Period pieces are incredibly trendy right now. No, really. Netflix is awash with notable actors gliding around million-dollar sets of Buckingham Palace and Renaissance-era Florence. Hollywood is churning out critical darlings like The Witch and Silence. Hamilton has revolutionized Broadway. Even HBO’s record-breaking sci-fi masterpiece, Westworld, revolves around our collective nostalgic thirst. Joyfully, dedication to historical accuracy plays a critical role in the success of productions like these. It has been a boon to artists and designers who’ve mastered historical techniques that have been long overlooked. It should surprise exactly no one that New England is home to one such artist: Justin Squizzero and his fellow weavers, dyers, and upholsterers at Eaton Hill Textile Works in Marshfield, Vermont.

Justin Squizzero

“It was one of those historic crafts that I could foreseeably do, as opposed to building a blacksmith’s [shop],” Squizzero says of his start in weaving, “My family was involved in historical reenactments; the idea that this was something people did was not foreign to me.” This explains why he’s the youngest weaver’s at Eaton Hill, and youngest teacher at the accompanying Marshfield School of Weaving. The school was started in 1974 by Norman Kennedy, a Scotsman who learned weaving from the last of the British handweavers after World War II. Kate Smith began studying under Norman in 1976; it was she who taught Squizzero before she officially re-opened the school in 2007.

Marshfield School of Weaving and Eaton Hill Textile Works are intrinsically tied to rural Vermont, as the institutions rely on their unrivaled collection of authentic 18th- and 19th-century hand looms. “The frame is the same as [an 18th century] house or a barn—it produces a very sturdy piece of equipment,” explains Squizzero. They take around two hours to thread, but once there’s an experienced weaver at the helm, they can produce about a yard of fabric every 45 minutes. “We do small orders—small batches of dying. It’s appealing for people who want to buy a small amount of very unique fabric for, say, one piece of furniture.” Production of the fabric starts by sourcing historically accurate yarns and worsteds—locally, if it can be accommodated. Eaton Hill does all its own dyeing, and Smith has a sample library of every color she’s ever produced, complete with recipe, that’s over 30 years old. According to Squizzero, “It’s probably the most valuable part of the enterprise.” The majority of work Eaton Hill receives is from museums and historical sites who need either specific colors, or, harder still, exact matching replicas of upholstery or rugs.

Eaton Hill Textile Works | materials | Photograph by Justin Squizzero

Eaton Hill was commissioned to do a custom stair carpet for Dumbarton House, a Federal-era mansion museum in Washington, DC. Squizzero cites the project as one of his favorites, because the research involved thumbing through some fascinating 18th-century artifacts. “We chose a design from a weaver’s notebook from Connecticut,” he says. “It has some of the first, if not the first, American carpet designs. People don’t expect it, but it could be made here—and it was! [The weaver] gives the color names and number of threads for production.” Ah, but how to know if the finished result is historically accurate, when there’s no picture or sketch? “When the weaver from Connecticut said ‘orange,’ it could mean anything,” Squizzero explains. “But there’s this book at the MET in New York, a dyer’s manual from the 1820s or teens, and he dyed a sample of each recipe and placed a sample inside the book so they’re preserved.” So take heart, fellow history buffs: we can still know exactly what orange looked like during the first Adam’s administration.

Dotted along the Eastern seaboard are a handful of historical sites that now contain Squizzero and his colleague’s work, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Colonial Williamsburg, James Madison’s Montpelier, several Federal mansion museums in Philadelphia, and even some Antebellum plantation museums in the Upper South. Eaton Hill also does contemporary work, from unique furniture upholstery to custom table linens. But for Squizzero, the work is more important than the project. “Much of the agrarian history of Vermont fits into a whole different way of working and living,” Squizzero says. “The people who were [weaving] in Britain were cranking out yard after yard, but the people in New England were doing it for homewares and farm work. It’s a nicer pace.” Much about what Eaton Hill represents is a commitment to quality that simply can’t be achieved with modern-day production methods. The integrity of the craft is what defines its luxury.

Justin Squizzero Weaver Loom

Eaton Hill is the only mass producer of authentic 18th- and 19th-century textiles in the country, and Squizzero says business is always good. “The equipment we use and the techniques we use is a constant—it will always be these 200-year-old hand looms. For me, the fabrics are completely interwoven with this culture and place, and our identity. It’s authentic and genuine in a way that I always want to work in.”

All images courtesy Eaton Hill Textile Works and Justin Squizzero
Marshfield School of Weaving on Instagram, Facebook
Easton Hill Textile Works on Instagram, Facebook

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“Sometimes I think my work [is conveying] nothing. Nothing at all. I am just an explorer seeing what there is to discover. On the other hand, I am a storyteller and many of my works are narrative and I have a lot of things I am saying with my work.”

