Fiber art facts for kids

Detail of a fabric design called Bluebell or Columbine, created in 1876 by William Morris.

An example of yarn bombing in Montreal, 2009, by the fiber artist Olek.

Fiber art (also called fibre art in British English) is a type of fine art. It uses natural or man-made fibers and other materials like fabric or yarn. This art form focuses on the materials themselves and the artist's handwork. It values beauty and meaning more than just being useful.

History of Fiber Art

The term "fiber art" became popular after World War II. During this time, artists and historians started using it to describe the work of artists who also worked as craftspeople. In the 1950s, people began to appreciate craft artists more, not just those working with fiber but also with clay and other materials. Many weavers started creating art pieces from fibers that weren't meant to be used for everyday things.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a big change in fiber art around the world. Artists went beyond just weaving. They made fiber structures using techniques like knotting, twisting, braiding, coiling, and pleating. Artists in the United States and Europe explored how fabric could be used. They created works that could hang on a wall or stand on their own. These pieces could be flat or have volume, tiny or very tall. They could show real things or imaginary ones.

In the UK, a group called The 62 Group of Textile Artists was formed. This happened as more people became interested in using textiles in fine art. The women's movement of that time also helped fiber art grow. This was because textiles were traditionally linked to women's work at home. Many famous fiber artists are women.

Since the 1980s, fiber art has become more about ideas and concepts. This was influenced by postmodernist thinking. Fiber artists continued to try new materials and techniques. They also started making art that explored cultural topics. These included gender roles, domesticity (home life), and the repetitive tasks often done by women. They also looked at politics and how fiber's qualities like softness or flexibility could add meaning to their art.

Fibers and Textile Arts

Modern fiber art comes from the long history of textile arts. People all over the world have practiced these arts for thousands of years. Traditionally, fibers come from plants or animals. For example, cotton comes from cotton plants, linen from flax stems, wool from sheep hair, and silk from silkworm cocoons. Today, artists also use man-made materials like plastic acrylic.

Before weaving became common, fabrics were made from single sheets of material, like animal skins. Felting was an important invention. It allowed people to make fabric from fleece. The fleece was sorted, combed, and laid out in thin sheets. Then, it was rolled or rubbed until the tiny barbs on the fibers twisted and connected. This created a smooth fabric that could be cut or sewn. Evidence of felting has been found in ancient burial sites in Siberia from the 7th or 8th century B.C.

Weaving has been the main way to make clothes for a long time. In some cultures, the way fabric was woven showed a person's social status. More complex weaving often meant higher status. Certain symbols and colors also helped identify a person's class or position. For example, in the ancient Incan civilization, black and white designs showed military status.

To make cloth or clothing, plant or animal fibers must be spun (twisted) into a strand called yarn. Once the yarn is ready and dyed, it can be made into cloth in several ways. Knitting and crochet are common methods of twisting yarn into garments or fabric. The most common way to make cloth from yarn is weaving. In weaving, yarn is stretched tightly on a frame called a loom. These vertical strands are called the warp. Then, another strand of yarn is passed back and forth, going over and under the warp. This horizontal yarn is called the weft. Most art and commercial fabrics are made this way.

In Europe, between the 14th and 17th centuries, woven pieces called "tapestries" were used instead of paintings on walls. The Unicorn in Captivity is part of a series of seven tapestry panels from this time. These are known as The Hunt of the Unicorn and were made by Franco-Flemish artists. Much of the art back then told popular folktales that also had religious themes. As Mark Getlein wrote, "Tapestry is a special type of weaving where the weft yarns are moved freely to create a pattern or design on the front of the fabric... Often, the weft yarns are many colors, and the weaver can use them almost like a painter uses paint on a canvas."

At the same time in the Middle East, fiber artists made beautiful rugs instead of tapestries. These woven rugs did not show story scenes. Instead, they used symbols and complex designs. A famous example is the giant rugs known as the Ardabil Carpets. Getlein wrote, "Like most Islamic carpets, they were made by knotting individual tufts of wool onto a woven base."

Another fiber art technique is quilting. This involves sewing layers of fabric together. While quilting hasn't been around as long as weaving, it's a popular art form in American history. Recently, quilted fiber art wall hangings have become popular with art collectors. This modern form often has bold designs. Quilting as an art form became popular in the 1970s and 1980s.

