Jacquard Restoration in Berlin: Emma Wood Update

Work has been continuing steadily with the restoration of a 1920s ribbon Jacquard at the Deutsches Techniksmuseum in Berlin by Emma Wood & Birgit Zehlike.

Following the initial assessment and cleaning of the loom, the latest task has been to mend or replace the eight warps that are currently threaded on. The first five of these warps are connected to the first Jacquard mechanism, and the last three are connected to the second Jacquard mechanism.

Unfortunately there is no available threading plan, so the only keys to figuring out the threading of each of the eight warps were the old examples of woven ribbon and the original punchcards. This meant Emma had to look at the damaged threading that currently existed on the loom, compare this to the ribbon samples, and then reconstruct what the warp order and threading should be ( image above).

All of the eight ribbon warps use both the extra-warp and extra-weft techniques, and she was able to break each ribbon into a number of different design blocks. Once the design was broken down this way, it was much easier to calculate the correct threading plan.

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Nature in the Making is a joint exhibition taking place in Galerie de Sleedoorn, Hendrik Piersonstraat, 11b, 6671 CK, Zetten, Netherlands.

Dates: 4 – 27 November 2016

Weavers Stacey Harvey-Brown and Agnes Hauptli weave artworks based around geology and roadtrips in the US and New Zealand. Both are drawn to the same inspiration – rocks, erosion, lichen, canyons, caverns, and gorges – but they have very different means of expression.

Hauptli’s work is steeped in colour – intense hues, dramatic colourplay, visual movement and delivered through both pictorial (jacquard) and organic lines in shaft weaving.

Harvey-Brown focuses on texture – surface texture and three-dimensional through the use of structural weaving techniques and different qualities of shrinkage.

The two different styles lead to an interesting exhibition, each time bringing in new work and intriguing audiences. This is its second appearance in Europe, having been shown in Switzerland, and previously in two venues in New Zealand and two in the US.

Both artists will be present at the gallery, and Harvey-Brown will be demonstrating the weaving process throughout the exhibition.
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Weave graduates, Jacob Monk (Central Saint Martins, BA (Hons) Textile Design) and Chloe Frost, (MA, Royal College of Art) were both awarded Texprint top prizes by Martin Leuthold, Artistic Director of Jakob Schlaepfer. Jacob won the Woolmark Company Texprint Award and Chloe the Texprint Colour Award

Martin Leuthold stated “It is an honour to give these prizes. I have been in the industry for 50 years and I still enjoy it. And it is great to see the future in the Texprint designers. If you have creativity you can survive – you don’t have to be a big star: you have to be your own star. You give your heart to your ideas, and then you have the pleasure to give it away.”

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Students from The Swedish School of Textiles University of Borås exhibited at New Designers 2016. Three of the weavers are profiled below.

Johanna Samuelsson

Surface Synergy - Woven 3D texture merged with pattern

Surface Synergy – Woven 3D texture merged with pattern, is an innovative textile project that explores digital jacquard woven textures in combination with pattern. A digital visualising tool is used to create complex multilayered bindings that in combination with carefully chosen materials transform the flat textile surface into a patterned 3D-texture.

Textile designer Johanna Samuelsson explains that shrinking is used to transform the flat surface into a texturized one. At the same time as the pattern is created in the loom, also the texture is formed. Or rather, there is an interwoven ability for shrinking; this action of transformation is planned at the same time as the rest of the weave. As long as it is held   in the loom, the fabric is under tension and little shrinking can occur. First after cutting down and steaming, the final result of the shrinking can be seen. This work proposes on-loom effects requiring minimal finishing processes.

Woven patterns, such as plaid and houndstooth, are updated by merging with texture, twisting the traditions of the flat patterned surface. One of the strength with mixing pattern with texture is the concept of sensory manipulation. Johanna states ”I think that if a design, somehow breaks with the assumed aesthetic, or its traditions, we might look upon the object and start to really see it, just because it is distorting with over expectations. I think that a texturised textile has the power to evoke curiosity since its dynamic surface distorts the pattern and breaks up the ground surface into several visual elements.”

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Josephine Ortega
My project investigated the perception of ‘comfort’ and culminated in concept proposals for transport seating. In order to define this abstract notion, I explored where and when people feel at their most comfortable through a questionnaire. The documentation of these answers through photography allowed for the visualisation of comfort to become more transparent, which ultimately meant that the concept of ‘comfort’ could become tangible and definite, making it easier to depict. The main visual inspiration taken from an individual’s home and swimming pool were translated into the designs through extracting elements that referenced colour, pattern and yarn choice.

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