The textiles in this exhibition will feature the design processes—tie-dye and tie-bleach— and a more modern development—silk screen—with patterns worked on cottons, silks and velvets by seven Chicago artists.
Tie-dying, tie-bleaching, and batik are centuries-old, resist-dying processes. Earliest records of the craft from India and Japan date back to the sixth and seventh centuries when traders travelling the old caravan routes carried cloth dyed in this fashion from one place to another. Fragments of tie-dyed fabric were also found in the tombs of the ancient Incas of Peru, revealing that it was a flourishing craft in that region prior to the Spanish conquest. In the last few years, this process has been revived by young people in the United States and Europe seeking individual expression for their clothing and interior decor.
The show is arranged by: Meda Johnston, Assistant Professor, Textile Design, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Otto C. Thieme, Art Director for Lutheran Education Journal of Geography and a teacher at Concordia College; and Joyce J. Michalski, Assistant Director at the Renaissance Society.
No photographic documentation of this exhibition exists.
Meda Parker Johnston: Assistant professor, textile design, The School of the Art institute of Chicago. Formerly taught Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and Texas Technology College, Lubbock, Texas, and lied in Mexico for several years. Co-author, with Glen Kaufman, weaver and head of textile design department, University of Georgia, Athens, of Design on Fabrics, published by Rheinhold, 1967 B.A. Texas Woman’s University, Denton; M.F.A. California College of Arts and Crafts; M.F.A. Cranbrook Academy.
Otto C. Thieme: Art director for Lutheran Education Journal of Geography, teacher at Concordia College, River Forest, Illinois, and candidate for a Master of Fine Arts degree in design, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Lectured, demonstrated at Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. B.A. Concordia College, B.F.A, School of the Art institute of Chicago.
Joyce J. Michalski: Assistant director of exhibitions, The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago.
