Category Archives: Ikat

Ann Roth: Planned and Unplanned

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TSGNY: What is your fiber technique?

Ann Roth:  I work with the simplest of all weaving patterns — plain weave — but I use fabric strips for both warp and weft. The warp starts as whole cloth (100% cotton; bleached, de-sized and mercerized), which I dye using shibori techniques I’ve adapted.

Shibori warp in process.

AR: Before I do any dyeing, I map out areas that will eventually be bound or blocked off and go over the lines using a long basting stitch. This keeps the lines ‘readable’ after going through the dye, and helps me gather the fabric evenly. I do this for straight lines and to outline circles. In some cases, I cut two identical pattern forms from corrugated plastic board and clamp them together with fabric in between. Because of the width of my fabric strips, I have to widen circles into ovals to allow for the condensing that occurs when the warp is threaded on the loom. After all the warp fabric is dyed, I rip it into strips, maintaining the pattern order. I use ikat techniques to dye the weft strips.

Warp going on loom.

AR: As much as I dislike using a computer to make art, I have found it to be a valuable tool for the design process. Using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, I can make quick schematics of composition ideas. This greatly speeds up my ability to change and relocate colors and patterns. I can even approximate the effect of the optical mixing that occurs when weft overlaps warp by creating a weft color composition, reducing the opacity, and layering it over the warp composition.

Warp and Weft Schematic

AR: Sometimes precisely calculated, sometimes left to chance, the colors meet and/or overlap as the weaving progresses. These variations can create both subtle and dramatic forms and color contrasts. All of this play with color and pattern creates the illusion of layered, deep and contemplative spaces.

Weaving in process.

TSGNY: Ikat and related techniques exist in many cultures. Are there particular cultures whose textile traditions have a particularly strong influence on you?

AR: In 2010, I traveled to Uzbekistan to see Central Asian textiles and came home laden with lengths of ikat cloth, ranging from very simple patterns in cotton to meters of silk with complex patterns entirely dyed with natural dyes.

Ikats by Fazli tdin Dadajonov, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan

AR: The exuberance of the colors I found not just in fabrics, but also in their food markets and bazaars dared me to open up to strong color and pattern in my work. The love and commitment of the artisans to their craft boosted my confidence to follow my own artistic instincts. My recent work is all inspired by that trip.

"Shadow of the Silk Road" (2011) Cotton: hand-dyed shibori warp, hand-dyed, ikat weft; handwoven; 3 panels, each 65.5” x 27”; overall 65.5” x 85”

TSGNY: What kind of artwork were you doing before you started working with this combination of ikat, shibori and plain weave?

AR: While I was in graduate school at the University of Kansas, I was inspired by landscape — in particular, the moods and appearances of the ocean off Deer Isle, Maine —  I worked at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts during the summers. The structure of Japanese armor, which I “read” as systems of marks, led me to make rows of diagonal and vertical marks on layers of semi-transparent parachute nylon I found at the state salvage store. I dyed and printed on the fabric and also glued on fabric strips. The pieces were large (around 6’ x 8’) fields of 2-4 layers of fabric sewn together in rows and gently gathered.  There was visual and physical depth, and they created the feeling of being in a physical environment.

Ocean Visages, MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Kansas (installation view) Nylon: dyed, printed, collaged, hand sewn; sizes vary, approximately 72” x 84”

AR: When I finished my MFA I no longer had access to a large wall space, so I turned to the loom to explore my interest in Japanese ikat and shibori techniques. The idea of working with fabric strips for warp as well as weft just surfaced. Maybe it came from a residual memory of making cloth loop potholders when I was young? Initially I intended to make rugs, tapping my interest in Japanese and Scandinavian traditions of making the functional beautiful. I grew up sewing, loving fabrics and the beauty of quilts and rag rugs. I quickly abandoned that concept once I realized how much time I was already putting into the dyeing and weaving process.

"Leap Year" (2012) Cotton: hand-dyed shibori warp, hand-dyed ikat weft; handwoven; 3 panels, each 64” x 38”, overall 64” x 126”


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TSGNY: Does your technique pose any particular challenges? If so, how have you overcome them?

AR: There’s a lot of math involved in figuring how much fabric is needed for each piece, but that seems to fit with my personality. I’ve worked out shrinkage and uptake percentages and made an Excel template that performs the calculations. Rolling on the warp is an exercise in patience because ½” strips of fabric at 6 e.p.i. stick together.