Other fiber art techniques include knitting, rug hooking, felting, braiding or plaiting, macrame, lace making, and flocking (texture). There are also many ways to dye materials. Sometimes, cyanotype and heliographic (sun printing) methods are used.

Fiber artists, like all artists, sometimes wonder, "What is art?" This question is especially common for fiber arts and other crafts. This is because they have often been linked to home use or practical items. For example, simple pot-holders that just follow a pattern are usually not seen as fiber art. Fiber art pieces are works that share a message, feeling, or meaning. They go beyond just the materials themselves. Sometimes, the message of fiber art can be overshadowed by people focusing too much on the materials and their history, rather than what the materials add to the overall artwork.

Feminism and Fiber Art

Textile Work in History

Sewing has often been seen as "women's work" and not considered important enough to be called art. Textiles have changed along with cultural movements. In Western society, textiles are usually described as 'textiles' or 'fiber'. These words often bring to mind ideas about home life and women's creativity. This type of women's creativity involves a lot of hard work. However, it has often been unfairly undervalued as "women's work." It became almost invisible and was seen as "non-productive" in a society where men held most of the power.

The Industrial Revolution completely changed the textile industry. Women started sewing less because it became cheaper to buy well-made clothes from stores. Fabric sellers realized they needed to convince women to go back to their sewing machines. So, companies came up with different ways to make sewing popular again. A common message was that sewing not only saved money and allowed for personal style, but it was also a way to be feminine and graceful. Sewing was shown as a way to be a good mother and a smart, attractive wife.

Dr. Deborah Thom, a professor at Cambridge University, explains how fiber art took a feminist turn during the Suffrage Movement. During this time, women made embroidered banners for their protests.

Reclaiming Fiber Arts

In the 1970s, needlework was "reclaimed" by the Feminist Movement. This started the process of bringing textiles and fiber back into the world of "high art."

Judy Chicago started the first feminist art program in the United States. She also created the term Feminist Art. Many artists in her project, Womanhouse, worked with fiber arts. Chicago created one of the first "high art" pieces that uses and celebrates needlework and fabrics within women's history. It's called The Dinner Party (1979). In 1971, Linda Nochlin continued the feminist movement by publishing her important essay Why have There Been No Great Women Artists?

The Subversive Stitch

In 1984, Rozsika Parker published a book called The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine. Parker has written books on art history and psychology. She uses ideas from both fields to analyze "women's work." Parker looks at the idea that women and embroidery are both naturally feminine. She argues that this "natural" idea is actually something created by society. Her analysis strongly suggests that needlework shows the connection between women and the home. The idea of gendering this craft goes back to the 1500s, when other crafts like embroidery and textile work were done by women.

Many people had strong reactions, from being deeply moved to deeply upset, after seeing the exhibitions called 'The Subversive Stitch'. These included two shows: 'Embroidery in Women's Lives 1300–1900' and 'Women in Textiles Today' in July 1989. This was noted in Pennina Barnett's article "Afterthoughts on curating 'The Subversive Stitch'." The reviews from women and feminists were similar. These two shows were based on Parker's book.

Barnett explains that most historical studies of embroidery focus on style and technique. However, these exhibitions explored the idea of femininity that was forced upon women through embroidery. This idea changed from medieval times, when embroidery was a high art form practiced by both men and women. It later became known as a 'feminine craft'. But perhaps this exhibition, with both historical and modern shows side by side, brought new ideas to the older objects. Adding names and dates to the creation of these objects brought them back into the art world. The different backgrounds of these women—due to class, race, and gender—when placed next to modern work, names, dates, and even poetry, created a new way of looking at this art form.

As Ann Newdigate says in her essay, there was a change in textiles after The Subversive Stitch was published.

"Then in 1984, when Rozsika Parker's The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine, which focused on textiles, became impossible for even the most traditional Western artists to ignore. Modernism was finally challenged in the world of 'Low Art'. The empowering ideas spread beyond European textile artists. They also affected curators, teachers, and art administrators in a much wider Western area. The influence of postmodernism, even if only in a few cases, started to blur the clear lines between different levels of art. Twenty years after I chose art as my career, I began to feel the opposing rules of the separate spheres slowly breaking down. This happened as I wrote my thesis and researched how tapestry, which used to be a high art form (until about the turn of the century) practiced by European men, became associated with domestic life."

