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TCD Loose Threads Archive - March 2009
- MONTAGE sponsors sustainable fashion show and clothing swap
- Assoc. Prof. Diane Vigna finds High Style in Alabama
- TCD at Sheldon College Night -
- American Quilts in the Modern Age published by U of NE Press
- Sr. Lecturer Carol Easley is recipient of CEHS Distinguished Teaching Award 2009
- TCD design major wins in Little Black Dress competition
- TCD students experience MAGIC Las Vegas
MONTAGE sponsors sustainable fashion show and clothing swap
Assoc. Prof. Diane Vigna finds High Style in Alabama
Alabama Chanin workshop-in-progress at company headquarters, Florence, Alabama. Dr. Diane Vigna is seated center, Natalie Chanin standing to her left. Photo courtesy Sumi Lee.
Dr. Diane Vigna, TCD Extension Specialist, traveled recently to Florence Alabama at the invitation of fashion designer Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin, to attend an Alabama Studio Style weekend workshop. Vigna and thirteen others from across the nation were taught to create garments “Alabama Chanin” style. Chanin works with 100% cotton jersey knits. Her garments are all hand-sewn and typically involve a great deal of reverse appliqué, negative reverse appliqué, embroidery and beaded embellishment. Each workshop participant chose a garment from Chanin’s line to work on during the weekend. (See item on Chanin’s October visit to TCD in the October archives of this blog.)
Workshop vests, Sumi Lee, Asst. Prof. at Otis College of Art & Design, Los Angeles, at left, and vest-in-progress by Assoc. Prof. Diane Vigna at right. Photo left courtesy Sumi Lee.
Attendees at the workshop included faculty members from West coast fashion school Otis College of Art & Design as well as a midwest institute of art; a Minnesota costume designer; a country music singer from New York City; and several others from Minnesota, Indiana, Alabama and Georgia, all Alabama Chanin apparel devotees. After the weekend workshop, Vigna spent a week with Chanin and her staff to investigate her business model and operation, and to learn how Alabama Chanin works with local sewers to produce the brand's exquisite high fashion products.
Alabama Studio Style workshop participants. Designer Natalie Chanin is second from left, standing; Dr. Vigna is fifth from left, standing. Photo courtesy of Sumi Lee.
Dr. Vigna now plans to brainstorm with TCD and Extension faculty on ways that small business ventures in rural Nebraska communities might be inspired by or patterned after the Alabama Chanin model.
Wove Girl, Lia Cook, 2006, cotton & rayon, 57" x 51"
"Lia Cook: In Touch, Faces and Mazes," a solo show featuring the work of California artist Lia Cook opened in TCD's Hillestad Textiles Gallery on Monday, March 16 and continues through Friday April 10. Cook, a weaver from Berkeley, CA and faculty member at the California College of the Arts., uses an electronic Jacquard hand loom to weave faces that dissolve into continuously changing, maze-like patterns. As the faces fragment, a perceptual shift occurs, moving through a place of transition and ambiguity to reveal the physical, tactile nature of the constructed image. Cook uses a detail, often re-photo- graphed, layered and re-woven in oversize scale, to intensify an emotional or sensual encounter.
The show, organized and curated by Hillestad Gallery Director and TCD Professor Wendy Weiss, is a traveling exhibit that will be on tour through 2011. The Hillestad Gallery is the first venue on the tour.
Cook will present a public lecture, "Lia Cook: Faces and Mazes," at 4 p.m. April 4 in Room 11 of the Home Economics Building, north of 35th Street and East Campus Loop.
And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses - would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories? ~Rainer Maria Rilke
The photographs of our childhood selves that we carry around with us through life, moments of our pasts captured by unseen witnesses, document the innocence, the anticipation, the ambition, the fear, the disappointment and often the confusion that qualified those now out-of-focus days. They locate us in time, and by their nature they allude to our inexorable mortality. This is no doubt why they are so weighted with personal meaning, so complicated. We don’t want to go back there, we can’t – yet, these records forever link us to our ‘blank slate’ selves, with all of the unpredictability and possibility we embodied once upon a time.
Lia Cook crops snapshots of her earlier self and other family members to intimate proportions and then presents them on a much magnified scale that amplifies their intimacy. Blurred gently and fused with grid-based patterns that reference mazes, the snapshot portraits capture the restlessness and the emotional highs and lows of early childhood. Complex weave structures, driven by digital technology, assert the primacy of the textile object and engage the viewer in a process of perception, interpretation, and self-questioning. In so doing, they transcend their materiality to limn the hazy borders of dream and memory.
Dolls effect a more distanced, rueful tone, more assertive and confrontational in the way they seem to knowingly scrutinize, to judge. Indifferent objects of juvenile affection, they seem proud of that indifference and immune to the extremes of emotion invested in them by their childhood guardians. Fed, dressed, carried about, pampered, laid to sleep, shelved – they remain forever uncomplaining, recipient, resolute in their impassive sang froid.