TSGNY: Would you say this technique enables you to do things you have not been able to do in any other medium?

AR: I ask myself sometimes why I don’t paint, and the answer is: I like to have direct contact with materials, to hold them in my hands. There is a lot of repetition in measuring, binding and then unbinding for shibori and ikat, stripping the fabric, threading the read and headless, treadling and passing the shuttle that is calming and reassuring.

"Margilon 1 and 2" (2011) Cotton: hand-dyed shibori warp, hand-dyed ikat weft; handwoven, 2 panels, each 32” x 28”, 32” x 59 overall

AR: The processes I use to create my weavings connect with the part of me that likes to plan and calculate, but they also thwart those inclinations in very healthy ways. I can calculate distances and patterns all I want, but I am prone to math errors, and there is always the serendipity of dye leakage. As hard as I try to maintain an even tension as I roll on the warp, there is always some displacement of pattern elements. The challenge of opening up to the reality versus the plan has been freeing emotionally and extremely exciting.

"Here" (2011) Cotton: hand-dyed shibori warp, hand-dyed ikat weft; handwoven; 32” x 28”

AR: I also make paper weavings to try out ideas. Because the ikat and shibori weavings are so labor intensive, I have learned to be more playful through making these small paper weavings. It’s an easy, quick and fun way to experiment with color and pattern. I rarely make a weaving that is strictly an enlarged study, but use the paper experiments to ignite and process ideas.

Paper weaving

AR: It’s been both liberating and fulfilling to relax my need to have the “correct” answer instead being willing to embrace the unknown as a revealing, rewarding adventure.

“Passages 4: Release” (2012) Cotton: hand-dyed shibori warp, hand-dyed weft, handwoven; 48” x 35

TSGNY: Has your artistic intent changed as a result of working  in this ikat/shibori process?

AR: My MFA thesis committee suggested that I explore making the marks that I was applying to the surface of the fabric become part of the physical structure of the finished piece. I am still interested pursuing marks as structure to create large fields, but I don’t have a large enough space to do that. In my weavings, I continue to explore the illusion of layers and depth I was exploring in my MFA thesis. By making multi-panel pieces, I can also work on a large scale as with Leap Year and Shadow of the Silk Road. I find myself moving away from the color field concept for the present. I still think about “building” marks, though.

"Shadow of the Silk Road" (detail)

TSGNY: Finally, are there living artists who inspire you whose work you feel we should know?

AR: Artists who have influenced my work include El Anatsui, Cynthia Schira, Reiko Sudo and Nuno Textiles, and Ana Lisa Hedstrom. TSGNY member Valerie Foley’s Daily Japanese Textile blog has been an important inspiration for my interest in pattern and color.

"Passages 2" (2010) Cotton: hand-dyed shibori warp, hand-dyed ikat weft; handwoven, 56” x 42"

TSGNY: Thank you, Ann. You can see more of Ann’s work on her website, and in the show In Response: Weavings by Ann Roth and Vita Plume; May 31-September 6, 2012, Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Virginia Davis: Exploring Surface and Substance

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TSGNY: How would you describe the relation of your work to fiber?

Virginia Davis: My work is in a niche between weaving and painting. The weaving technique is called ikat. I place the image on the threads before weaving the “canvas.” The technique of ikat consists of marking a group of threads, reserving areas by tying or other means, and then applying color to create a pattern on the warp — the vertical threads. The weft — the horizontal threads — can also have a pattern created in the same manner. In my work, most of the time, I execute the patterning in such a way that the color placed on the warp and weft thread combine to produce my desired image.

“Blue,” 2009, 34”x32”, ikat weaving with acrylic paint on the surface of the twill weave.

VD: After weaving I stretch the work, again commenting on a traditional presentation of painting. Now, on the woven ikat, I have the opportunity to paint, collage, embroider, etc. After weaving, the ikat image lies below the picture plane and another image can be placed on the surface. Unlike the planning that goes into the ikat, my creation of the images in this part of the work is very unconscious. In “Blue,” I used masking tape in the painting portion of the piece, and the combination of painting and weaving techniques produced the contrast in the blues.

“This is not a slide,” 1994, 35”x35”, ikat weaving, gesso, oil pigment, printed label collaged, nail polish for dot.

VD:  Through weaving, the texture of the canvas can be controlled, introducing a substance to the surface image, or the embedded image. Linen is my fiber of choice, commenting on the support stratum used by many painters since the Renaissance. “This is not a slide” is a signature work illustrating the historic use of linen as a support for painting with oils in European art. However, since the origin of ikat is likely Asian, the conjoining of the two signifies the international unity of art.

