Asheville Trip

The field trip to Asheville last week was very intrguing and educational.  I learned much about the culture of the Appalacia and about the arts and crafts that they made. The River Arts District has gained many new studios, galleries, and restaurants in recent years.  It hosts about 150 different artists with much variety between twenty buildings in Asheville.  Here are some of the important things that I gathered:

The Folk Art Center had numerous exhibits that I found intriguing.  The Craft Guild was pretty much started with Frances L. Goodrich during the 19th century.  She had not planned to be working with crafts and selling her pieces, but rather doing crafting as a hobby.  People began to have an interest in her works though and so she decided to sell them for a small amount.  This is how the Craft Guild was originated.

Tom Brown was a woodcarver from Indiana who had small wooden pieces of people or animals.  Below is a carved and then painted person that he made.

Handmade in America was nice because their goal was to support local businesses around Asheville and keep the culture prevelant in Asheville.  I feel that it is very important to buy from your local area to help your own town.

My favorite piece was from Alice Pratt who had a weaving pattern that was cotton and hand woven.  I really loved the colors that she incorporated as shown below.

I must say that the Oriole Mill was my favorite place that we visited all day.  I just found it very interesting how the fabric is made with the machines and how much intense labor actually goes into thier work.  Also, I found that the people there had much passion for thier work which is always nice.  

The mill is quite large and spacious which provides for a perfect and ideal working area.  There are actually few workers there but that is what they prefer.  One lady noted that she had been working there since the mill opened, but before that, she had been working with mills similar for about fourteen years.  Many threads are streched on huge spools to a machine shown below:

Getting the threads lined up in the perfect positions can be, at times, quite challenging.  They need to be spaced perfectly with no overlaps.  This can be difficult because there are so many threads and they span a large distance which means the workers have to check the entirety of it for precise work.

Above shows the depth that the threads are spun upon.

Entering the mill in more depth, I noticed these threads arranged in a unigue way hanging from the ceiling.  I thought it was so beautiful looking so I just had to take a picture as shown below.

The crosses made are helpful when making a patterned fabric piece like the one shown below.

There are many designs that they can make with the fabric and fortunately, we were able to see the machine stitch a few lines of the fabric.  The machine speeds extremely fastback and forth, printing a design and ultimately making a whole piece of fabric.

Above shows threads of many colors on one of the looms.

Lastly about the Oriele Mill, I must mention some information about the Jacquard Loom; the machine that makes the beautiful works.  It was invented by Joseph Jacquard who was a silk weaver.  He improved the textile loom significantly into what is now used at the Oriele Mill and many other mills.  Jacquard was born into a family of weavers in 1752 and wanted to speed up the long, tedious process of making intricate designs.

The Center for Creativity and Design was small inside, but that didn't stop it from having great quality works.  The artist presented was Lia Cook, a textile painter.  Cook is still living today and continuing to make things.  She designs a picture by using different colors (mostly balck and white).  The whiter areas usually make up the faces and the darker areas usually make up the background.  Looking closely at her work, it appears that a random design is made but when you step back and look at the picture as a whole, you can really distinguish the picture clearly.

Above is a common idea that Cook has created - a close-up shot of the face with little color.  She focuses much on the emotion that something gives to people.

Below is a weaving of a child again, but this time, the foreground adds another element.  In color, there is another person.  It is intriguing how Cook seperated the two people with adding a color element.