The transmission of these images is filtered by the mechanics of the electronic weaving process and results in a veil of interference of the type formerly associated with analogue television and radio broadcasts and now more frequently experienced as pixelation. This interference serves metaphorically to define the intractable problems of both individual and collective memory: their infidelity, their inaccuracy and their elusiveness. Lia Cook’s accomplishment is located in her ability to connect the sensual experiences of touch and sight to the emotional processes of memory and recall. Her images function as mnemonic devices, suggesting to viewers moments from their own distant pasts, while the woven panels from which those images appear ground those viewers in the physicality of the present. The integration of form and concept is both rational and magical.
©2009 Michael James
TCD at Sheldon College Night -
Tacia Booton's evening wear featured front and center in Sheldon's Great Hall
Twenty-two TCD graduate and undergraduate apparel design students presented their works in a runway show at the Sheldon Museum of Art’s College Night on Tuesday March 10. The garments were the output of several TCD courses including 403/803 Draping, 416/816 Line Development, 471/871 Experimental Apparel, and 472/872 Inventing the Crafted Fabric.
The garments featured in Sheldon’s Great Hall pushed conventional ideas about dress and explored the multiple meanings of black as an iconic color and apparel form. By exploring garment structure the designers spotlighted the body and brought awareness to the garments’ aesthetic and sculptural qualities. Students addressed ideas of power, isolation, rebellion and restriction in their creations. In addition to the black garments, the models also presented a group of sustainable garments as well as a group that expressed issues and aspirations related to women in society.
A full house SRO crowd greeted TCD's designers and their models at Sheldon College Night
The current 471/871 and 472/872 collaborative courses are being taught by Dr, Barbara Trout and by visiting lecturer Judith James, respectively. Conceived to bring together surface design elaborations with garment design and construction, the pairing of the courses is in its second iteration. As the collaboration matures TCD looks forward to the development of more innovative approaches to fabric design and its application to the experimental form.
Alison Goding's confining riff on Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel The Yellow Wallpaper
Sustainable garment collaborations by Line Develpment students who were required to invest less than $20. in their garments, and to use only recycled fabrics.
TCD's biennial student runway show will reprise some of these garments and many more in April 2010 when students return to the ballroom of Nebraska Union for the much anticipated show, last presented in 2008.
Congratulations to all of the designers who particpated in the Sheldon event!
American Quilts in the Modern Age published by U of NE Press
TCD faculty member Dr. Patricia Crews, Director of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum, and IQSC curator of exhibitions Marin Hanson have been working for several years on a Getty Foundation-supported project to catalogue a large part of the IQSC collection. That project has culminated with the publication by the University of Nebraska Press of the first volume in what is expected to be a multi-volume overview of the collections housed in the museum.
A major achievement of quilt scholarship, American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870–1940 examines the period’s quilts from both an artistic and a historical perspective. From pieced block to crazy style to Colonial Revival examples, as well as one-of-a-kind creations, the full array of style and design appears in this book covering seven decades of quilt making. The contributing authors provide critical information regarding the modern and anti-modern tensions that persisted throughout this era of America’s coming of age, from the Civil War to World War II. They also address the textile technology and cultural context of the times in which the quilts were created, with an eye to the role that industrialization and modernization played in the evolution of techniques, materials, and designs. With full-color photographs of over 587 quilts, American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870-1940 offers a new visual and tactile understanding of American culture and society, bridging the transition from traditional folk culture to the age of mass production and consumption.
Dr. Patricia Cox Crews, IQSC & Museum Director and co-editor of American Quilts in the Modern Age 1870 - 1940
The handsomely designed and illustrated book will be available at the IQSC Museum shop on or about April 1. Retailing for US$90 in hardcover, the book is likely to become a classic of quilt documentation and contextualization. Congratulations to the editors and to the IQSC staff and graduate students who supported this project over numerous years of research, compilation and writing.
Marin Hanson, IQSC & Museum Curator of Exhibitions and co-editor of American Quilts in the Modern Age 1870 - 1940. Photo: David Kostelnik
Sr. Lecturer Carol Easley is recipient of CEHS Distinguished Teaching Award 2009
Carol Easley is one of three CEHS faculty who will receive the College Distinguished Teaching Award 2009 at the University Honors Convocation at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 26, 2009. A total of fifteen faculty members from across campus will be given the honor, and each receives a $1,000 cash award through funds provided by the Nebraska Legislature.
The Distinguished Teaching Award is given annually by the University of Nebraska to recognize up to three members of the College of Education and Human Sciences faculty who have demonstrated distinguished teaching. Nominees of the Distinguished Teaching Award demonstrate the qualities of a “model teacher” as embodied by two criteria. First, the model teacher is one to whom colleagues would send their students to observe and emulate if their students had to follow in the footsteps of only one teacher. Second, to be eligible for the award the nominee must have at least three years teaching experience in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska.
