Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom
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TITLE INFORMATION
Author: Katie Treggiden
Publisher: Abrams Books
Year Published: 2018
Dimensions: 8.75”x10.75”
Pages: 240
Weaving by Katie Treggiden is a collection of essays and profiles of contemporary weavers. There are 21 featured designers of various genders, ages, races, and nationalities, making this book one of the best representative collections of contemporary weavers. With each profile focusing on the modus operandi of each creator, the reader is able to build an understanding along as some context as to why the weavers create what they do. There are significantly less essays than profiles, but the essays help build a contextual foundation that helps the reader comprehend today’s world of weaving.
The essays were, by far, my favorite part of this book as they provided a historical basis for society’s perception of weaving; allowing the reader to understand the reasons the weavers in this book do what they do. The first essay is also the introduction of the book and introduces a very light history of weaving. Treggiden breaks down the evolution of the types of looms that are featured in this book along with some basic terminology, historical facts, and figures. Although this was pretty expected as most books about weaving include this in their introductions, it is important to note that Treggiden completely avoids techniques and more detailed examinations of the various looms. The info here is mostly to ensure that the reader knows what the designers are talking about when they discuss their own weaving methods.
The next few essays are more sociological in that they discuss weaving and gender, migration, and as craft vs. art. Before reading this book I never actually questioned any of these aspects of weaving, but I had unconsciously accepted these racist, sexist, patriarchal societal norms. Before, I just accepted that notion that women weave more than men, but I never questioned as to why I perceived why it weavers were predominantly women. At least, not until I read this book. The essay on gender and weaving delves into the brief history of Aristotle and the evolution of architecture that would begin to deem crafts, like weaving, as less significant than design and mathematics. Which then evolves into the Bauhaus where the same principles applied. This foundation is then built further in the later essay where Treggiden discusses weaving as an art and as a craft, and how the things that women do are usually classified as crafts, and looked down upon, while what men do are classified as art, and are looked up upon via an elevated pedestal.
By breaking down these perspectives, it helps the reader acknowledge the significance of weaving in society, and it helps reason why the weavers in this book are significant. Another one of the essays focuses on migration and how weaving travels from location to location due to people trying to escape somewhere. Not only that, but Treggiden then reverses it, and discuses how weaving brings those communities back together, and how weaving is especially helping women who may not have had many liberties before they started to weave. As weaving is being introduced and reintroduced into communities that were once torn apart, women, who were oppressed are now gaining rights as they are bringing in an income through selling their woven goods. The last essay focuses on the future of weaving and how weaving techniques and principles are being applied to science to create new performance textiles, bio-textiles, and more.
These essays are simply phenomenal. What I love about them is they are only a few pages long, and contain lots of images. But they have such a significant impact. This little amount of weaving history builds significant appreciation for the industry. The essays put into perspective the struggles and significance of weaving, and reiterates how it is one of the most important aspects of our societies, yet it is still looked upon as an insignificant craft.
Although the essays are one of the greatest parts of this book, they only make up a fraction of the it. The weaver profiles are what this book is all about. With 21 weavers featured one after the next, the reading becomes pretty repetitive, and the profiles begin to blend. I don’t really remember many of the profiles [not nearly as much as I remember the essays], but I do remember some of the words of wisdom and work. One of the biggest things that stuck out to me was the amount of weavers who are incredibly considerate about where they source their yarn. Almost each weaver made it a point to say that they either sourced their yarn from local farms and mills or they purchased it second-hand in order to not only keep costs down, but to also help the environment. The textile industry wastes a significant amount of resources during production, and it is one of the worst industries when it comes to creating goods with wasteful end-lifes. Usually, woven goods are just thrown away in landfills or are left polluting streams, rivers, and oceans. This is a significant point to pinpoint because it shows that this is one of the struggles that the contemporary weaver faces today. This is a problem that is unique to today’s creators that previous creators really didn’t need to focus on. This is a problem that is uniquely ours.
Another aspect of the weaver profiles that I really enjoyed is the variation in the type of work that is shown. Going into this book I assumed that most of the work would be contemporary, “Pinteresty”, wall hangings. But to my surprise, that was only a small fraction of the work featured. The work in this book varies from wall hangings, to cloth and textiles, to commercial goods, to decor, to contemporary art and design.
The design of this book is as contemporary as the weavers featured in it. It feels like almost every other book on the market that is catered to those who strive for a well-designed life. It feels very similar to popular home-design and interior decorating books, books focused about plants, terrariums, and succulents, along as books focusing on high-end crafting. It focuses on little body text variation layout, and a wide range of photo sizes, layouts, and proportions. With its debossed, hardcover, this book feels pretty substantial, and it feels like it’s designed to last. The typography is relatively plain and nothing to really admire. It is definitely more utilitarian than aesthetic. This is not necessarily bad, but I don’t think this was the feeling the designers were trying to create. There is an interesting folio shift between the essays and the profiles in that the folio shifts from the inner, middle margins to the bottom center. Well, not really centered. It’s more off-centered centered, which looks like it was just placed there. The body type is also uncomfortably large, but still readable, and does look well when sitting on the pink paper used for the essays, but not so much when crammed together on the profile pages. This is probably because there is a lot more white space on the essay pages that allows for more breathing room. There is also an odd quote system being used. There are three different options for quotes and pull quotes: for quotes being used as an introduction to each essay, quotes being used internally in an essay, and quotes being used as pull quote throughout the profiles. I don’t understand why there are different quotes with significantly different treatments, but to each their own.
The layout and composition of this book are pretty standard for these types of books. The photo layout is heavily varied but it doesn’t feel like there is a tight grid involved. Photos in the essays are centered, which feel nice, but photos throughout the rest of the book are not structured as well. With borders, partial bleeds, full page, full spread, quarter overlap, etc. there it just too much going on with the photography. The variation, in theory, is useful as it builds variation and prevents the reader from getting bored, but in practice, my eyes focus more on trying to figure out what is going on than the actual subject. That being said, if the reader is using this primarily as a coffee table book, or mostly for the pictures, then they probably won’t care about the photo layouts. Speaking of photography, the photos are simply beautiful. They are all cohesive in one way or another and they capture the eye well.The paper of this book is really nice. All of the paper is an uncoated, matte stock that offers the physical illusion of touching soft cotton, or a nice soft woven cloth.
Overall, I think this is a perfect book for weavers, textile designers, and even graphic designers. Not only is this a great collection of contemporary weaving but the essays build in so much context that will leave anyone appreciative of the skill. This book would not be good for someone who is jut looking for a book about wall hangings or DIY lap looming techniques, because this book is so much more than that. This is also not a book for those looking at a macro-view of the weaving industry as this solely focuses on independent weavers and less so on production, management, etc.
If you want to see more photos of this book, go check out my Instagram @bibliografik