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Norwegian Double-Cloth: Warp-Weighted Loom Experiments in a Complicated Technique

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By Katherine Larson and Marta Kløve Juuhl

Editor’s note: This article appeared in Archaeological Textiles Review No. 64 (ATR), published in 2022 by the Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen. A wealth of detail on how this technique may have been woven will be of interest to warp-weighted loom enthusiasts, but anyone interested in solving puzzles may also enjoy this article. Links to the article and its foundational study appear below, but first here is a summary from one of the authors, providing you with the background and highlights of studying double-cloth on the warp-weighted loom.

The coverlet-width warp woven for the 2022 double-cloth study. From ATR No. 64

Go Big or Go Home – The Importance of Textile Width

By Katherine Larson

Double-cloth, also called double-weave (dobbeltvev in Norwegian), has a history in Scandinavia. The somewhat complicated weave structure meant that this was not an every-woman technique, but for a knowledgeable few it did provide an effective means for creating free-form patterning on a simple loom: Set up two warps of contrasting color, exchange the warps in selected places, and now you were weaving a bridal procession instead of plain old stripes and plaids. What a break-through moment for the weaver who first figured this out! Some manipulation with pattern boards would be required to hold the contrasting warp layer apart for a weaving shed, but if you were clever enough to conceive of double-cloth in the first place, that part would be easy. 

This 17th century Norwegian reversible double-cloth textile, a fragment of a once longer piece, depicts riders on horseback, possibly representing a bridal procession. OK-10878, National Museum, Oslo.

Double-cloth has been known in parts of Scandinavia since at least the Viking Age. The occurrence of Persian double-cloth fabrics within the same time frame suggests that our clever weaver of the north may have seen an exotic textile from a distant land and set about adapting her home loom to reproduce this brilliant new idea.

A narrow medieval double-cloth fragment from Rennebu, Norway. The figures on the left possibly depict two women weaving on a warp-weighted loom. Museum of Cultural History, UiO, Oslo.

The ‘home loom’ of the north, of course, would be the warp-weighted loom, which was used for weaving reversible double-cloth for centuries in Scandinavia. Even when the technique’s flashier cousin came along – non-reversible double-cloth, woven on the treadle loom – the reversible technique still prospered for a while. A significant body of 18th century coverlets provides ample evidence for both of these double-cloth traditions, but while the non-reversible technique survived long enough to be documented, the reversible version fell out of use before anyone thought to describe the process. Yet over 80 coverlets in the reversible technique, many in excellent condition, provide mute testimony to the successful use of the warp-weighted loom to produce relatively complicated textiles. 

Non-reversible double-cloth lends itself to finer pattern elements than the reversible technique. Details of double cloth coverlets: reversible (left) OK 01696, National Museum, Oslo; and non-reversible (right) NF !910-0433, Norwegian Folk Museum.

The initial study

The coverlets of this gone-but-not-forgotten weaving tradition provided the starting point for my decade-long study to consider how reversible double-cloth might have been woven on the warp-weighted loom. Over the course of many research trips, I found that details inadvertently ‘recorded’ in the coverlets by the weavers themselves provided a surprising amount of information about how the loom may have been set up, while experimentation with various possibilities on the warp-weighted loom served to rule out a few ineffective options (most notably the natural shed). Based on these findings I proposed a possible method for weaving double-cloth on the warp-weighted loom. 

Studying a double-cloth coverlet at the National Museum in Oslo, 2009. Photo: K. Larson

Studying the medieval Lomen double cloth textile. Photo: K. Larson

As with any warp-weighted loom research, Marta Hoffmann’s groundbreaking documentation of plain-weave methods on the warp-weighted loom (The Warp-Weighted Loom 1964) provided the foundation for this research. But double-cloth is more complicated than plain-weave, and even Marta Hoffmann’s carefully qualified speculation, that double-cloth patterns may have been picked by hand instead of with the use of additional sticks, did not stand up well to observation, experimentation and speculation. 

The word speculation deserves repeating here: not for naught was Hoffmann so careful when straying from known facts. While my proposed method for weaving double-cloth was based on reasoned guesses and experimental results, it was still speculation. It was not entirely surprising, then, when a flaw emerged, all of which underscores the importance of Hoffmann’s documentation of an actual living weaving tradition. 

The 2022 study

Words to live by: What works at one width sometimes does not work at another. The error in the proposed weaving method seems obvious in retrospect, but textile width was just one of many factors in the initial study. Warping a loom for double-cloth takes a long time, and the study’s experimental textile (30 cm) was designed to require minimal setup when traveling to various locations. This facilitated what was then a top priority: consulting with knowledgeable warp-weighted loom weavers while testing different loom configurations. Since simply forming a reasonable shed was an early stumbling block, the width of the experimental weaving was low on my list of concerns. However, once an apparent solution to serious warp-passage problems presented itself – a slight fanning of the warp threads accomplished by stretching the spacing chains – shed formation improved dramatically and I moved on to consider many other factors in weaving double-cloth. The element of textile width was not revisited. 

Evidence of pattern storing is found in Scandinavian reversible double-cloth textiles, and therefore experimentation with transferring stored patterns was part of the study.  This proved to be a straightforward process on the warp-weighted loom, especially in comparison to the treadle loom. Photo: K. Larson

The flaw in the proposed warp-fanning method emerged only after the initial study was complete. In contemplating the next logical step in understanding double-cloth, I decided to weave a piece based on the medium-width (~ 80 cm) procession textiles. This group of five decorative panels depicting a procession on horseback is generally thought to slightly predate the coverlet tradition. Unfortunately, shortly after I began pattern weaving on my procession textile it became obvious that the normally beneficial effects of stretching the spacing chains did not extend to the center of this wider warp. 

Procession double-cloth in progress. Photo: K. Larson

Warp-fanning had worked well for relatively narrow double-cloth textiles, and since four of the six surviving medieval Scandinavian examples were 30 cm in width or less, it is possible that this method served as a useful way to weave the earlier decorative panels. However, it clearly would not have accommodated even the modest width of the procession textiles, much less that of the coverlets, which ranged from 123 to 175 cm in width. I was back to square one.

I discussed my ongoing double-cloth research with Marta Kløve Juuhl, curator (now retired) at Osterøy Museum near Bergen.  Marta, an experienced weaver and a recognized expert in warp-weighted loom weaving, was intrigued by the idea of weaving double-cloth at full coverlet width. Thrilled to find someone else curious about this question, I arranged with Marta to start a project on one of the looms at Osterøy Museum in late February 2020. Unfortunately, the pandemic interrupted any idea of further joint work, but we continued to discuss the project regularly by email.

In warping the loom at Osterøy Museum, we used the same elements of loom setup as those in the initial study, with the exception of warp fanning. As expected, weaving did not go smoothly, requiring continual clearing of the sheds, a familiar problem. Nonetheless the small amount of weaving accomplished at Osterøy was instructive, identifying heddle length as the first issue to address. 

Setting up the coverlet-width warp at Osterøy Museum, February 2020; sewing the warp to the beam. From ATR No. 64

 

Preparing to attach the backmost row of weights to the warp. From ATR No. 64

Initial pattern weaving. From ATR No. 64

Fortunately, bringing the warp home to Seattle required cutting all those laboriously tied heddles. Since they would have to be retied anyway, I conducted a small interim experiment before putting the coverlet-width warp back on the loom. This study indicated two things: heddles held slightly taut by their warp threads, but also tied at different lengths for the forward and back layers, reduced heddle tangling during shed changes. The heddles were retied at the new lengths (all 1,494 of them) and heddle tangling receded as a problem.

Weights were the next issue, with the coverlet-width warp requiring a total of 100 weights at 1 kg each. While relatively narrow stones are plentiful in Norway, most of the field stones in the Northwest are nicely rounded thanks to thousands of years of glacial action. These were deemed too thick for the compact weight rows required. Suitably narrow weights were instead achieved by using coins, eight rolls of pennies per weight. Acquiring these coins at several banks felt distinctly odd, loading money into a reusable shopping bag while wearing a pandemic mask. Multiple banks were visited during this penny-acquisition spree due to withdrawal limits caused by a nationwide coin shortage, a problem no doubt exacerbated by the needs of warp-weighted loom research.

With the warp reestablished on the loom, the most likely avenue for improving loom function seemed to be the disposition of the weight rows. Four different configurations were tested, but one clearly outperformed the other three. In that configuration all weight rows were placed behind the shed rod, with the two rows of the forward layer held separate from their backmost neighbors by being tied at intervals to the shed rod. 