Bhakti Ziek expresses herself through the art of weaving and manipulating contemporary fibers. She has lectured and taught workshops in The Netherlands, Great Britain, Mexico, Canada, as well as all over the United States. But what exactly is weaving, and what does the process involve? In Ziek’s words, “I am a weaver. I have worked on almost every type of loom from back strap looms to fully electronic jacquard looms. Each loom has its advantages and disadvantages. I don’t think one is better than another, but sometimes one is better for executing an idea than another. So I ask myself, what is the proper equipment to use to manifest my idea, and then I go there.”

Taqueté Sunset | Image courtesy of the artist

Currently living in Randolph, Vermont, Ziek completes her work in her weaving studio and offers weaving tutorials. She has lived in the Green Mountain State since 2008 with her husband who is also an artist. The two moved from Tempe, Arizona, where Ziek was a visiting professor in the art department at Arizona State University. Ziek explained,  “Before that we lived in New Mexico, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Maryland and we also traveled around the world in 1982 for 18 months. We call ourselves urban nomads.”

Having lived all over, Ziek truly recognizes the effect that living in New England, and particularly Vermont, has had on her work. Ziek jokes, “The lack of activities that I enjoyed in cities and colleges means that I have lots of uninterrupted time to work in my studio–so I have gotten a lot of weaving done since moving to Vermont.”

She adds, “Having lived in so many places, I understand that there is beauty everywhere.”

As for her work itself, she has a varied collection, all with different feels and aesthetics. Some of her exhibitions include Études, Stardust, Nomad Series, and Continuum Series, all with vibrant colors, intricate designs, and her impressively detailed hand-woven stitches.

Florence Cross-Sections, 1997 | silk – woven jacquard

Ziek’s more recent efforts include a show at BigTown Gallery called Lexicon. “Looking back at my work, I see that there is often a theme running through them that is referential to weaving itself. My weaving Florence Cross-Sections, made in 1997, has diagrams of the weave structures used to make that weaving as motifs in the weaving (that weaving is in the Lexicon exhibit).”

Ziek is currently on her way to Berkeley, California to begin a weaving collaboration. In addition, she will be co-teaching the Spring Concentration in weaving at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina with Tommye Scanlin, a tapestry weaver, from March 4-May 5, 2017.

Bhakti Ziek is a weaver and multi media artist living in Randolph Vermont. Her current exhibition Lexicon runs through November 24th, 2016 at the BigTown Gallery in Rochester, Vermont.

Top image: Taqueté Rabbit | All images courtesy of the artist

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Do you notice how much we mention aspects of weaving in everyday conversation? How much we talk about the ‘common threads’ through our lives, the very ‘fabric of our beings’, moments that pull at our ‘heart-strings’?

We are all Woven in some way and Gail Skudera‘s show of the same name at the Maine Museum of Photographic Art, communicates this philosophy in a visually stunning way. This upcoming exhibition, curated by MMPA director Denise Froehlich, is a mixed-media feast. Skudera has a long and impressive resume of shows across the states and the world starting in the 80’s; textiles, photography, collage, assemblage, painting – all these techniques and materials have passed through her work. Director Froehlich is enthusiastic and rightfully so, “Talk about expanding the photographic medium, the truly spectacular thing about Skudera’s work is that her process is photographic in nature, and she realizes the imagery employing weaving and construction.  There isn’t another artist using this methodology in the State!”

The Changling, 2011 | woven mixed media, 41 x 40 inches

Opening October 3rd, and running until December 30th, visitors to the exhibition will be presented with assemblages, collages, and wall hangings featuring human subjects, known and unknown to the artist. Skudera notes, “Some are personal and some have become personal after working with them for so long.  For years I have worked with family photographs and photographs of known subjects. When I began to introduce found photographs that I was in some way ‘taken’ by, it opened up new freedom for me in approaching what was once familiar.”

Aperture, 2014 | woven mixed media, 30 x 12 inches

We were Taken with it too – Skudera presents us with one the most inventive examples of contemporary collage. The manipulation and interpretation of photography is being stretched out of its old familiar format now that digital has become the top dog. Film and printing continue to be used, but in wilder, more abstract, innovative ways than they were initially made for. Her use of photographs as raw material for weaving a base for her work marries the equally analog world of fiber arts, culminating in objects that are as appealing texturally as visually. There is space for the work to breathe, open fretwork here and there, button reference points, you can look at the surface and then sink in deeper. There’s a conceptual element as well, the artist as needleworker, darner, knitter that gives the works a homey familiarity and the color palette evokes a nebulous but nostalgic place in time.

Block Portrait, 2010 | mixed media on blocks

Gail Skudera’s WOVEN
Maine Museum of Photographic Arts
5th floor, USM Glickman Library
Portland ME
Exhibition Dates: October 3 – December 30, 2016
Opening Reception: Thursday October 27, 6-8pm
Artist Talk: Thursday December 1, 6-8pm

All of the works shown at MMPA are for sale (unless noted).  70% of the proceeds go directly to the artist and 30% to MMPA to cover operating expenses.

Top image: Aperture, 2014, woven mixed media, detail

The post Gail Skudera: W O V E N appeared first on Take Magazine.