the aesthetic of distress

Chiyoko Tanaka,  Brown #602 grinded hand woven fabric 1989

Chiyoko Tanaka from Japan weaves cloth and then wrecks it.   Her process leaves tiny holes in the surface of her work, allowing light to shine through.  

Chiyoko Tanaka, Blue RF #601  grinded fabric rubbed with white stone 1989

The weaving process is one of accumulation.  Weft threads repeatedly go over and under the warp threads for a lengthy period of time.  Thus woven cloth is about growth and about space and the warp threads (the time it took) eventually become invisible.  Chiyoko then makes time visible again when she places her finished beautiful linen, silk or ramie cloth on the ground and rubs it with a brick or a stone. She calls this body of work "Grinded Fabric".

"For me the act of weaving, as the weft threads accumulate one by one, is a representation of time passing away..... Placing the fabric on the ground, I trace out the ground texture and grind out the surface of the fabric.  .. The true past tense of the verb to grind, "ground" , also implies the earth, which is used to embed, erode and emboss its own surface into my work."  Chiyoko Tanaka 

Chiyoko Tanaka, mud dyed cloth, poppy seed oil  Permeated fabric 1983

Sometimes, this artist covers her cloth with mud and occasionally pours oil onto it. Again, the time it takes for mud and oil to be absorbed into the cloth, is very important to her process.  She uses the term "permeated".

"I enjoy the sense of addition from a new dimension: on one plane you already have the criss-crossing of the fibres, and now, from above, a new element gently descends and starts spreading outwards from its centre.  For me, this is a symbol of gravity: energy toward the centre of the earth."  Chiyoko Tanaka

All images and quotations here are from Art Textiles of the World Japan
There's a new post about Chiyoko Tanaka on modernist aesthetic. 

I'm still thinking about weaving and the connections that cloth has to human mortality.

weaving

I've been weaving this week.  I took a two day weaving workshop in early December from Heather Thoma and she let us borrow the looms over Christmas.  We have to hand them back in today.

I've always wanted to know how to weave.  I've been quilting and stitching for decades, but weaving is always on my mind.  I am in love with the way fragile threads lock together to make something so strong.

Also this week,  I'm working with a vintage blanket, weaving with my needle to mend the many worn sections in it.   It feels right to be transforming something very old into a new art piece, but I am feeling my way tenderly.

Saving it.