Four weight row configurations were tested in the 2022 study. Option ‘d’ was the most successful, with the two forward rows placed behind, but attached to, the shed rod. From ATR No. 64

In the final configuration, spacing chains of the two forward weight rows were tied to the shed rod. The chains formed slight arcs, providing additional stretching of the warps that was somewhat reminiscent of the earlier warp-fanning method. This effect may have assisted in warp passage. From ATR No. 64

This unusual weight-row disposition was inspired by an irregularity I had noted in several coverlets during the initial study. The method for establishing use of the warp-weighed loom in the first place had been a program of measuring irregularity in warp thread spacing. This irregularity is mostly disguised by the profusion of pattern in the coverlets, but is quite evident when measured. Oddly, several coverlets had a series of widely spaced warp areas that were somewhat evenly dispersed across the textile. It seemed possible that this represented a pull on the warp threads – or rather on the spacing chains – to hold the weight rows separate in some fashion. The success of the final configuration, with the forward weight rows tied to the shed rod, lends support to this possibility.  

Reversible double-cloth coverlets woven on the warp-weighted loom were the last chapter in a centuries-long tradition in central Scandinavia. Since available evidence points to narrower textiles being the primary decorative intent of medieval double-cloth, perhaps the appearance of the horizontal treadle loom had a role in encouraging this final chapter. The adoption of the treadle loom happened unevenly in Norway, but occurred at about the same time as the coverlets were woven. With the new loom’s superior capability to produce yardage, it seems likely that once it was acquired, the warp-weighed loom would have been abandoned. Yet for those with knowledge of the double-cloth technique, the now-empty looms may have represented an opportunity. After all, the slow pace of weaving a wider double-cloth textile would no longer be an impediment to the all-important need to produce yardage. 

The use of materials for double-cloth was also revisited in our 2022 study. Double-cloth has an inherent problem: weaving (and continually exchanging) two plain-weave warps in a space best suited to one. Medieval Scandinavian weavers addressed this problem by using a (smooth) layer of linen vs. a layer of colorful wool, but the Norwegian weavers of both the procession panels and the coverlets had transitioned to a new set of materials. In these textiles the linen layer was replaced by a sheep-brown warp that, as evidence from the initial study indicated, was predominantly composed of hair from the dual-coated northern European short-tailed sheep. This relatively smooth fiber likely functioned as well as linen, and the resulting textiles, now all sheep’s wool (or nearly so), may have had a more appealing hand than those made with a layer of linen. 

Perhaps a similar spirit of innovative was at work in solving the problems that arose when weaving double-cloth at a wider width. Since the warp-weighted loom’s signature natural shed was (presumably) ineffective for double-cloth, the weavers may have reimagined the function of this basic loom part, using the shed rod as an attachment point for holding the double-cloth layers apart.

Or perhaps not. We cannot know for sure how double-cloth was woven on the warp-weighted loom, we can only experiment and speculate. 

Detail from Procession, 2019. Photo: K. Larson

For those interested in weaving double-cloth on the warp-weighted loom, I’ll be interested to hear what you find.  kllarson@uw.edu

Katherine Larson lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. She has a doctorate from the University of Washington, where she is an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Scandinavian Studies, and she is the author of The Woven Coverlets of Norway.
Read the full academic article by Larson and Marta Kløve Juuhl from Archaeological Textiles Review:  “Norwegian double-cloth: warp-weighted loom experiments in a complicated technique”

The background research that forms the basis for the 2022 article can be read with these links: the study was published in the Norwegian Folk Museum yearbook (2015); and an account of the research process appears in an earlier Norwegian Textile Letter article (2012). 

The entire issue of Archaeological Textiles Review No. 64 is available online and can be accessed here.  Articles in this issue that might be of interest to readers of the Norwegian Textile Letter include experiments with 2/1 twill on a two beamed loom based on textile fragments from 400 BCE Scotland, rare finds of linen garments from a 17th century Swedish grave, and reconstruction of a tablet-woven band from 3rd-4th century Germany.

Border from Procession. Photo: K. Larson

March 2023

Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

To Seek Connections (Or Wanting to Know Where Things Come From)

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By Anne Karin Jortveit

Editor’s note: This essay is included on the website of the artist Liilian Saksi, featured in this issue, “Liilian Saksi: An Artist in Språngning.” Anne Karin Jortveit is an author, critic, and artist; two of her textile works are highlighted following her essay. 

«No other animal tends so thoroughly to become (for most of us) nothing but a signifier or blank page or resource unit. For it is surely the case that, despite their massive contribution to our lives – past and present – we think less of sheep than just about any other animal.» – Philip Armstrong

A few years ago I waited for the ferry that would take me from Hovedøya to Aker Brygge [across the bay to downtown Oslo]. It was early fall. The sheep, who had worked a summer job for the community, now wandered about freely, accustomed as they were to the flood of people on the island. The flock had gathered at the edge of the pier, as if they also waited for the boat, as if they also were ready to leave. I stood and talked with a friend when I suddenly felt a careful, almost friendly nudge in my side. One of the sheep had come close to us without our noticing. It seemed like it wanted to be scratched on the nose. For a moment I forgot myself, taken up as I was with the conversation, and immediately I felt that little nudge again. The rest of the time before the boat arrived this bold little animal received my full attention, and I went onboard with a new understanding. From then on my interest in wool developed a greater depth, all because of a confident sheep.

Sheep in Sweden. Photo: Liilian Saksi

People talk about whether we have entered the Human Age, the Anthropocene. The whole world is affected by what we humans, with the help of technology, have created. We use, misuse and consume at an escalating rate, and often at the cost of something or someone. This truth also intrudes on the work of artists. When considering those who utilize animal fibers, the use of wool, and the fact that it once belonged to a living entity, undeniably becomes part of a larger picture. In this day and age, it is difficult to pretend that there is no connection. Within the fibers one finds the connection between animals and people. Wool is like a door that opens on the living world and between species. How do we manage this gift from nature going forward? With respect and care for its source? Or is it primarily just the material itself that has worth for us? We seek out the quality of the raw wool we wish to use, but spare few thoughts for the sheep body on which the wool actually grew. The sheep then becomes a distant supplier, reduced to fiber type and sorting. But perhaps it is precisely in the Human Age that we now have the possibility to truly reflect on the missing link between our materials and their origins?

The arts are a place where this concept can unfold. In artistic circles, one no longer considers just the aesthetics but also the ethics. For more and more artists these two categories are joined. This is not always expressed in themes, but nonetheless emerges as a driving energy, like an underlying attitude in artistic choices. To work with art is to be an active participant in the world, to be sensitive to events and changes, and to know that what one does affects the use of resources and leaves footprints. At the same time, one’s own motivation can inspire others, and can reflect back an uplifting feeling of contribution in this larger context. Wool also connects artists to others who value fiber, and of course on a higher level, textiles concern us all.

Anne Karin Jortveit. Hesje [Hay rack]. Hayracks are built up from loose parts, and this work changes with each installation. The panels are woven with the artist’s entire “thread archive,” yarn from her first spinning course through recently-spun yarn, and hung over a framework made of copper pipes. 363 x 103 x 44 cm. (11.75′ x 3.4′ x 1.4′)

Our familiarity with wool has very long timelines, one enters a handcraft relationship with roots that stretch back several thousand years. Sheep were among the first farm animals to be domesticated. Just in Norway they have been present for around 6,000 years. Wool is connected to survival itself, and before we learned to spin and weave we made felt, itself the original textile. Wool fiber’s unique characteristics have seen humanity through harsh winters and difficult weather. Wool breathes, provides insulation and draws dampness away from the body. It is flame resistant and dirt repellant. We have protected ourselves with it, and we have adorned ourselves with it. We have enfolded it in myths and stories. It’s no wonder that wool has been highly valued throughout history, often being considered more important than meat. As the respected felt maker Claudy Jongstra puts it: “Nature is so clever; the fibres are constructed so ingeniously that it intrigues me. To this day, we’ve been unable to make a fibre that combines the same characteristics and qualities. I think that’s unbelievable. I deeply respect that.”

Even when artists use spinning or felting in projects that do not have a practical use, an echo of wool’s contribution to life’s necessities and life’s pleasures is felt through mere contact with and manipulation of the material. Today wool is a byproduct of sheep raising, but fortunately some things are in the process of changing. It blossoms forth in the handcraft milieu, it is incorporated into artistic thinking, it enters into the design process. Even the handcraft enthusiast wants more than to knit with purchased yarn. It is about wanting to know. People seek out and bring forth tools, techniques and insights that have had changing and sometimes low status in our recent past. It is as if we want to assure ourselves that this knowledge is not lost, now that these skills are no longer passed seamlessly from one generation to the next. Most important of all, it is about taking care of and guarding the diversity of the surrounding landscape. This also raises questions about values, both material and existential, and between humans and animals. 

Sheep in Sweden. Photo: Liilian Saksi

As I finish writing this, I look over at Molly, my dog, where she lies curled up between the pillows on the sofa. She also has met the sheep on Hovedøya. On one of our trips we suddenly stood face to face with the whole flock. One sheep decided to take a step forward. I held the dog leash firmly, a little anxious. Both animals neared each other and finally stood nose to nose. When the other sheep saw that this was not a dangerous animal, they also came forward. I stood on the sidelines, touched as I observed what happened. Perhaps this was the same year as my own meeting on the pier. Perhaps it was even the same sheep that was seeking contact. 

