She is seeking to make connections between archaeological discoveries of stone relief carving, sculpture and what it has to tell us about textiles.  So far, she simply finds continuity, and illustrates by the consistency of certain patterns.  Her research needs completion, and so far she has found 20 samples of textiles in the sculpture at Premamben, which tells the story of The Ramayana. Marsha Reichle, curator at the Asia Museum, gave a presentation, "Reading" the Ramayana Through Javanese Temple reliefs, guiding us through each relief at Candi Prambanan this friday, October 16.    I am especially interested as I will visit this site in late December. 

I was reminded of my own publication, of a Mesopotamian textile, based on sculptural and archaeological evidence, which was presented and well received at the national meeting of the Textile Arts Society in America, in Madison, WIsconsin.    ARS TEXTRINA A Journal of Textiles and Costume  Volume Twenty-Two December 1994.  Winnipeg, Canada.  pp. 193-216   "My Lady":  Weaving a New Thread of Connection in Ancient Sumer".   I look at Queen Napirasu from Susa highlighting embroidery and spangled tunic,  as reflected on a bronze sculpture.   I focus on the detail of a figure of Enheduanna, with a flounced gown, a sculptural disc found in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. 

Shawls at the philadelphia Museum of Art

Saw a lovely exhibition of shawls at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in March.  More details later; check back!

Miao and Dong Textile Treasures Kali Guizhou Asian Art Museum

Pam Najdowski, who specializes in Miao silver work and fine embroidered and batik textiles, along with Chinese Children's hats, antique baskets and wooden tools, has travelled widely and to Guizhou many times.  She has an extensive knowledge of the Miao peoples and their costumes.  I met her at the Tribal Arts Fair.  She has a gallery at Travelers Market in Santa Fe's DeVargas Center.  :  1810 Paseo de la Conquistador, Santa Fe, Mexico  87501  Her e-mail:  pamnajdowski@yahoo.com

The presentation she elected to give to the Asian Art Museum, Society of Asian Art members focussed on her visits to remote villages where she has befriended weavers who gather antique materials to sell to her, so she is always welcome.  

Her representation was beautiful and focussed on Kali and surrounding villages, all of which I had visited.  My jacket which I wore is from this region, and I have one other, which I wore to lecture on Friday; both were well received by other members, who commented favorably.   I bought in my own embroidery example from Guizhou, where I visited the home of embroiderer, and where she told me her story.  She and her husband botrh worked in a factory for a decade after marriage until she had enough money to pay for their two children's education and to buy an apartment, which I visited.  She has so many wonderful objects for sale. We met when she came to the International Womens Club in Shanghai.  She invited me to visit her so I am finally able to do so.

(Images to follow) 

Yoshiko Wada' hosts " Threads of Life"

Threads of Life, with William Ingram, located on Bali, spoke to us about their project which began in 1998.  The gallery opened in 2002.  The project encourages mico economic production and organizes all the small workshops into collaborative participation.  It has become so successful that it is nearly an independent enterprise, with them as overseers.    The plant mordrant project employs natural dyes 100% from plants.

The Bebali Foundation makes sustainable livelihoods for indigenous peoples.
info@ypbb.org    The address of the organization is in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.   Other sites are:  bebali.org and plantmordant.org

  Jean Howe relating the narrative of their creation of a foundation, and their creation of a community.  Conservator, Joyce Ertel Hulbert is in the immediate background, with Jean Howe in the foreground.

I bought a silk shawl with Silk Thread and natural dyes and its debut was at the reception with the donors to the Yosemite Conservancy in Yosemite in late March...the Spring Celebration.  The chair of the event from Ross, California, introduced herself, as she admired my shawl!

