Like all great arts, textiles recreate our visiton of the world. We hold them up as exemplars of skill, ingenuity, creativity, and ambition. Textiles are poetic metaphors woven from ideas just as much as they are physical items woven from fibres.

Between Science and Art: Collaboration in Textiles. Catharine Ellis & Joy Boutrup

Joy Boutrup is a textile engineer, chemist, and historian from Denmark. Catharine Ellis is a textile artist from North Carolina who specializes in combining weaving and dyeing. They first met at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and, despite living on different continents, they have worked and taught collaboratively for many years.

Joy’s science-based knowledge of textile dyeing and finishing has informed and expanded Catharine’s approach to textile design and practice. As a result, Catharine has developed a unique body of woven and dyed textiles. Many of her fabric can be directly attributed to the lessons she learned from Joy. Currently, they are working collaboratively on a book about the science and the art of natural dyes (just released - see below). Join them as they speak of the scientific principles and the textile applications that have resulted from their work together.

Joy Boutrup (Left) and Cathatine Ellis (RIGHT) presenting at the Maiwa School of Textiles Fall 2018.

Woven Shibori textiles by cathatine ellis

Catharine Ellis is a textile artist and educator. She developed the process of woven shibori in which special threads are added during weaving and then manipulated to create resist patterns during dyeing. Catharine directed the Professional Craft Fiber Program at Haywood Community College for 30 years and has now focused her explorations on the use of natural dyes. She teaches and exhibits internationally and is active in the Textile Society of American and Surface Design Association. Catharine is the author of Woven Shibori (Interweave Press, 2005 and 2016). She lives in the mountains of North Carolina.

Joy Boutrup has a background in textile engineering, specializing in textile chemistry. Her main strength is the ability to analyze structures, develop new methods and techniques and to solve problems in connection with the practical realization of ideas in textile art and conservation. Joy’s unique ability to teach in an accessible manner and to convey the deeper structures of fibres and dyes has had a profound influence on textile designers and artists. Joy has taught at design schools in Denmark and at the School of Conservation in Copenhagen. She lives in Sorø, Denmark.

This long-awaited guide serves as a tool to explain the general principles of natural dyeing, and to help dyers to become more accomplished at their craft through an increased understanding of the process. Photos of more than 450 samples demonstrate the results of actual dye tests, and detailed information covers every aspect of natural dyeing including theory, fibres, mordants, dyes, printing, organic indigo vats, finishing, and the evaluation of dye fastness. 

Throughout history and across cultures, textiles have served important spiritual roles. Belief in the protective or auspicious nature of cloth can be found in societies on all continents. The idea that embellishment and pattern may add not only beauty but also a link to the spiritual realm and protection from evil is indeed a potent one. In this lecture Amy Putansu will discuss how notions of spirituality have influenced her own hand-woven artwork. Inspired by Buddhism, Zen design precepts, and the minimalist art movement, Amy presents a powerful way to reimagine textiles as an invitation to the divine.

Amy’s current practice focuses on an unusual weaving technique called ondulé, which produces ever-present waves of threads throughout the cloth. These fabrics are specially constructed for resist dyeing and other alternative techniques. The resulting textile panels are contemplative fields that reference the undulating nature of light, the sea, and expressions of transcendent experience.

Recorded October 4, 2016. Published as a podcast February 13, 2019.

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Ondulé weaving by Amy Putansu

Recorded at the Maiwa School of Textiles September 14th 2017.

Aya Matsunaga is a Japanese textile artist who tempered her formal studies by moving to Nottingham, England, and embracing the UK fibre art scene of the 1990s.

In this lecture Aya will share her artistic journey—how, like white yarn in a dyebath, she absorbed influences and inspiration from her time in Japan, England, and Italy.

Her work is a synergy of knit and felted techniques. Aya Matsunaga knits with multiple dyed fine wool yarns—both by hand and also using a hand-cranked knitting machine. She completes the construction by fulling the fabric. The result is a very complex colour mixture that gives the work a distinctive artistic flavour. She has adapted this process to make unusual sculpted works and garments. Aya will showcase her work and relate it back to her journey—the challenges and successes of an independent working artist.

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When leading natural dye expert Michel Garcia goes into a garden, what does he see? He sees botanical strategies for survival that often give new insights into dye procedures and methods.

When leading natural dye expert Michel Garcia goes into a garden, what does he see? He sees botanical strategies for survival that often give new insights into dye procedures and methods.

For over thirty years Susan Shie has been producing art on cloth that mixes the personal and the political. Her distinct method of working combines narrative, drawing, and writing into large-format, highly graphic art quilts.

On October 5, 2015, Barbara Todd delivered her lecture, "Stone Drawings and Quilted Lines" or "One Day Tells Its Tale To Another." to a full house at the Maiwa School of Textiles.

Recorded at the Maiwa School of Textiles Lecture series on September 19, 2016.

Each member of our panel has carved a road in the wilderness. It is not easy to walk off the map, but they have all done it, struck out alone to follow a path as unknown to themselves as it was to others. And then something happens ...