Studying textile processes on Textile topics (treating related tools and functions)

From the very beginning of my work at the Museum, in my early works, I have followed the concept of museological processing of tools, in parallel with the study of textile production processes, which is considered appropriate.

This implies museological processing of the associated collections, I have followed the basic concept of processing the collection of tools in the context of appropriate work processes.

Thus, I respected the principle that knowledge of the process of processing textile raw materials and weaving techniques is a basic condition for access to work related to the collection of weaving tools. It’s because this knowledge is the main key to understanding the fact needed in successful museological treatment.

Before we start processing the object itself and forming a catalog unit, we must consider and fully understand its purpose and manner of use in the process of work.

At the same time, a systematic approach to realizing the overall work process in such cases also reveals the missing parts in the collection. Accordingly, I directed further searches to supplement the missing elements in the collection that participate in the work process model. It is because I definitely believe, enables an optimal method of procuring items.

In this part of my opus, the following types of issues can be noticed:

In one group of articles, I deal with the search for a key combination between ethnology and museology;

Then I covered a number of important thematic collections for this topic in the Catalogs. There, I applied the method of combining analysis and classification of formal shapes, with the interpretation of the function of the tool in the working process;

I also have done contributions to the study of forgotten old weaving techniques.

If you are interested, information about the works that I mean here is available in the notes to the Conclusion of the following presented Monograph on this page.

All my published results are based primarily on museum funds as well as field research conducted for decades (from 1975 until today) in numerous households throughout Vojvodina.

Carpet weaving Techniques Among Serbs in Vojvodina

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Carpet weaving Techniques Among Serbs in Vojvodina, by Bratislava Idvorean-Stefanović, [Original title: Tehnika tkanja ćilima kod Srba u Vojvodini] Translated by Dr. Vladislava Felbabov. Publisher, The Museum of Vojvodina, Monographs 22, Novi Sad 2009. Format 30 cm, paperback, 228 pages, color boards attached. ISBN 978-86-82077-94-7

Even now, I like this summary by the reviewer of this book, prof. Dr. Olivera Ninčić, Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade.

Quote:

When a weaver makes a carpet, she combines her idea, impression, skill, and experience. The making of carpets arises from phase to phase until the warp is cut and the last knot is tied.

Thus, the reader gets to know the stages of making carpets from chapter to chapter, from the tools and devices, the growing and processing of the raw materials, through weaving procedures and types, to the patterns and descriptions of carpets from the collections of the museums in Vojvodina.

The information on weaving is supplemented here by interpretations of the history, social conditions, and cultural influences on textile making. These insights introduce us to the inner experience of the richness of shapes, colors, rhythms, and harmonies, giving universal spiritual meaning to the diligent work of generations of weavers and their achievements.

After a certain systemizing of the tapestry weave technique, I continued to research all the derived systems for developing far more complex woven structures.

My goal was a valid typology of all variants of weaving among all ethnic groups in Vojvodina.

The first time, was at the Permanent Exhibition of the Museum of Vojvodina, in 1988. I set up an overview of basic weaving techniques, classified into two groups: fabrics woven in meters; and ornamental techniques for making patterns in one-piece textiles.

This review at The Permanent Exhibition, which presented ten enlarged images, actually briefly suggests the thesis for the typology of interweaving that we have now.

Then, the Project with the irresistible title “Archaic Textile Traditions of multiethnic Vojvodina”

With the irresistible title “Archaic Textile Traditions of multiethnic Vojvodina”, I drew the concept into the Museum’s program as an exhibition for better times. So, I persistently waved to the declared standards of Museology.

In the early 2000s, the age of repressed culture was on the margins of daily politics, so we managed as best we could. Absolutely never vas enough money, but little by little, as used to say “on a spoon”, over the whole decade, we have developed several segments of the Project.

The first one is the publication Textile Structures – Woven Interlaces, in 2013.

The first one, the publication Textile Structures – Woven Interlaces, in 2013, was published as a manual for the identification of weaving techniques.

In this catalog, the focus is on an enlarged image of details in a visible way of interweaving threads, and text definition of the visible woven structure.

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Textile Structures – Weave Interlaces : based on the Textile Collections of the Museums of Vojvodina / Bratislava Idvorean-Stefanović = Tkane strukture – prepletaji tkanja : na osnovu tekstilnih zbirki muzeja u Vojvodini / Bratislava Idvorean-Stefanović. Novi Sad : Museum of Vojvodina = Muzej Vojvodine, 2013 (Petrovaradin : Maxima graf). 224 pages. Editor Museum of Vojvodina, Special editions 26, Novi Sad 2013. Format 23 cm, paperback, 224 pages, full color.

ISBN 978-86-87723-43-6

With this edition, I was strongly willing to present an illustrated classification of woven structures.