«…to understand other living things, their environmental conditions, and their ecological relationships in such a way as to awake in us a deep sense of our kinships with them as fellow members of the Earth’s community of life.».  Paul W. Taylor

www.annekarinjortveit.no
Translated in February, 2023, by Katherine Larson, Affiliate Assistant Professor,
Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle
Anne Karin Jortveit is and artist and writer who lives in Ås, Norway. She works in Ås and Oslo, with a studio on Hovedøya. She works three-dimensionally with textiles and recent years has immersed herself in handspinning, weaving and plant dyeing. These pieces by Jortveit are on her website, only two of many compelling installations.

Anne Karin Jortveit. Sørgen’s Signatur (Sorrow’s Signature), 2022. Rug hooking on fabric with hand-spun wool thread (187 x 143 x 5 cm).

Jortveit wrote about Sorrow’s Signature: When I cleared out my father’s personal belongings, I found a paper with the words “Astrid Died January 15.” My father had become very forgetful. He no longer remembered details of the recent past, such as dates, so he had written down the death date of my mother, his wife.

​This little note was perhaps a kind of anchor. He himself died half a year later.

​This is not intended to be a private work. The name and date are interchangeable.
This simple, raw and bare sentence also contains a shared experience.
Regardless of time, place and circumstances.

Anne Karin Jortveit. 11,2 kilo (11.2. Kilos), 2004.

This weaving consists of clothes from my wardrobe, clothes I acquired but rarely used.
This weaving is a picture of one year’s discards.

In 1998, each and every one of us threw away 11.2 kilograms of textiles and clothing.
When I began this project, I had access to statistics from 1998; therefore this piece weighs 11.2 kilograms .

In 1998, discards were distributed as follows: 68% was sent to the dump; 16% was burned; 7% was reused or recycled, mostly to the Third World and Eastern Europe; 19% had never been used.

Traditionally, rag rugs were the final use of textiles. When clothes could longer be repaired, they ended up here, under our feet, the place where we leave traces of dust, dirt and sweat. This is a rag rug for today. I could wear all the clothes in this weaving and still be well dressed. None of the clothes came close to being called rags. I just got “tired of them.”

Afterword: ​This text was from 2005. In 2013, I checked the numbers again and read that each one of us threw away around 24 kilos of textiles a year. That would have become quite a weaving.

[Editor’s note: Textile discards are not improving. According to figures published by the Boston University School of Public Health, Americans discard more than 45 kilos (100 pounds) of textiles per year. The figure is based on the most recent year of EPA statistics available, 2018. See “The Aftermath of Fast Fashion: How Discarded Clothes Impact Public Health and the Environment.“]

March 2023

Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

Nordic News and Notes: Lectures

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Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum Webinars

Exploring Sami Coastal Handcraft, with Hege Nilsen. Sunday, June 4, 2023. 1:00-2:00 pm CT. Cost: Free

Join folk artist and culture-bearer Hege Nilsen for a conversation exploring the traditional handcraft of the Coastal Sámi. From leatherwork, to pewter thread braiding and embroidery, to mica embellishments, you will learn about the folk art still made by this segment of Scandinavia’s indigenous people.

 

 

 

 

Natural Dyeing: Historical Handcraft as a Living Art, with Lesley Darling. Saturday, June 10, 2023.  1:00-2:00 pm CT. Cost: free 

Has the growing popularity of natural dyes made you curious about the process? Join textile artist and educator Lesley Darling for a webinar on the history of natural dyes across cultures, ideas to start saving your own dyes, and how you can learn more about the process. Lesley will also talk about how plant based dyes are making waves across the planet, from fashion labels and Nordic traditions to naturally dyeing dresses for an internationally celebrated drag artist.

The Mystery of the Missing Swans and Maidens: A Frida Hansen Tapestry Tale with Robbie LaFleur (Originally aired on April 2; now on the Vesterheim YouTube channel)

Back in 1903, Norwegian-born socialite and tapestry teacher Berthea Aske Bergh was determined to show Americans the brilliance of Norwegian billedvev, or tapestry. She traveled back to Norway and purchased Sørover (Southward), a tapestry of swans and maidens with shimmering threads from the famous Art Nouveau artist Frida Hansen.

Southward was an important, often-displayed monumental tapestry, so when the curators for the blockbuster show, Scandinavian Design in the United States, 1890-1980, sought key textiles, Frida Hansen’s tapestry was top of mind. But where was this 11 x 10 foot weaving now? Only a few grainy black-and-white photos and many glowing descriptions remained.

In January 2021, nearly 90 years after Southward was last displayed publicly, noted rug dealer Peter Pap opened a Tupperware container in a storage building in Maine. He unfolded a woven treasure in dusty, but pristine condition, and with a quick google search, he learned it was a long-lost Frida Hansen tapestry.

The veil of mystery, as well as the dust of decades, has been removed from Southward. The Frida Hansen masterpiece was restored to the world in time to add to the Scandinavian Designexhibit during its recent run at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and at the Milwaukee Museum of Art, showing March 24-July 23, 2023.

Join Robbie LaFleur for this timely webinar to celebrate the life and work of Frida Hansen and, especially, to hear about the Southward tapestry mystery as it unfolded.

Lecture on Swedish Folk Art in Duluth

“Tulips and Roses,” with Ulla-Karin Warberg. April 18, 2023, 6 pm at the University of Minnesota Duluth Solon Campus Center, Room 120 — AND — April 19, 2023, 1:30 pm at the Nordic Center, Duluth. (pdf poster here)

“Tulips and Roses,” by Ulla-Karin Warberg, is an exposé about Swedish Folk Art and its pattern traditions. She will use the folk art patterns as a starting point to show how they were adapted and used in different parts of Sweden. Learn how vernacular art was influenced by economics and geography. Observe older paintings and watercolors from the permanent collection of Stockholm’s Nordiska Museet. See works that show farmsteads, painted furniture, textiles, betrothal gifts, paintings and minor handicrafts.

Ulla-Karin Warberg is a curator at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm and a lecturer at Uppsala University in Sweden. She has curated numerous exhibitions and has a distinguished publication record. She has also presented gallery lectures to UMD students as part of the Nordic Art and Design Study Abroad program.

Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

 

Mendable: An Exhibit and Environmental Investigation

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Norske Kunsthåndverkere (The Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts, referred to as NK) is a membership organization working to promote and support Norwegian contemporary craft artists nationally and internationally.

NK has a current membership of more than 1000 professional artists and makers in a range of media from all of Norway. The group arranges an annual exhibit, the Arsutstillingen;  sponsors thematic exhibits around Norway; publishes a magazine, Kunsthåndverk; administers art grants; and works to influence art policies.

NK runs two galleries – Format  in Oslo and KRAFT  in Bergen. Another arm is Norwegian Crafts, a non-profit organization funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Equality and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) that aims to strengthen the international position of contemporary crafts from Norway.

NK arranges thematic exhibits in various areas of Norway, and the themes are chosen by one of the seven regions that are part of the association. In 2020 the Norske Kunsthåndverkere regional group in Viken worked with NK on the juried exhibit “MENDABLE—Climate and Environment in Today’s Art Practice.” The jury and project group included Margrethe Loe Elde, Barbro Hernes, Svein Ove Kirkhorn and the project leader Ann Kristin Aas. 16 artists were chosen for the exhibit at the House of Foundation in Moss, August 29-October 11, 2020.

[Editors note: NK includes artists working in a variety of media. For the Norwegian Textile Letter, we focus on the artists working in fiber-related materials. You can see the full list of artists here. You can watch a Facebook video of many of the artists here. The following general description and the entries about the fiber artists are taken from the NK website.]

The Mendable Exhibit, 2020

We posed the question of how artists take a position on climate and environmental questions in today’s material-based art. We wanted to know about how the choice of materials, technique, content and expression in art were affected by thoughts of, or consideration of the environment. In the exhibition MENDABLE, we wanted to investigate how environmental activism is present in fine craft, and how the artists reflect on creating works of art in a world that is already full of things.

The title MENDABLE indicates something that can be repaired, both in a physical sense, but also as repair of a relationship or improvement of a situation. The artists in the exhibit seek relevant ways to express their unease with the climate situation through their work. They seek to help us find deeper understanding and insight through varying forms of expression and artistic methods. In this lies a hope that something can be done about the situation, that it is possible to repair something destroyed, and that it is possible to change and improve our way of living in the world. 

The artists pose questions around overproduction, overconsumption, and the exploitation of natural resources. What are the consequences for nature, and for us? Several of the artists use a working process that is close to nature to explore these questions. Many gather the raw materials themselves, like clay, wood, resin, and plants, directly from nature. Recycling and manual work are strong aspects of the artists’ works. Reworking found materials, building step by step, sewing stitch by stitch, repairing, unraveling, whittling, and weaving create room for reflection and new realizations—a method to find a deeper understanding of nature and the world around us. 