TSGNY: Were you a painter before you started working in this layered form?

VD: My previous work in art had been woodworking in New York, followed by traditional sculpture at the Sir John Cass School of Art in London and then at the Art Students League in New York. I wanted to learn additive sculpture and went to the Riverside Church School of Arts and Crafts in New York City to take a course in yarn, rope making, and dyeing. With so much yarn, I took a course in weaving with Sandra Harner at the Riverside Church School and quickly realized that, with so much to learn, this was my direction.

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The “Tartan Series,” 1989, 6 modules, each 36”x36”, dye and linen.

VD: This was in the early ‘70s. Sandra would present the various types of weaves students could opt to study. I was immediately attracted to ikat, fascinated by the control of color and the design one could achieve.

“Tartan 3,” 36”x36,” The third of the 6 modules.

VD: In the “Tartan Series,” for example, the tartan image is that of the Davidson clan, and is ikat-woven in the correct distribution of lines and stripes for a tartan. The weave structure, a 2/2 twill, is conventional for tartans. The image of the tartan is placed on a plain weave background.

“Tartan Complement 3,” 36”x36”. The fourth of the 6 modules.

VD: My passion for ikat has led me to study it with practitioners in Japan, India and Mexico and to seek out examples in museums all over the world. In addition I have learned and teach other reserve techniques. This range of techniques enables me to make unique statements about image, surface and substance.

“Blue Arches 1,” 2011, 40”x36” pigment in linen, ikat weaving.

TSGNY: Thank you, Virginia. You can see more of Virginia’s work on her website:  at TSGNY’s Crossing Lines show; and at the 8th Fiber International Biennial, Snyderman-Works, March 2–April 28, 2012, Philadelphia, PA.

Mary Zicafoose: Weaving in Code

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Mary Zicafoose with a fraction of the wrapped ikat sections required for a single tapestry.

TSGNY: Which textile techniques do you incorporate in your work?

Mary Zicafoose: I am a rug-weaver-turned-tapestry-weaver who developed a fascination with ikat about 25 years ago. What began pretty innocently with a few scraps of a Hefty garbage bag knotted around a hank of yarn has evolved into complex tapestry imagery created by very intricate and layered ikat wrapping and tying techniques.  The process now demands months of wrapping, tying small pieces of japanese ikat tape — a brittle cellophane tape — around individual strands of mountains of silk and wool.

Wrapping ikat before dyeing. The weft section shown here will become approximately 3 inches of the finished piece.

MZ: For the last 10 years I have produced ikat tapestries almost exclusively.  I’m currently working on a commission for a home that will require about 80,000 ikat ties.  When done tying I will dye the yarn and then untie all 80,000 design sections.  The weaving is almost a secondary process: literally just what holds all the ikat-dyed yarn together.  That said, the weaving is a monumental and time-consuming activity unto itself, since the pieces are large in scale. This particular tapestry will be a panel about 10’ x 10’, woven in silk, dyed the colors of the prairie sky before a thunderstorm.

At the Loom: "Blueprint" in Process. All three sections of the triptych are woven simultaneously, row by row.

TSGNY: Was that first experiment with a shredded Hefty bag the result of an aha moment when you knew ikat was something you just had to explore?

MZ: Yes, of course.  I was working on a pretty involved classical tapestry piece, struggling to make it appear painterly and more spontaneous.  Just for the record, the words “spontaneous” and “weaving” are rarely used in the same sentence — they occupy two different universes, coming from completely different hemispheres of process.

I was very frustrated, feeling gridlocked and constrained by technique and the limitations of my equipment.  Then I flashed on a scrap of ikat cloth my aunt had given me as a child –a memento from some exotic junket she had been on — that I had held onto as precious.  I thought that’s where this needs to go: I need to embrace a textile process that allows some element of surprise or chance to occur.   This was in the 80s when there wasn’t much ikat going on anywhere. And so began the study.  I went to the Fairfield, Iowa, public library to get a book on ikat applications for tapestries and rugs, only to discover that no books on ikat process existed.  To date, almost 30 years later, there might possibly have been three books written on the subject.  I think I may have drawn the card to write the fourth.

"Ancient Text - Chain of Command" (diptych), 76" x 45", Weft-faced ikat tapestry.

TSGNY: What are the particular challenges of the ikat process?  How do you overcome them?

