Textiles. I love to study Textiles. From the very first found twisted cord (18,000 – 15,000 BC) to the evaluation of the loom. The first needle dates back 25,000 years. It amazes me. Fabric is something so simple, so common place it’s barely a glitch on our thought radar and yet it once was one of the very basic keys to surviving. Whether it was felted wool in cold climates or braided grass walls to keep out the heat, fishing nets, feet coverings, to me studying textiles is studying human ingenuity at it’s finest. Textiles, fabric, was one of the first forms of currency. Wars were started, lands conquered, all for the love of fabric. If it was just this I would still love the study of textiles but it is also that from the very beginning we humans felt an innate need to not be satisfied with function, we needed beauty and meaning. Humans not only needed fabric to protect them from the natural elements we needed to believe that this protection extended to spiritual elements too. So of course the study of textiles has lead me to study amulets and talismans which go hand in hand with fabric because so many of the patterns that were woven into fabrics were symbolic or…what’s the word…. belief laden. Woven or embroidered patterns on a sleeve cuff or neck opening were put there to distract the evil eye from climbing through the garment opening and over taking the wearer. We needed to create for function but we have always longed for beauty. I’m getting myself all worked up just talking about it. I love it.
