I’ve been passing the hot, sleepless evenings daydreaming about the Orkney Hood.
What is the Orkney Hood you say? And why would I be daydreaming about it? Check out this slightly dramatic but very informative video.
https://lnkd.in/g5ciyWd6
I have always thought of myself as a craft person more than an artist. And as a crafts person I think the idea of trying to reproduce the Hood is a wonderful idea. But something about this piece makes me want to go several steps further, in a way making a reinterpretation of this garment as a personal statement.
This generates thoughts for me about culture appropriation. I love textiles and fabrics and garments from all kinds of times and places. I would be very comfortable reproducing a work from another culture as a tribute to that culture and for my personal use. When I lived in Turkey and was married to a carpet dealer, I wove myself a prayer rug. Doing a reinterpretation of a garment and claiming it as my own expression is a different matter. I would never weave a ‘Navajo style’ rug and exhibit it unless it was a strictly a demonstration of technique. However, I come from a predominately anglo heritage, including the Orkney Islands, and I feel comfortable not only trying to make a reproduction of the Hood, but taking it one step further and rebuilding it in an artistic expression of how I see garments.
Like any good project, it needed some challenges. Here are a few that feel important to me.
I hate to sew – My preference is for modular knitted garments that avoid seams. Can I make this garment with minimal to no sewing or loose edges?
I want a hood that will keep my head dry but won’t impede my vision. – can I shape the hood as I weave it to give it a better fit?
I want to limit this to fiber that's already in my yarn stash- This is self explanatory!
I have deep thoughts on how I will accomplish all these things… stay tuned for some serious textile nerdiness! In the meantime, props to Rolf Verberg for his excellent and detailed analysis and reconstruction found here. I don’t know if I could do this project without his work as a starting point.
https://lnkd.in/gEsU8_Ki
Love this✨👑☀️