Eline Medbøe   |  I FIND SHELTER IN OUR REMAINS

It is strange that something that is so woven into our daily lives and our personalities is something that, at the same time, we respect so little. We throw away enormous amounts of completely usable clothing every year. Clothes are consumer products where the prices are out of line with the human and environmental resources used to produce them. By using recycled materials like cast-off clothing in my work I try to comment on us and the times in which we live. I sew my works with repetitive hand stitches  and I am concerned with the actions I take while I transform the textiles. There is something ruthless and brutal in sewing into a skirt, a pretty piece of clothing that someone has worn next to their skin. I hope the viewers of my work will become more conscious of their own relationship to clothing, and the value of the materials we toss away so easily. 

Eline Medbøe, ” I Find Shelter in our Remains.” Source: NK website: https://norskekunsthandverkere.no/users/eline-medboe. See the site for additional photos.

www.elinem.no
Instagram: @elinemed
Video: “Interview with Elina Medbøe”

Kristina D. Aas  |   UNWEAVING

With my “Unweaving” project, I reflect on the production of art at a time we are swimming in products. We don’t understand how things are made, what they are made of, who makes them, nor where the makers are. When these layers of knowledge are erased, one begins to ask questions about the meaning of making art or crafts. I am trying to answer the question for myself, and in dialog with the public by the dismantling of work I have used several months to create. 

Photo: Karina Nøkleby Presttun

Source: Kristina Austi website: https://austikristina.com/upcoming-exhibitions/2020/8/29/mendable

https://austikristina.com [Editor’s note: The artist’s name is now Kristina Austi.]
Instagram: @austikristina

Karina Presttun Nøkleby   |   RUBIN

I began to investigate wood shavings as a possible method to stiffen textiles because a friend who creates frames of recycled materials had a sack of shavings. Great, I thought. Free, locally produced and environmentally friendly. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work out as I intended, but worked out as something completely different. I think this happens continuously; in attempting to do something “a little more climate-friendly,” possibilities pop up, disguised as restrictions.

Rubin

“Rubin,” by Karina Presttun Nøkleby. Photo: Eivind Senneset. More photos are on the artist’s website: http://www.karinapresttun.no/portfolio_page/rubin-2019/

http://www.karinapresttun.no/contact/

Kristin Sæterdal   |   SPACE DEBRIS

“Space junk is waste and discarded or lost objects from human activity in space. Most are in orbit around the Earth in or close to the original orbit they were put in.” Wikipedia. The European Space Agency ESA monitors 20,000 objects that, among other things, monitor global warming and other environmental issues. The agency sends out alerts to satellites so they can be maneuvered manually to avoid collisions. In the event of a collision, even a small nut can cause major damage.

“Space Debris” by Kristin Sæterdal. Source: Mendable exhibition catalog.

kristinsæterdal.com
Instagram: @tinsapus
Video on the weaving of Space Debris

These are only a few of the talented artists working in textiles that are part of Norske Kunsthåndverkere. From this page listing all the artists, you can choose among materials used, including tekstil. There are other catalogs to download from thematic exhibits and the annual exhibition, Årsutstillingen, on the NK website page, “Fagstoff.” Many are in English.

March 2023

Twist of Fate: Carol James’ Journey in Sprang

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By Carol James

Carol James grew up in an environment where she learned a number of textile techniques. Her mother was of Bavarian-Austrian extraction, and taught her to embroider and crochet at an early age. By the time she was in high school she was knitting socks and gloves, and had taught herself tatting and traditional Norwegian Hardanger embroidery. In her 20s she met someone from Quebec who told her about fingerweaving.

Fingerwoven sash by Carol James, inspired by sashes made by the ladies of Assomption, Quebec, for the fur trade. Photo: Carol James

While living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the 1990s, Carol came to be known for that fingerweaving technique. It is the method to make sashes used by several distinct groups of that area. Volunteering at diverse historic sites in and around Winnipeg, she was given the name SashWeaver.

At one event she encountered individuals who specialized in military re-enactment from the late 1700s and early 1800s. Seeing that she was called the Sashweaver, one of the military re-enactors commented that they were in need of a special kind of sash for their uniforms. Could Carol make sprang sashes for them? Carol responded with the question, “What’s sprang?” This was the beginning of a great deal of exploration into an almost forgotten textile method.

Note the sprang-woven belt on the soldier to the right. Photo: Carol James

Carol quickly found that sprang is a very adaptable textile technique. Peter Collingwood describes it as “a method of making fabric by manipulating the parallel threads of a warp that is fixed at both ends” (Collingwood pg 31). Sprang works well with a variety of textile structures, including interlinking, interlacing, and intertwining, and it was used in the past to create a wide variety of garments including bonnets, shirts, leggings, and sashes.

The portrayal of Jacob Fugger by Albrecht Drürer led Carol to think that Mr Fugger wore a sprang bonnet, so she used sprang for a similar bonnet. See Carol’s blog post, “Jacob Fugger’s Bonnet.”

To better understand how sprang works, you might want to watch Carol’s video. See samples of items made with sprang, and make a sample yourself.

Evidence of sprang dates to pre-historic times. Bonnets in this type of structure have been found in association with human remains in peat bogs in Scandinavia dating to 1300 BC. The technique was known in ancient Greece, Rome, as well as ancient Egypt. Paintings from the Renaissance would indicate that sprang was known across Europe. Indeed in modern times the Norwegian Government has added sprang to its Rødlista (red list) of endangered craft techniques, attesting to its cultural significance.

A half-mitten in sprang owned by the Norske Folkemuseum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023151981/vott-halvvante.

The disappearance of the sprang technique from common usage in Western Europe roughly coincides with the Industrial Revolution. Cloth production shifted from individual artisans weaving with their shuttles, one row at a time, to unskilled workers producing large quantities of cloth in factories. Much knowledge was lost when the skilled weavers could no longer make a living at their looms. Sprang seems to have been one of the techniques that no longer seemed necessary to remember.

Carol was introduced to two books in the public library:

Skowronski, Hella & Reddy, Mary. (1974) Sprang Thread Twisting, a Creative Textile Technique. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.

Collingwood, Peter. (1974) The Techniques of Sprang: Plaiting on Stretched Threads. London, UK: Watson-Guptill Publications (Faber and Faber).

It was a steep learning curve, but Carol eventually figured out a way to make sprang sashes for the military re-enactors. She found that the technique could be adapted to far more than sashes. She was inspired by an image in a book by Dutch textile artist Fenny Nijman, Sprang – Egyptisch vlechten. Vlechten met gespannen draden (Sprang – Egyptian Braiding: Braiding with Tensioned Threads), Wageningen, 1977.

Carol James’ re-enactor friend, an artillery enthusiast, wanted a silk officer’s sash with a cannon design. So she drew up a cannon and mapped it out on graph paper. Read more in this blog post: “Sprang Military Sash.” Photo: Carol James

By this time Carol was rather well known for her skill with fingerweaving. A local museum had asked her to teach fingerweaving classes. Carol began by writing handouts for her students. Her students encouraged her to publish the handouts as a how-to book. That was the genesis of the book Fingerweaving Untangled: An Illustrated Beginner’s Guide Including Detailed Patterns and Common Mistakes, 2008.

Encouraged by the success of Fingerweaving Untangled, Carol set out to apply the same instruction method to the sprang technique, and authored the book Sprang Unsprung: An Illustrated Beginner’s Guide Including Detailed Patterns and Common Mistakes, now in its second edition.

 

In the early 2000s, Carol found herself traveling to spread the word about these braiding techniques, fingerweaving and sprang. Aways seeking new places to host her classes, Carol’s friend and Ohio lace instructor Tracy Jackson recommended Carol pitch her Introductory Sprang class to Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. Curator Laurann Gilbertson was very supportive of the idea.  This is how Carol came to teach sprang at Vesterheim in the spring of 2018. Beyond learning the technique, and teaching within the walls of Vesterheim, it was agreed between Carol and Ms Gilbertson that the students would benefit from viewing the collection. The various sprang lace pieces were displayed on a table, and the students were allowed a close-up examination. Back in the classroom Carol decided this could be an excellent teachable moment, and used the pieces to show students a way to derive written lace patterns from the original pieces.

Carol has travelled across the US and Europe and has viewed a rather large number of sprang items. With permission from curators, she has photographed many of them for her study. She has replicated the motifs from many of these pieces, and always intended to publish her sprang patterns. The silver lining of COVID for Carol was that it allowed her to focus on writing sprang patterns to the point that she has managed to publish several volumes of sprang lace patterns.