Here is the description, and when I have a photo, will post it.  "This crepe shawl is designed and dyed by the Bebali Foundation with additional dyeing by traditional dyers with whom  the Bebali Foundation and Threads of Life work .  The Bebali FOundation's primary work over the past 15 years has been to recover traditional dye recipes, teach sustainable methods of harvesting and cultivation of these dye plants in the communities that Threads of Life weavers work.   In creating this wearable art, the Bebali Foundation's dye team uses only sustainably harvested plants.  This cloth has been mordanted with a plant mordant, Symplocos sp (www.plantmordant.org) and dyed with Terminalia catappa as the base and an over dye of Indigo - Strobilanthes cursia.  "  

COVERING THE MOON Face Veils by Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood

My veils in the Leiden Institute published in this book.  The Leiden Institute bought my collection of more than 20 veils including a horse hair padjara, and Gillian, the wife of the director included a couple in this book of veils throughout the Islamic world.  Thanks to Carol Bier, who gifted me with the book, I am now able to see my beloved veils in print.  I collected them while consulting with the museums of Uzbekistan, in particular the Samarkand Museum of Fine Arts, which no longer exists, and the museums in Bukhara and Kiva.  It was wonderful to help them develop business sponsorship, to upgrade their exhibition spaces and their administration of the museums.   They also developed gift shops for support of the museums and to discourage illegal sale of items in the collection to visitors.

I found the veils in the market place; at the time, they were an overlooked object so I was able to purchase examples used in weddings in particular, but also on a daily basis. Somewhere I must have images of all the veils sent to Leiden.  




to pson.  

TAC. De Young Museum. Barbara Shapiro. Japan Tour with Yoshiko Wada

Barbara assisted by her daughter shares one of the pieces she dyed
in the Shibori workshops in which she participated. 

A shibori dye skirt with woven in inlay pleats 

One of Barbars' prized collected baskets. 

Barbara bought several baskets, as her own art is basket sculpture; she has returned with materials and new ideas for her basket sculptures and was commissioned to do a basket on site in Japan.

See websites for Barbara Shapiro on her Surface Design blog.    She bought and donated some shibori samples to the Cooper Hewitt Museum, as the curator, Susan Brown, was also on Yoshiko Wadas tour.

Some interesting facts from her discussion and slide presentation of her tour.

Mature tea leaves have alluminum in them.

Mechanized labor now permits two women to do what 80 women did, in terms of weaving silk.

Most silk in Japan comes from China.  In Japan, the demographic has shifted from 80,000 to now 500 growing silkworms...

Safflower is fugitive dye.  It cannot be exposed to light.  They visited Yoshimuni home, where three generations have dyed with safflower to produce beautiful red robes.

These shops were recommended:  Kanaegi, Kyoto.  (her favorite)  Galerie Galerie,

Museums:  She visited the Shinto Indigo museum   the Mingei museum in Tokyo as well as the Dover Street Mall(also in London)  The Amuse Museum.  21 21 Sight Museum, by Miyaki,  The Miho Museum outside Kyoto which was displaying Indian Chintzs and Dutch porcelain.  .

She visited Kozo Paper Maker.  She bought poem strips and some paper samples. She shows up woven paper jackets.   We also see "rice in manifestations", or rice straw amulets.  Puppet floats are present in festival.

Kakeshibu is a cloth used in the production of saki.  She found pieces.

Mrs Hanma is 94 and revered shibori maker.

Metallic yarns are coated with alumninum.

Linen or Cotton clampled in lye bath shrinks it. 

De Young Museum. Textile Arts Council Presentation Mongolia by Janet Roberts

J with participant wearing elegant Mongol dell 

Princess robe, Bogh Kahn

j holding silver Mare's milk bowl

J displaying Manchu antique skirt 

J and Peace Corps Volunteer

Serena Lee, director of TAC and Janet Roberts, Presentor
viewing felt artist's work and workshop at De Young 

Bob, Yoshiko TAC Bd member, Serena Lee, and Chere Lai Mah 

TAC:    Introduction to Janet Roberts and her relationship to Mongolia and its textiles.  .  

 I will present costumes and jewelry remaining from my collection, and  discuss its relationship primarily  to Yuan China and Tibet as influences on Nomadic dress.

abstract:

