Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> From ancient textiles to those of the 21st century there exists a continuum of creativity handed down from generation to generation and inspired anew by exposure to the work of past makers. There have been moments in this story when many feared that the art of textiles would become submerged in a monotonous stream of yardage produced by machines which began to replace the action of human hands with the invention of William Lee’s stocking frame in 1589. Automation was gradual at first and for centuries textile production still required human intervention. By the 1830s however much of this work had taken the form of ‘machine-minding’. Fifty years later members of the European and North American Arts and Crafts movements were united decrying the increasing industrialization as soulless. Part of their artistic response to mechanization was to investigate handmade textiles from other cul- tures or carlier eras collect them reintroduce their manufacturing techniques and hold them up as standard-bearers. This ensured that from the 19th century onwards art textiles continued to be produced along- side developing technology for mass production. Beginning in the 1960s entirely new machines began to emerge that were hundreds of times faster and ultimately controlled by computer. (OS)