Among the titles of Carol’s sprang lace pattern books you will find Sprang Patterns and Charts Inspired by Samples in the Collection of Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. Laurann Gilbertson wrote an introduction for the book and contributed information on the provenance of the individual pieces. Each sprang lace pattern was tested by Carol’s sprang apprentice and fiber artist Sharon Wichman. Many were the discussions between Carol and Sharon concerning the complexity and variations among the various patterns. This led them to the decision to include comments from the sample maker, with her insights gained while working through these patterns. This volume celebrates the sprang lace collection of Vesterheim and hopes to render the pieces more accessible to the public. 

This book can be ordered from the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum bookstore, here.

Carol has created a variety of garments, hats, scarves, fingerless mittens, vests and more using the sprang technique.

Carol visited the Kelsey Museum collection in the spring of 2016 and afterwards made a hat based on a tattered one from the collection.

Carol’s dream is that sprang will become better known. Her challenge to you, dear reader, is that you will take up sprang. Perhaps one day, in addition to spinning, weaving, Hardanger, and embroidery, there will be a significant display of sprang at the biennial National Norwegian Folk Art Exhibition in Decorah, Iowa.

Carol James, February 2023
www.spranglady.com
Instagram: @spranglady

Resources:

James, Carol. (2016). Sprang Unsprung, Second edition. Winnipeg, Canada: Author.  Available in English or French through Spranglady.com. Ebook available through TaprootVideo.com

James, Carol. (2016). Sprang Lace Patterns. Canada: Author.  Available through Spranglady.com. Ebook available through TaprootVideo.com

James, Carol. (2017) Introduction to Sprang [DVD]. Seattle, WA: Taproot Video. Available as DVD or streaming through TaprootVideo.com

James, Carol. (2020). “Sprang: Planning the work and working the plan.” Strands Vol. 27, pp 8–14. London, UK: The Braid Society. Article explaining Carol’s method to chart sprang lace patterns.

James, Carol. (2021). Sprang Lace Patterns Inspired by Dutch Sashes: 77 Patterns Charted and Written by Carol James. Winnipeg, MAN. Spranglady.com, Ebook available through TaprootVideo.com.

2022 Ribbon Winners from the Annual Exhibition of Weaving in the Norwegian Tradition

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From the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum press release, Summer 2022:

Six weavers were awarded ribbons in the annual “National Norwegian-American Folk Art Exhibition” at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School. The exhibit was on display from July 2 -July 30, 2022.

Photo: Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

The exhibition also included knifemaking, metalworking, rosemaling, and woodworking categories. Vesterheim, which has some of the most outstanding examples of decorative and folk art in the nation, established the rosemaling exhibition in 1967 and added weaving, woodworking, knifemaking, and metalworking in later years. 

Each year judges award blue, red, and white ribbons representing points that accumulate over successive exhibitions toward a Vesterheim Gold Medal. Judges also present Honorable Mention and Best of Show Awards and the public votes for People’s Choice Awards. 

Judges this year for weaving were Mary Skoy, master weaver from Edina, Minnesota; Robbie LaFleur, Gold Medal weaver from Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Rachelle Branum, art educator from Decorah, Iowa.

Kathleen Almelien, Washington, IA.  “Granddaughter’s Confirmation” Blue Ribbon

Kathleen Almelien is an artist/teacher from Washington, Iowa.  She began investigating the process/product of band weaving in 2016.   Kathleen has become interested in reading the Norwegian emoji’s that are woven into this historic rope.

“Granddaughter’s Confirmation”

The 120“ long band is ⅝” wide and was produced on a rigid heddle.  My rigid heddle is held in a West Telemark vertical loom. The tape is made in 5 colors of Vavstuga 20/2 wool and 2 colors of perle cotton.

I was inspired to make my granddaughter’s conformation belt to protect her from harm. The protection is historically strengthened by the giving of one generation to the next.

I produced this pattern from a historic collection of motifs published by Magnahid Peggy Jones Gilje in her book Woven Treasures, published in 2020. 

The word waist translates from Norwegian as ”life.“  Historically wrapping the apron band around the waist not once but twice gives a doubling of protection. The first “barrier” at the end of the band is a woven checkerboard, used for protection from nightmares. Then St. Anders cross/ humility. Finally, the heart/ the center of life’s functions represents the soul of the being and means everything positive – such as love, warmth and good feelings.  The heart emotes falling in love/being in love. I wish all of this for her future.

Kathleen Almelien, Washington, IA. “Oseberg Endless Sign Band” Red Ribbon

“Oseberg Endless Sign Band”

The 120“ long band is ⅝” wide. The band is made in six colors of Vavstuga 20/2 wool and two colors of cotton. The rope has three areas of design. The  four reds and white mid-band is woven with a warp of no 10 cotton and 13 “pick up“ yarns. The band’s length, 120″, is divisible by both three and four, which are Norwegian power numbers that protect from evil. It also uses the number three in the pick-up pattern.

The inspiration for this intertwined protective pattern came from the treasure trove of the Oseberg burial ship (carbon dated to 850 AD).  The double wall of zig zag is to catch and hold evil.  This emoji is reminiscent of sharp teeth or saw blades.

The band’s colors are equally important: 

Green: spring /renewal /promise,
Gold: the sun for warmth /growth/ hope/wealth
Red: the color of life and blood.

The rope has three areas of design.  The strengthening edges consist of three cotton warp and 3 colors of yarn to weave  the ”goats hoof” pattern distinct to the region of  Telemark.  

 

Carol Culbertson, Evansville, WI. “Diamonds Galore” Honorable Mention

“Diamonds Galore”

After weaving for 25 years, I taught myself Norwegian traditional weaving techniques 7 years ago. Since then, I have taken 3 weaving classes at Vesterheim’s Folk Arts School, learning how to expand and improve my weaving skills.

My inspiration for this piece comes from weavings I saw while taking a weaving class in 2018 and the celebration of our 60th wedding anniversary. It was most enjoyable putting together the colors and different elements.

Carol Culbertson, Evansville, WI. “Chris’s View” Red Ribbon

“Chris’s View”

Warp: Patons “Grace” 4 ply 100% cotton spun to an overtwist

My great-grandfather’s memories of his home in Vik i Sogn, Norway, inspired this weaving. When asked what he remembered most about Norway, he replied, “the mountains and fjords.” As I stood by his home in Vik and looked towards the harbor, this is what I saw – his view every day from his home. The two 16 1/2″ X 23″ panels are displayed in side by side “windows.”

Laura Demuth, Decorah, IA. “Two Long Winters” People’s Choice Award

I live on a small acreage just eight miles from Decorah, and have been weaving since the late 1970’s. I weave using mostly Norwegian techniques which I have learned in Vesterheim classes with inspiration from the textile collection.

This wall hanging was woven using 12/6 cotton seine for the warp and Rauma Prydvevgarn for the weft.

In 2017, my husband gifted me with a 60 inch wide Glimakra tapestry loom. I wanted to weave at least one piece on the loom that made use of its entire width. Woven using the Rutevev technique, the finished piece measures approximately 56″x71″.

Helen Scherer, Shawnee, KS. “Skis and Rails” White Ribbon

“Skis and Rails”

As a weaving hobbyist, I enjoy a variety of handlooms and traditional Norwegian weaving techniques for clothing fabrics and home textiles. My mother taught me the basics, but I continue to learn from many different resources.

This 25″x41″ skillbragd wall hanging was woven with thin 30/2 and 24/2 unbleached cotton for the background and mostly dark red, blue and green 6/2 Spælsau wool for the pattern weft.

“Skillbragd” means “shed weave” and is characterized by pattern weft floats over a plain weave background. Vertical background stripes are commonly seen with this technique, but the pattern is difficult to achieve without a rather unusual loom setup. On a countermarch loom, I used a group of four shafts for the ground separated by a few inches from a group of four shafts for the pattern. Each warp end was threaded through one ground heddle and above the eyes of from zero to four pattern heddles.

“Skis and Rails” is a traditional woven wall hanging in memory of my father, who enjoyed skiing and worked as a railroad roadmaster. The design was inspired by combining elements from a variety of old coverlet patterns in the “skillbragd” technique.

Sandra Somdahl, Decorah, IA. “Stars and Rosettes” Red Ribbon

“Stars and Rosettes”

I’ve been weaving for over 20 years but fell in love with the Norwegian techniques, yarn and colors. Living close to Vesterheim has given me easy access to classes and old Scandinavian woven pieces to use for inspiration.

The weft is linen and the warp is Norwegian Rauma Prydvevgarn.

Inspiration comes from a late 18th century piece from Sweden, possibly a south western province.

Wendy Stevens, Decorah, IA. “Firestorm Sunrise” Blue Ribbon

“Firestorm Sunrise”

I have been weaving since 1976 when I took an adult education class in beginning weaving on a rigid heddle frame loom and must admit that I was amazed to realize that I was making cloth.   I have also taken classes at Vesterheim in tapestry technique from Lila Nelson and in danskbrogd from Jan Mostrom and discovered that I enjoy the detail that both techniques require.  I am a member of the Oneota Weavers Guild and enjoy the sharing and encouragement within that group.