The Nomadic tradition, and the vast space and worship of the sky prefigures in the Mongolian Costume.  The high altitude, the cold arid climate and the vast arid mountains and desert as well as living in gers(yurts) affect the choice of traditional clothing. The horse plays a key role in Nomadic life and in the Mongolian tradition. I will look at the role of imperial expansion into India, Iran, and (Turkestan) Central Asia and Azerbaijan) , as well as China, and these culture’s respective and reciprocal influence in  the court costume of Ghenghis Khan, and his successor, Timur,  but also  the court of Kubla Khan in the Yuan Dynasty, as well as Babur in India.   Gold and Silver, Silks, Furs, and Felt are a part of this tradition.   The symbols on the costumes, of the sun and moon are adopted from China, but also from Tibetan esoteric Buddhism and the Near Eastern worship of the Sun and Moon.  The Phoenix and Dragon prevail on court costume adapted in both Persia and the Yuan court.  The major festival Naadam, in June-July in Mongolia has taken place since Chenghis Khan’s time and is the place in which traditional costume on men and women is displayed today but any journey into the land of the Gobi  reveals it on an everyday basis.  

Note:  (I will provide a bibliography for participants)  My sources are the major studies, travellogues, literary references, and personal experience of the culture while a guest curator at the Zanabazar Museum in Ulaan Baatar Mongolia, and while working with various international Humanitarian organizations in the field and at the university. I have travelled into the Ordos, slept in the Gobi, flew and then travelled by jeep off road to the Lake Hovsgahl  bordering Russia and across the length and breadth of Mongolia, and have traversed all of its sacred mountains, monasteries and archaeological sites, sleeping in yurts, riding horseback, and by offroad vehicle.   

Introduction to janet Roberts

PRESENTATIONS:   In a professional capacity, Professor Richard Barnhardt at Yale University invited Janet Roberts to present her findings about Mongolian art , “The Mongolian Horse.  Sacred Art in the Land of Chenghis Khan, while working as a consulting curator at the Zanabazar Art Museum at Yale University for a MARAAS conference..  1999

·         Dr Elizabeth Ettinghausen in Princeton, New Jersey, the director of the Rug Society, invited Janet Roberts to give a presentation on FELTS IN MONGOLIA .   2000

·         Janet Roberts was a NEH Humanities Presentor in outreach to most of the museums in Pennsylvania,  administered by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.  In that capacity, she provided included a lecture on Mongolia.1999-2000

·          A professional presentation on “Teaching Beowulf in Mongolia: The Warrior Tradition” was given at the International  EFL conference(college section) in Toronto, the abstract of which was published in the conference catalogue.

COLLECTIONS:  The collection of art books about Mongolian art brought from Mongolia are a part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.   The Philadelphia Museum of Art also acquired various Buddhist objects, for teaching purposes, as well as a 17th century sacred sutra.  Early century Buddhist high gold robes and prayer cloth were acquired by the Eveyjian Art Museum,(now the Chazen Museum)  at the University Of Wisconsin, Madison.   

Publications:   Himalayan Sacred Texts and Charms”  Asian Art, London. 2005.  Review of exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  www.asianart.com   Includes one of my 17th c sutras from Mongolia, a gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

·         Festivals of the World. 2000  HK publisher.  Inclusion of my photos of Naadam.

·         Note: Elizabeth Knight Editor  Publisher Orientations asked Janet Roberts to write an article on Mongolia, for a Mongolian issue, 2002, but the issue was postponed indefinitely . Update:  See October 2014.

Bio : Janet Roberts spent a year in Mongolia.. Director of the program for teaching English at  the University of Colorado, Boulder with  the University of Ulaan Baatar, she was invited by the UNDP representative to become his consultant, managing  professional applications in English for all the professional staff and creating the model for UNDP shelters for children based on her consulting with Didi’s Street Children.  She created a primary school for learning English, for an entrepreneur, complete with Human Resources, hiring of teachers and creation of a start up curriculum.  The Director of  SAVE THE CHILDREN invited her to train his staff in professional communications, and the Christina Noble Fund invited her to train its local staff in documentation of stateless children.   She cooperated with the Asia Foundation in building a library in English for the Ulaan Baatar university and in placing volunteers to monitor Rickets.  She travelled with Drs without borders into the steppe land to assist them with cultural communication as they administered to the people living in yurts.  She did curatorial training for the Soros Foundation, whereupon the Zanabazar Fine Arts museums, with its newly trained curators, invited her to consult with them for the year in museum development and curatorial skills. .Janet Roberts was also owner  in an entrepenuerial project with a group of foreigners of a successful French café and art gallery, which served to support the bankrupt Academy of Art.