I was strongly willing to compose a precise illustrated classification of woven structures with this edition. The exact purpose of the bilingual catalog is not just to become one more reference disposal. But needs to be a study guide in order to recognize fabric structures and weaving procedures.

This purpose refers to the treatment of textile museum objects, by curators, as well as contemporary textile workers, artists, and other practitioners.

In the introduction to the book, I explained the composition and relationships of the longitudinal, taut warp threads with which the weft threads intertwine transversely. This is how a fabric of a certain structure is built.

And it is precisely the structure of the specimen that now remains to us as source information for the study of long-abandoned hand-weaving techniques.

In the first part of the Catalog, I defined the types of woven structures.

The majority of the content is a developed classification of all manifestations of woven structures, i.e. weaves, and their variants, obvious in the details from the museum specimens of textiles.

The final part of the catalog I have dedicated to the analysis of a series of samples that illustrate some principles of combining different weaving procedures.  and woven structures on one-piece textile. Weaver sometimes has done this for aesthetics, but sometimes for practical reasons.

I emphasize that this classification is in accordance with all standard criteria for handweaving in the world. In that sense, I used all the relevant material that I due to.

In fact, there is no such content among the reference national literature. The reason is that our local studies of textiles still hold firmly to the analysis of the surface effects of textile ornamentation.

So, I am sure that my approach and results can add a new angle of observation of weaving procedures and certainly improve the system of categorization of weaving processes.

Ethnological films: Archaic Textile Traditions of Multiethnic Vojvodina, directed by Petar Jovanović

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Those filmed contents are worth paying attention to as Cultural heritage memories for future generations.

Can you imagine how hopeless this idea seemed at first?

It was because I was looking for film material about archaic textile traditions that have long been abandoned and forgotten.

However, a series of short ethnological films were made: Archaic Textile Traditions of Multiethnic Vojvodina, directed by Petar Jovanović, 2014, subtitled in two versions, Serbian and English.

It is a series of seven ethnological films: Wedding Towel 1,44 min, Bed in the “Parade Room” 4,56 min, Foot Wrap – ancestor of the Sock 2,02 min, Double-apron Combination 4,40 min, Apron Weaving 4,27 min, Girl’s dowry and Weaving in Gložan 6,36 min, as well as Bezdan damask 11,51 min. The total duration is 36 minutes.

We have shut a small part in the Museum of Vojvodina, but the majority at the authentic locations: Serbian in the Cheney, the farm near Novi Sad, Romanians in the village Uzdin, Slovaks in Gložan, and Hungarians, at the Textile Enterprise in Bezdan.

For most phenomena, I swear you couldn’t believe that has been a typical routine in the past everyday life. Thus, I am glad, for a successful show, a few, once typical characteristic phenomena among archaic textile traditions.

The exhibition Old Weaves and Forgotten Interlaces at The Museum of Vojvodina, Novi Sad

This Exhibition was completely covering the public promotion of the Project Archaic Textile Tradition of Multiethnic Vojvodina. Lasted in September and October 2014.
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The exhibition catalog “Old Weaves and Forgotten Interlaces” at The Museum of Vojvodina, 2014.

The exhibition consists of two thematic Units:

Old weaves have consisted of 12 separate stories, in 12 scenes, but really, the focus was on woven pieces, that originate from the 19. and beginning of the 20. Century.

The old museum textile items represent the mainstream of the exhibition, in which are twelve special stories, each in a separate space, closed with a transparent foil.

The exhibition is a step forward in the architecture of presenting museum textiles. Continuous content in space, but protected as a showcase, had exclusive archival photographs as the thematic support.

We have achieved a clear narrative, a museological standard but also a cheap one.

In order, scenes portray: Inviting guests to a wedding with traditional accessories; a white homemade blouse; archaic fastening of two aprons with woven belts; Peasant footwear and leg wraps; Pannonian man’s white wearing; old-fashioned woven apron; Then, various specific weaves among Ruthenian, Slovaks, and Hungarians; Festive bed linen;

Even some textile inventories could seem sort of exotic, like a mosquito net bed cover; or a shaggy woven bed cover originating from the prehistory of the Adriatic Coast.

Weaving Interlaces, another content of the exhibition, a visual typology, actually summarize the results done in the previous monograph Woven Structures – Weaving Interlaces.

Classification of woven interlaces has been designed as a series of magnified details of weaving, with a brief introductory text. In additional legends, I made separate identification of each given example.

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Shut view in Old Weaves Exhibition, Photo Album, the memory of Presentation

Do you think, this atmosphere is challenging you to experience old, lifestyles with picturesque traditional woven items?

Photo Album of the Exhibition

For the ending ceremony of the Project, I have devised a publication Photo Album of the Exhibition Old Weaves and Forgotten Interlaces.

My real desired goal was to eventually prolong memories of the event which cost a lot of hard work for many years of preparation. Because it usually, very quickly disappears from the scene and from memories.

For this reason, here is the picture book in case some readers are interested in