I wove Firestorm Sunrise in the winter of 2020 when devastating wildfires were sweeping across Australia. I chose single interlocking tapestry to show the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean.  Danskbrogd technique allowed depiction of the sun’s rays both reflecting from the ocean surface and radiating out into the smoke-filled sky showing the beautiful yet terrifying atmospheric changes that accompany wildfire.  High overhead flocks of birds, the only living animals that were able to escape, are making their way to new lands.

Following in Lila Nelson’s footsteps, I would like this weaving to reflect the beauty of nature as well as make a political statement.   I hope that the viewer will come away from this weaving with a renewed sense of urgency to address climate change by government, business and  individuals.

Firestorm Sunrise was woven in honor of and respect for my son, Thomas T. Stevens, who has been a wild land firefighter for over 20 years.

Lisa Torvik, St. Paul, MN. “Hordaland 3rd Generation.” Blue Ribbon and Best of Show

“Hordaland 3rd Generation”

My first weaving project was on a loom at home.  As a teenager, I took backstrap weaving from Lila Nelson.  I went to Valdres with the first Samband exchange group in 1970, as a museum guide in 1972 and a weaving student in husflidsskule all of 1974.

This is a transparent inlay weaving based on the traditional borders of a Hordaland coverlet.  The materials are primarily 16/2 Swedish linen, unbleached and colored, and some perle cotton.

When I was at Valdres Husflidsskule, our weaving teacher showed us a Hordaland coverlet she had woven when she was a student.  A classmate and I studied and drew its borders, shot for shot, on graph paper.  I used that as the pattern to reproduce the piece in half-width.  Last year, there was a couple meters of warp left on my loom from my Baldishol show piece so I was inspired to weave it down using my Hordaland tapestry as the model.  Starting at the bottom, I wove inlaid borders with the same shot-for-shot pattern until I ran out of warp.  This is why I call it “third generation.” (See: Three “Generations” of an Old Hordaland Weaving Design)

Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School, welcomes people of all ages and backgrounds to engage in the conversation of the American immigrant journey through the lens of the Norwegian-American experience. Vesterheim offers innovative and interactive exhibits, classes, and programs, both at the dynamic campus and park in scenic Decorah, Iowa, and online at vesterheim.org and Vesterheim social media.
Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

Nordic Notes

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Viking Era Clothing and Jewelry with Steph Anderson

Historian and artist Steph Anderson presented an hour-long exploration of Viking era clothing and jewelry in a webinar from Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, Viking Era Clothing and Jewelry. From tunics and cloaks to arm rings, necklaces, and brooches, Vikings dressed according to sex, age, and economic status. Steph is deeply knowledgeable and clearly passionate about her topic; she spoke for an hour, but clearly could have talked much longer (and I would have listened).

Webinar screen shot

Hannele Köngas, a Finnish Weaver

Hannele Köngas features naturally dyed, hand-woven Finnish wool on her beautiful site, Waveweaver’s Wool. Don’t miss the page featuring her throws to see amazing arrays of color.  I loved watching a video of her dyeing process. Even though it is only in Finnish, you can follow her dyeing with woad; it felt like a cliffhanger – what colors will emerge?

From the Waveweaver’s Wool website: https://www.waveweaverswool.fi/exhibitions/

Interviews and Articles from The Vessel Magazine

From Norwegian Crafts: “This year we celebrate Norwegian Crafts’ 10th anniversary! In 2012 the organisation was founded by the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts (NK). Two years prior to this, NK had started Norwegian Crafts Magazine, an online magazine with the main purpose to promote the activities of Norwegian craft artists internationally…On the occasion of Norwegian Crafts’ 10th anniversary, we have published a special issue of The Vessel titled Norwegian Craft Magazine Revisited. The issue presents a selection of 45 interviews and articles on craft written by 32 contributors, all of which have been previously published on Norwegian Crafts’ website or as part of Norwegian Crafts Magazine.”

Be sure to check out the Textile Art collection of articles in the special issue. There is also a Discover page to find articles that have been published over the years: It includes a tag specifically for weaving. The feature photo below is from “Hannah Ryggen’s Popularity.”

Virtual Lecture on Norwegian Woven Bands

Join folk artist Kathleen Almelien as she explains the use of symbols in bandweaving, the “emojis” of their time. The online lecture, “Symbols in Bandweaving: The Emojis of Traditional Handcraft with Kathleen Almelien,” is available on the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum YouTube channel. Almelien highlights her own bands as well as those in Vesterheim’s collection and draws parallels with the symbols used in other traditional Norwegian handcrafts. Woven bands played an important role in traditional Norwegian clothing. Used to close or support clothing (the way we use zippers, buttons, and snaps), they also added beauty and interest to clothing. Additionally, the symbols woven into the band communicated that the person came from a particular area of Norway and imbued the band with meaning to the wearer.

Exhibits

Evocative embroidery fills the galleries at the Galleri Dropsfabrikken in Trondheim from October 29-November 22, 2022, in Kari Steihaug – Potetbøtta og parfymen [Kari Steihaug: Potato Buckets and Perfume]. From the introduction:

In Kari Steihaug’s art, the overlooked plays a major role. That which has been set aside, the unfinished and the worn, is lovingly brought to light.

The materials she has worked with include worn clothing, faded curtains, discarded blankets, unfinished knitting projects, and bits of glass from the beach. She takes them, or brings them forth, and puts them together in new combinations. By embracing the imperfect the work becomes a counterweight to our time’s galloping consumer culture. (translated by Robbie LaFleur)

Photo taken from the Dropsgallieret website.

Articles about Weaving

In case you need a reminder about the wonderful textile collection at Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum, here is a short article that appeared in Handwoven magazine several years ago, in 2015. I though it was worth revisiting, partly because of a photo of a tavlebragd weaving (monks belt) with black as the background color. It was woven in the mid-1800s, but looks as modern as today. Read “A Link to the Past,” by Anita Osterhaug.

 

Have you seen Landskap, this monumental tapestry in the Parliament building in Oslo? Norwegian weaving instructor Ingebjørg Monsen once commented that it is on television more than any other tapestry in Norway, as it hangs outside the chambers, where TV reporters stand and wait for interviews with legislators. Read about the artist, Syssel Blystad, in “Norway’s Goddess of Modern-Day Textile Arts” by Victoria Hofmo, The Norwegian American, July 29, 2021 (Updated Oct. 18, 2021).

 

Viking Women

Viking women are featured on the cover of Scientific American: “The Power of Viking Women,” Scientific American, October 2022, pp. 28-35. The article is also available online.

Nille Glæsel from Tønsberg, Norway, has been researching Viking clothing for years, and she was recently tapped to work on the costuming for Robert Egger’s Viking-themed movie, The Northman.” Read more about Glæsel and the weaving-related references in the movie in this blog post of mine, “Authentic Viking Clothing in The Northman.”

Does Nicole Kidman understand what she is doing, or just moving the cards? A fuzzy screen shot from “The Northman.”

A Non-Textile Film

This short film featured on the New York Times Op-Docs site is so well done: Svonni v. the Swedish Tax Agency, by Maria Fredriksson, October 18, 2022. Will Svonni be able to convince the Swedish tax authorities that her dog is a legitimate tax deduction, necessary to the care of her reindeer?

Screenshot from Svonni v. the Swedish Tax Agency

Thank you to everyone who helps support the Norwegian Textile Letter with donations to cover expenses. Your financial support is crucial. Thank you for being a subscriber! 

For those who would like to donate, here’s an easy link.

VikingGold: Weaving History and Fashion Together

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By Tone Skårdal Tobiasson

Fashion met cultural history in the project VikingGull [VikingGold], and the two were woven together into a beautiful wool fabric that found its way to museum exhibits and Norwegian national TV as the most sustainable fabric of the future. 

During the annual event Oslo Runway, the Norwegian actress Iselin Shumba debuted as a catwalk model on a runway set up in a factory deep in the Norwegian forests close to the Swedish border. By chance I was at the event. By chance I was wearing the Oleana jacket I had worn on Norwegian national TV for the episode of Norway’s Sewing Bee (Symesterskapet) when Iselin Shumba was the “client” who wanted a jacket or coat she could wear on chilly days when she does her weekly “sit in for the climate” in front of the Parliament building in Oslo. She wanted the fabric to be “the most sustainable possible”, which was why the Norwegian national TV had called me. I’ll come back to that. 

Iselin Shumba at a weekly sit-in for climate change in front of the Norwegian Pariament, wearing her coat of sustainable wool.

Let’s unravel the threads back in time and explore what fascinates people with the fabric.

The story starts with the project Valuing Norwegian Wool, led by Consumption Research Norway, before they became part of Oslo Metropolitan University, and financed by the Norwegian Research Council. One of the aims of the project was to explore a label of origin for Norwegian wool. “Norwool” had been trademarked by a Swedish company, an American outerwear company had done the same with “Norwegian Wool”. In addition, a Norwegian yarn company selling cheap Chinese-spun wool of uncertain origin called their product Viking Yarn.

