You can learn a lot from carefully studying a piece of cloth: Its age, the fiber and its origin, the interlacement of the threads, the pigments used to color it, the cultural references in its design. And so much more. Museums and scholarly books are troves of information for understanding how and why textiles have […]
31
Jan
Jan
About four years ago, Linda, photographer Joe Coca–with the excellent help of Diana Hendrickson–and I spent a couple of weeks in the Peruvian highlands learning from, documenting, and photographing master artisans of the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco. CTTC director Nilda Callanaupa had arranged for various artisans from all of the communities that comprise […]
16
Nov
Nov
November is National Native American Heritage Month—a country-wide celebration of the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans. Thrums Books joins the Smithsonian, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Gallery of Art, the National Park Service, and other organizations in paying tribute to Native peoples. We’ve been celebrating the ancestry and traditions of […]
03
Aug
Aug
Enjoy this beautiful post from our weaving friend Aaron Burmeister. I imagine you’ve heard or read about the Slow Fiber movement. Fiber enthusiast that you are, you’re likely even directly involved in some Slow Fiber cause. It and its similarly concerned older cousins, Slow Money and Slow Food, advocate for a different way of thinking […]
01
Jun
Jun
At Tinkuy Gathering of the Textile Arts in Cusco, Peru last fall, anthropologist Wade Davis, gave a remarkable keynote speech, “Geographies of Hope.” His talk was a celebration of the world’s indigenous cultures, but also he warned about the rapid disappearance of these cultures and the impact this has on the cultural web of life, […]
30
Mar
Mar
This week, we’re putting the finishing touches on a forthcoming book about Navajo weavers–one of two new books we’ll be bringing out this fall. One of many memorable stories in the book is about a man who, suffering a terrible illness, commissioned for himself, a rug woven with the Tree of Life design. I’m not […]
16
Feb
Feb
Joshua Hirschstein, co-author of Silk Weavers of Hill Tribe Laos, drops in this week to share his thoughts about the challenges to traditional textiles in a global economy. Minimizing the Impact In 2008, in a small village in the beautiful Annamite Mountains of northern Laos, Maren and I met a Tai Daeng silk weaver who […]
01
Dec
Dec
A lot of textile books come my way: scholarly tomes, museum extravaganzas, technique how-tos, and much more. But I don’t think I’ve ever laid hands on a book quite like Maid, Mother, Crone and the Rabbit Net. First, there’s the time span. It starts in 525 CE, jumps to 1875, then to 1953 and present […]
06
Oct
Oct
This week’s post is crafted by Joshua Hirschstein and Maren Beck, authors of our brand new book Silk Weaver’s of Hill Tribe Laos. They offer a special view into the world of Lao weaving and ask some hard questions about the future of traditional textiles. Thanks, Josh and Maren! Upon walking into a hill tribe […]
22
Sep
Sep
In our ongoing appreciation of museums and galleries around the world that celebrate all things textile, today we land in upper middle America to check in on the Textile Center—A national center for fiber art in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Textile Center has been honoring textile traditions for more than 20 years. It also promotes and encourages innovation […]