—Ann Newdigate, Kinda art, sorta tapestry: tapestry as shorthand access to the definitions, languages, institutions, attitudes, hierarchies, ideologies, constructions, classifications, histories, prejudices and other bad habits of the West, New Feminist Art Criticism: Critical Strategies. Page 178.

Craftivism in Fiber Arts

Craftivism is when people continue to use crafts for political reasons, especially women. It's strongly connected to third-wave feminism and other feminist movements like the music movement Riot Grrrl. The word "craftivism" was created by Betsy Greer in 2003. She runs the Craftivist Collective, but the idea itself isn't new.

Germaine Greer believes that women's crafts should be kept in the home. She argues that they are a "living art," not something to be put in a gallery or museum. She feels galleries and museums represent a "dead male culture." Greer supports using textiles in different places, which is almost always what craftivism does.

Recently, craftivism and fiber arts have become an important way to express social protest. An example is the women's marches after Donald Trump's election in 2018, and the "pussyhat" movement. Modern craftivism is also known as handicraft because people use crafting to protest or share information during protests.

Fiber Arts Today

In her book Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery, author Leanne Prain interviews fiber artists from around the world. She asks them about their work in modern art and design. While each interview is different, Prain always asks, "Do you think your gender or social class affects your interest in needlework?" Overall, the artists recognize the feminine origins of the medium. They also appreciate the feminist ideas that it supports.

However, modern fiber art is not only a feminist effort, despite its history. In a review of the "Pricked: Extreme Embroidery" exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design (2008), Karen Rosenberg noted that the art form has grown so much that artists can take many different approaches. She thought that curators purposely avoided the word "craft." Instead, they focused on things like "process" and "materiality" and on more serious topics. Rosenberg argues that needlework's ability to stand in for and even go beyond traditional painting shows that fiber arts are no longer a small, specialized practice. She notes that the artists have "done much to break down the difference between fine arts and decorative arts."

In The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine, Kate Walker writes:

”I have never worried that embroidery's connection with femininity, sweetness, calmness, and obedience might weaken my work's feminist goal. Femininity and sweetness are part of women's strength. Also, calmness and obedience are the exact opposite of the qualities needed to work hard at needlework. What's needed are physical and mental skills, excellent artistic judgment in color, texture, and how things are put together; patience during long training; and strong individual design (and therefore not following common artistic rules). Quiet strength should not be mistaken for useless weakness."

—Kate Walker, Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. 1984. Print

The general feeling of textile and fiber arts today often sounds similar to feminist ideas. As Ann Newdigate states:

"For me, now, it doesn't matter if what I do in my studio fits a small or a big category – whether it's 'kinda art' or 'sorta textile'. Whenever I feel a definition coming on, I try to remember to ask myself 'Who created this definition?', 'Who benefits from these opposing differences?', and 'Why should I follow those rules and traditions?'"

—Ann Newdigate,  Kinda art, sorta tapestry: tapestry as shorthand access to the definitions, languages, institutions, attitudes, hierarchies, ideologies, constructions, classifications, histories, prejudices and other bad habits of the West, New Feminist Art Criticism: Critical Strategies, page 181

In 2013, Canadian artist Colleen Heslin won national recognition for her piece Almost Young and Wild and Free. It was praised for its "fresh approach to a traditional medium." She used textiles and craftwork to create a colorful, abstract artwork with dyed materials.

Notable Fiber Artists

Resources for Fiber Art

There are many special textile programs around the world. The Royal School of Needlework in England is the only school completely focused on fiber arts.

Over the 20th century, more support has grown for recognizing and developing fiber arts. Fiber arts study groups have been especially important. Two notable groups include:

1. The Textiles Study Group in the U.K. was started in 1973. It first focused on embroidery but later expanded to include all fiber arts, especially teaching. Membership is very selective, requiring careful review of each applicant's work. It has a core group of about 25 teachers.
2. The Textile Study Group of New York supports the appreciation of fiber arts and artists. Started in 1977, it holds monthly meetings during the school year in New York City. This group aims to inspire artists and fans and to build networks that create opportunities in fiber arts.

Members from both groups have made big contributions to the field as artists, teachers, and authors.

See also

• Textile design
• Mathematics and fiber arts
• String art
• Wearable art
• Mixed media