To our big surprise, we discovered that one of the sponsors of the British-based Campaign for Wool was “Viking Wool of Norway.” The label was even owned by a subsidiary of the Norwegian farmers’ coop, Nortura. Why hadn’t they as project-partners informed us? The truth was rather obvious. The label was ugly as sin. It had been developed in the UK to sell carpet-wool, and as such, worked well. But for wool textiles and fashion?  Curtis Wool Direct, who had developed the “Viking Wool from Norway” label, did everything in their power to launch it in Norway, including enlisting now King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, but Nortura put their foot down. Luckily.

However, this resulted in an idea, when the opportunity arose to apply for funding from KreaNord, a fund under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers for cultural projects. What if we lifted up the cultural textile heritage from the Vikings, looking at the Viking women’s role in this trader and explorer culture, later explored by Michele Hayeur Smith in “The Valkyries’ Loom: The Archeology of Cloth Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic?” This was the historic beauty and heritage we highlighted in the application, and which won the funding. We decided to call the project VikingGold.

In the project there were several partners: Consumption Research Norway (Oslo Metropolitan University), the Museum of Cultural History (University of Oslo), Nordic Initiative Clean & Ethical Fashion, and the Norwegian Fashion Institute, who took the lead. The project lasted from the autumn of 2013 until the autumn of 2015. However, VikingGold had long-term impact that was hard to envision from the outset. 

Important for the project was to create meeting points for historical expertise, raw material suppliers, and the finished goods industry and designers. These represented people and groups who had not earlier cooperated. Representatives from the industry and designers got access to historical archives and got to see preserved textiles from the Viking age, and gain knowledge about the Vikings’ clothing and textile production. Marianne Vedeler, the archaeologist in the project, was simultaneously working on a reconstruction of the tunic from Lendbreen, Norway’s oldest garment from around year 300 AD, and we chose this as a starting-point. The tunic is about 500 years older than the Viking age, but diamond twill, the weaving-pattern, was widely used in the Viking age as well. The selected tunic was thoroughly examined and well documented, and this made it possible for us to be able to show both a reconstruction (described here) and our industrially produced fabric at the same time. Our collaborators, from sheep farmers to designers, were involved in the decision-making process and the discussions themselves, and were important for enhancing competence and understanding of what compromises must be made when a historical material is to be produced in a modern way.

The wool

We had to choose a breed living in Norway today. For the reconstruction, Old Norwegian (Gammelnorsk) sheep wool was used, while the VikingGold project used Old Norse Spæl (or spelsau) and Modern Spæl (short-tailed) to get two different shades. Ingvild Espelien at Selbu Spinneri [Selbu Spinning Mill] took responsibility for collecting 200 kilos of wool from two local herds. She also sorted the wool into two shades and cleaned it, and separated some of the coarser guard hairs out of the fleeces.

Old Norse Breed sheep grazing on the island of Frøya. Photo: Jan Broda/WOOLUME project)

A modern Spæl (short-tailed) sheep

Spinning

Half of the wool was sent to Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk [Hillesvåg Wool Spinnery], to spin the weft yarn. Selbu Spinning Mill spun the warp yarn, and both were spun with a z twist, though the weft was a little looser spun. The thickness of the yarn corresponded to 6 nm (a metric measurement of yarn size), as 7 nm was on the border of what the machines could spin. This may appear as a minor detail, however the trade-off between being closest to the original yarn in the tunic, and getting a good raw-material with the wool and the technology we have today, was important. 

The yarn from Hillesvåg Spinnery, before it was woven.

Weaving

Ingvild sent the warp yarn first to Krivi Vev, and in order for the yarn in the weft to be as compatible as possible, it was weighed before Hillesvåg started their spinning. No one at Krivi Vev had seen the original fabric, and worked from drawings and pictures in order to set up the pattern and density. A characteristic of older textiles is often a lack of symmetry in the patterns. Krivi Vev chose to clean up the pattern a little, and also chose to distribute darker and lighter portions evenly in the weave to counteract clear stripe patterns. The yarn initially seemed more difficult to weave than it actually was. The actual weaving of the 200 meters therefore went quickly and easily. (See this video.)

Weaving at Krivi Vev

Finishing

Krivi Vev has no finishing facilities at their mill in Tingvoll, Norway, and usually sends their fabrics to Sweden for these types of processes. However, Sjølingstad Uldvarefabrik – Vest-Agder-museet [Sjølingstad Wool Spinnery at the Vest Agder Museum] assumed responsibility for the last finishing. Although the fabric was a bit too wide for their machine, this went well. We chose a very simple and easy finish, although some of the designers had requested a felted, waulked or fulled fabric (see below for how this will now be resolved). For anyone who had seen the fabric before and after treatment, it was striking how much softer and smoother the finished fabric was than when it was newly woven. 

The “finished” fabric on the left is smoother and softer than the newly-woven fabric (right).

Design

Parallel to the actual fabric production, a design competition was announced for a select group of Norwegian and Icelandic designers, and the invited sketches were then displayed as part of the Ta det personlig [Take it personally] exhibition at the Historisk Museum  [Historical Museum] in Oslo, where both the original Lendbreen tunic, the reconstruction of the tunic, and VikingGold were presented with sketches from five Norwegian and two Icelandic designers. Among these, we picked out three – Sissel Strand, Connie Riiser Berger and Elisabeth Stray Pedersen–who got several meters of fabric and sewed outfits that were shown during the Oslo Wool Day in 2015. These were also shown at an exhibition at the Kystmuseet i Sogn og Fjordane [Coastal Museum in Sogn and Fjordane] in Florø, “Tradition and trend: Norwegian wool in all times.”

From the exhibit at the Historic Museum in Oslo, where the results from the VikingGold challenge were showcased, alongside the tunic from the Lendbreen glacier.

In addition, two designers designed specific items using the fabric, Malin Håvarstein and Rebeca Herlung. Kim Holte dyed some of the material blue for her Viking re-enactment, and both Ingun Klepp and Ingvild Espelien have sewn dresses using the fabric. 

A jacket detail: Designer Malin Håvarstein played with the VikingGold material in a modern context

Krivi Vev wove a similar fabric afterwards with ordinary crossbred wool, and designer Marianne Mørck made a collection using this material. Also, the furniture producer Nuen has made a series of chairs with this same fabric. They have adopted a fibershed approach, which means they source their materials within a given radius. 

A Nuen chair with fabric woven by Krivi Vev from wool spun at Hillesvåg Wool Spinnery. Photo from the beautiful catalog featured at en.nuen.no.

TV fame

After the project ended, rolls of the fabric were left over. What should be done with these? During 2020, I was contacted by the Norwegian national broadcaster, NRK, who had the production rights for the British reality-concept show, Sewing Bee. They had decided that the focus for the up-coming season would be sustainability, and one of the episodes would look at the “most sustainable fabric of the future.” They clearly envisioned a “new-gen” material, and wondered if perhaps fungi or waste from agriculture could be the feed-stock for such a material. They had already tried to get hold of materials, but had failed miserably. My suggestion was to use the VikingGold leftovers, and to turn the story-telling around into a new discourse that said “how the most sustainable fabric is not science-fiction, but rather reinventing the past”. 

NRK loved the twist.

So, a few months later I found myself on the reality show set. I explained to the contestants, the three celebrities hosting the show, and “the client” Iselin Shumba about the sheep, the wool, the process and the fabric – and why it is the epitome of sustainability. All the contestants received a piece of the fabric to practice sewing, as some of the designers we had worked with  said the material took some getting used to and offered some resistance. When the show aired a year later, the fantastic results rolled across the TV screen. The winning coat/jacket was chosen by Shumba, who posted pictures of her wearing it over and over again on Instagram. Which, of course, made it even more sustainable.

However, I didn’t hear how happy Iselin Shumba was with her sustainable VikingGold jacket until much later, when she debuted as a catwalk-model at the Oslo Runway show a year later. “I wear it all the time and I get so many compliments for that jacket!” Iselin Shumba exclaimed after the runway show, when she saw me and recognized the Oleana-jacket I wore during the Sewing Bee show. “And when I tell them the story about the jacket and the material, people are just mesmerized!” 

Iselin Shumba in her VikingGold jacket.

Latest development

During a conference at Selbu Spinning mill in October 2022, an American student from Rauland Academy for Traditonal Art and Folk Music presented work with fulling (or waulking) textiles with old techniques. We decided, rather on a whim, to send him 10 meters of the VikingGold material to experiment with. He will be doing both “foot-fulling” and a trial with a wooden box he has reconstructed from old instructions, and will document this for further research. 

How Iselin Shumba chose to use social media to promote climate change, and to highlight cultural sustainability, is stellar. This discourse continues in ongoing projects by the Clothing Research Group (SIFO) at Oslo Metropolitan University: CHANGE: Environmental systems shift in clothing consumption, and Wasted Textiles, a project to reduce the use of synthetic textiles and the amount that goes to waste.