Carol Easley has served as Senior Lecturer in TCD since January 2005. From 1997 to 2003 Carol was manager of the Textile Testing Service in TCD, no longer in operation. Carol is a TCD alum, and received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees here at UNL. Consistently one of the most highly rated TCD faculty in student evaluations, Carol is currently responsible for teaching TXCD 206 Textiles and TXCD 212 Product Development I. In addition Carol mentors UCARE students, leads student groups to the Dallas and Kansas City Career Days, and is a member of the International Textile and Apparel Association. Carol is a past recipient of the CEHS Outstanding Lecturer Award for excellence in classroom teaching (2007) and last Fall received the UNL 20-Year Service Award.
TCD salutes Carol Easley on this notable achievement!
TCD design major wins in Little Black Dress competition
Recently more than 20 submissions competed in the Little Black Dress competition organized by Kansas State University in Manhattan. Sylvia Cox, an undergraduate apparel design student, won second place in the Student Division of the event. The award for this accomplishment is in two parts. Her entry will hang with a collection of celebrity LBDs in an exhibit at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, on the Kansas State campus, and her second place prize comes in the form of a new Elna sewing machine.
Sylvia’s designer’s statement for the entry describes her garment:
“Classic lines and classic fabric combine to form an ideal fashion solution for difficult economic times. I chose to make a little little black dress.The short hemline is young and fresh, bringing the versatility and class of the iconic LBD to a younger, forward-thinking audience. The wool crepe fabric is an understated choice that extends the wearer’s use to include office wear, social day wear, and after-five wear. The design features princess seams, and a simplified sweetheart neckline. Tiny edge-stitched pleats lend interest to the back waistline. The metallic buttons joined along the waist add a bit of reserved bling, while shying away from ostentatious sparkle.” Congratulations to Sylvia!
TCD students experience MAGIC Las Vegas
TCD majors Melanie (“Rosie”) Brazeal, Christal Swenson, Kelley Murray and
Cashmere Boehle ‘on the town’ in Las Vegas during MAGIC 2009
In February four TCD undergraduates, Cashmere Boehle (apparel design), Christal Swenson (merchandising), KelleyMurray (merchandising) and Melanie Brazeal (merchandising) were selected to accompany TCD Professional Advisory member Mercedes Gonzalez of Global Purchasing Group, Inc. in New York City at the MAGIC Marketplace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
MAGIC is the preeminent trade event in the international fashion industry, hosting global buyers and sellers of men’s, women’s and children’s apparel, footwear, accessories and sourcing resources. As an incubator of fashion, MAGIC is where new trends surface and develop into what will be seen on the consumer. The show’s goal is to connect and inspire the fashion community, fuse diverse trends, while offering unbeatable service to its customers. Mercedes Gonzales, whose firm helps apparel startups source product and who advises new retailers entering the industry, provides an opportunity twice yearly for TCD students to gain hands-on experience in the intense atmosphere that is MAGIC.
Melanie (“Rosie”) Brazeal on assignment for Mercedes Gonzalez
in the Judy Hazbun booth at MAGIC
Kelley Murray reported back about her MAGIC experience: “I learned a lot of information about what is happening in the apparel business world right now. Mercedes gave me a lot of really useful information for me to start up a boutique of my own. I learned a lot more on what it is really like to own your own boutique and how much work it really is. It was great to get to know some of Mercedes’ clients from Guatemala and hear how business is doing there, and learn about the cultural differences.”
Melanie Brazeal was equally enthusiastic: “It was a wonderful opportunity; I’m so grateful to have been able to experience MAGIC before starting my career in the field of merchandising. The workshops were very informational, especially those conducted by Mercedes herself. She is a brilliant woman and mentor, and it was a privilege to work with her.” She continued: “As a TCD student, it has greatly benefited me to be given the opportunity to experience MAGIC prior to beginning my career in retail. It has allowed me to preview the areas of retail that interest me most: buying, wholesale, and visual merchandising.Although overwhelming and fast-paced, MAGIC offers a variety of possibilities targeted to suit any individual. The fashion shows, workshops, and most importantly, interactions between the diverse masses of people, contributes to the overall visual stimulation and excitement evoked by MAGIC. Millions of dollars go into the preparation and presentation of MAGIC each year and this is evident as soon as you walk through the door. The experience truly put my knowledge and skills of this field to the test. Overall, I was thrilled to be a part of the community known as MAGIC, and I will continue to promote andsupport the development of fashion that MAGIC strives to share with the world.” Like other TCD majors who’ve had the privilege to attend MAGIC, Melanie confirms its value in terms of both inspiration and the realities of the apparel business.
Kelley Murray and Christal Swenson share a moment ‘off the clock’at MAGIC
The next MAGIC takes place in August 2009. Interested TCD majors are encouraged to look for an e-mail call for applications in early summer.