The Ikat cartoon: the design "exploded" in preparation for dyeing.

MZ: Ikat is a synonym for challenge.   A bolt of hand-dyed silk ikat fabric,  whether a beautiful 18th-century adras ikat robe or one of my ikat tapestries, is the composite visual solution to thousands of tiny complex problems. Ikat is based on math, geometry, dye chemistry, and the ability to think and design abstractly — expanding shapes and images at the ikat board to then severely compress them at the loom.  It also requires an abnormal otherworldly amount of patience with process–an actual fascination or addiction to process, I would say.

Unwrapping Ikat

MZ: I used to teach a lot of ikat until my process became so complex and layered that I could no longer explain it within a workshop context.  Also, very few weavers were interested enough in the visual product to invest and go where this takes you.   Weavers already have a time-consuming and totally demanding and economically unforgiving process–why take it to the 10th power?

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Silk Ikat sorted and collated. Each ball of yarn is numbered with its place in the weaving sequence.

MZ: My undergraduate degree was in photography and my graduate work was in clay.  The sculptor in me is waiting for the day I’ve tied that last ikat wrap.

TSGNY: Clearly ikat has its rewards, because you haven’t tied your last tie yet. What does ikat enable you to do that you had not been able to do in other techniques?

MZ: I always describe ikat yarns as being “coded.” Understanding the mechanics of this code has enabled me to create work that was never within my grasp, pieces that I would not have dared dream of creating. Recently I’ve been working almost exclusively in black and white, offset by sections of saturated color.

"Ancient Text - Indigo and Ochre" (diptych), 2007, 58" x 62", Weft-face Ikat Tapestry.

MZ: What is the visual difference?  Well, for one, complex ikat carries an energy, a frequency that makes it resonate differently than other textiles.  Perhaps it is the layers of overdyeing that produce more complicated and compelling saturations of color, perhaps the massive amount of human handling and touch that imbues it with so many layers of the “handmade,” but the element of magic is the serendipitous alchemy that happens when miles of wrapped ikat are submerged into vats of dye.  What sections resist the dye and where dye wicks up under the tape is random and uncharted and defies all plans and promises to clients.  The dye ebbs and flows and seeps and creates new and unexpected colors. The moment that the wrapped yarn slips into the colored waters of the dyepot is the precise moment the muse is invited to enter into the process. It’s as though another hand, another breath, has entered.

"Blueprint #7" (triptych), 2009, 84" x 88", Weft-face ikat, hand-dyed silk/bamboo on linen warp.

MZ: I am endlessly intrigued by this process and its applications.  I have had the great pleasure and opportunity to crisscross the globe traveling to ikat-producing countries and cultures.  I have wrapped ikat on remote islands, in Andean mountain villages, in factories, mud huts, and on horseback.

Matching colors. Zicafoose dyes all the yarns, referring to her library of more than 1,000 dye recipes.

TSGNY: Are there artists – in this medium or in others – you’ve come across in your travels who inspire you and who you’d like us to know about?

MZ: Besides my ethnic contemporaries a few artists in the UK are doing contemporary ikat.   I purposefully don’t follow their work.  Is that foolish?  It’s too easy to be influenced by your peers within your medium and field, actually to be deeply influenced by what they are doing. For me visual influences are as powerful as auditory–like when you hear a song you can’t get it out of your head.  It’s best if I just do my work and tell my story and not read too many other stories while I’m at it.  Yes, that may be foolish.  Ptolemy Mann is a UK ikat weaver of talent and note. American ikat weavers include Virginia Davis  and Polly Barton.

Early on in my rug-weaving days Mark Rothko was my big inspiration.  We all are familiar with how he treated large fields of color–how the edges collided and bled into each other–so very ikat.   When my husband Kirby and I traveled extensively in Peru and worked in Bolivia I fell under the spell of all things ethnic and ancient.  It took years behind the loom to weave South America out of my system.  When I finally emerged from that I fortunately had a strong sense of who I was as an artist and as a weaver and was very freed to be inspired by and to build my work on non-textile influences such as the visually powerful works and writings of Meinrad Craighead, the visionary Catholic nun;  Mary Oliver, the beloved Northeastern poet: the sculptor Martin Puryear, and the architect Phillip Johnson.  Sources of inspiration are an endless craving.

TSGNY: Thank you, Mary.

You can see more of Mary Zicafoose’s work here.

"Blueprint - Wine & Willow," (diptych), 2008, 48" x 76", Weft-face ikat.