Tone Skårdal Tobiasson is an author and journalist, and a board member of the Union of Concerned Researchers in Fashion. She is a co-editor, with Ingun Grimstad Klepp, of the recently-published e-book, Local, Slow and Sustainable Fashion Wool as a Fabric for Change. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-88300-3

The author giving a talk in Sweden, wearing her VikingGold coat designed by Elisabeth Stray Pedersen

November 2022

Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

Between Two Covers: A Book and an Exhibition Celebrate the Artistry of Renowned Weaver, Brita Been

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By Stephanie Serrano Sundby. Thank you to author and the publishers of Kunsthåndverk, the magazine for Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts, for permission to reprint this article.

Be steadfast, work hard, follow your heart and tell your own story, advises Brita Been. Stephanie Serrano Sundby has taken a trip to Skien to meet Been, who this year celebrates her 75th birthday with a book publishing and exhibition at the Telemark Kunstsenter [Telemark Arts Center].

Brita been portrait

Brita Been in front of Tre strømper & et bringebroderi, 2020. (detail) (Three Stockings and a Costume Embroidery) 410 x 200 cm. (13’5″ x 6’7″) From the exhibit MØNSTER OVERALT (PATTERN UNLIMITED), 2022. Telemark Kunstsenter. Photo: Istvan Virag

“[Brita Been] creates her tapestries with a basis in the technique’s underlying structure, the grid.  From this she constructs and composes patterns that spread in rhythmic layers over the surface.  The patterns have an eternal quality, without beginning and without end. But the colors and contour lines work to hold the patterns fast; in a literal sense the pattern is woven firmly to the warp. This creates an inner tension in Breen’s textiles: on the one hand the pattern’s endless, indistinct and eternal character; on the other, the tangible passage of threads over and under the warp.”

This excerpt was written by art historian Jorunn Haakestad and can be found in Been’s exhibition catalog from 2007. The text describes Been’s artistic expression, which lies between tradition and repetition, modernistic elements, form and color. At the same time, the quote testifies to Been’s important role within the fields of art and handcraft. This year Been is celebrating her 75th birthday with a book publication and an exhibition at the Telemark Kunstsenter, both having the title Mønster Overalt [Pattern Unlimited] (2022).  The book is a monograph on Been’s artistry over 50 years, and the exhibition includes everything from large works of tapestry to sketches, prints and shawls.

Brita Been exhibit

Gallery view of the exhibition PATTERN UNLIMITED, 2022, Telemark Kunstsenter.
Photo: Istvan Virag

I took the train to Skien to talk with Been about weaving, about her journey and about folk art. She offered to meet me at the station. I saw her immediately, as she came walking in a bright orange Marimekko coat that lighted up the grey station tunnel. We drove to the Arts Center and Been showed me around in the exhibition. She told me about different weaving techniques, showed me guinea hen feathers, we touched the colorful shawls and she showed me an old embroidered stocking, her favorite, loaned from the Telemark Museum. Finally, we sat down in the art lab for a chat over coffee and croissants.

Brita Been, Shawls in plain weave and dreielteknikk [patterned twill or damask]. Photo from the exhibit PATTERN UNLIMITED, 2022, Telemark Kunstsenter. Photo: Istvan Virag

Can you begin by saying a little about how you discovered weaving and your path towards being an artist?

I had a grandmother who wove, and I remember that I got to sit on the loom bench, insert the rags into a rag rug, and that I was curious about how the heddles worked. At home there was knitting, sewing, crocheting, filet crochet and embroidery. Lots of yardage and skeins of yarn. I often say that certainly one can experience all this without ending up as a textile artist. The most important thing was likely that I got a feeling for textile materials, and that I wanted to produce something, make something myself. In addition, I was raised in the period after the war, and for many this type of work was a natural part of daily life: self made was well made.

After high school I applied for a yearlong course in weaving at the husflidsskole [handcraft school], and one of the requirements was that I first had to take a yearlong course in sewing, which I did not want to do. It didn’t suit me, as you can probably tell when you look at the rather rough quality of my work. So I became a hotel and tourism secretary, but that was just for a short while. I soon realized that I wanted to learn to weave, so by 1979 I was a fully qualified teacher in weaving and tapestry. I worked in a high school until 1999, but the entire time I had a desire to create things myself. 

Before I began my teacher’s training, I lived in the Bergen area. At that time, I had completed a yearlong course in weaving and was an auditor at the Bergen Kunsthåndverkskole [Bergen School of Arts and Crafts]. After that I wove rag rugs in large format, ponchos and cloth for shirts made from straight [not-shaped] pieces.  In addition to my job as a weaving teacher, I began the textile production we see today. I participated in exhibitions as well as becoming a member of Norske Kunshåndverkere [Norwegian Craft Artists] and later also Norske Tekstilkunstnere [Norwegian Textile Artists]. After a while I thought it would be nice to divide my time between teaching and my own artistic production. I still had the responsibilities of house and children, so there was no point in seeking a guaranteed income (GI), because of course I had to earn this money.  I continued my artwork on the side, and participated in annual and regional exhibitions.  I received GI in 1996, and then I could begin to reduce my teaching. At that time, weaving had begun to be phased out in the high schools, so I taught pattern, design, and color. All the while I was active with exhibitions and decorative commissions, and in that way it was a natural transition to the artist’s life. In the beginning I didn’t really have any intention of working as a fulltime artist, it was something that developed over time, but I have always felt the need for my weavings to have their own expression, with a value beyond just being a textile.  Whether placed on the floor or on the wall: art for the floor, art for the wall.

Could you describe your work process, has it changed through the years?

My earlier work is much more geometric, because I’m not really a sketch artist, but I love to create patterns and surface designs. After a trip to Africa in 1989 my work became more organic. How one develops is often dependent on the circumstances that come your way. If I hadn’t had that trip, perhaps I would have continued with geometric forms a while longer, but then surely something else would have come along and taken my work in a new direction.

Brita Been’s sketches on display at the exhibit PATTERN UNLIMITED, 2020. Telemark Kunstsenter. Photo: Istvan Virag

My latest series, Arvestykker [Pieces of Inheritance] has also contributed to changing the way I work. It was new for me to weave without having decided everything in advance. It seemed that the patterns in these sketches required something else from me, something other than the strictly separate pattern areas I had worked with previously. For the first time I copied the sketches in color and in full format as a pattern placed under the weaving, not just as contour lines like before. That is to say, although the main strokes of the drawing were there, I could change the details as I was working on the weaving. This gave me more room for improvisation, and I could adjust color and form as I wove. It also brought about a transition from fewer colors to many colors, with the possibility for several nuances within one color. The later years have also seen a transition from geometric compositions to more organic forms. Earlier there was much repetition in my textiles, but in later works that’s not the case, now the pattern is the entire textile. Of course, a work process will always be developing.

Brita Been, Strømpe (Stocking), 2021. 200 x 200 cm. (6’7″ x 6’7″) From the exhibit PATTERN UNLIMITED, 2022. Telemark Kunstsenter. Photo: Istvan Virag

You write that Arvestykker is a tribute to women’s work?

In working on a decorative commission for Bø nursing home, I became immersed in the beauty of rose embroidery as the basis for my sketch work.

Brita Been was inspired by traditional rose embroidery on stockings and shirts. Photo: Istvan Virag

I became especially interested in the embroidered stockings for beltestakken [the Telemark bunad]. This rich textile folk art reveals an affluence as well as the desire to create. It was in this work that women gave expression to their creative powers. Much time, effort and patience must have been devoted to this. Textile work was of course a part of daily household chores but there is also a large abundance of these pieces, and it is here where their power is seen. At the same time, it is also as Nina Mauno Schjønsby and Halvor Haugen have written in their contribution to the book, I mønsteret ligger leken [The Pleasure is in the Pattern], that for nearly all textiles, the work is credited as “woman, unknown,” for it is not known who has made them.  I thought that surely some of this work should become visible, so I adapted certain selected pattern details into large works for the wall. In this way one can get at least an idea of what these women have done!

What types of various elements and materials capture your interest?

As a rule, it is the patterns that draw my attention. I see the structure, repetitions and rhythm. I find this in everything, from architecture to nature, fabric, paintings and in folk art. Actually it can be anything and anywhere. I often document my impressions with photos. When I work further with the material, it is exciting to try out different size relationships and selections. With this I am exploring how a pattern can be endlessly varied, by enlarging, reducing, repeating and designing. I think it is exciting to see how use of different colors can change the effect. My work on the horizontal loom, as opposed to the upright loom, is all about repetition, system and order, pattern and structure. That’s just the way I think. When I worked in the high school, I spent 13 years supervising studies; among other things I made lesson plans and established thematic and hourly schedules. Things had to fit, which is probably something I have a preference for. Weavers are systematic, you know.

Brita Been, Mosaic Bright, 2005. 220 x 230 cm. (7’3″ x 7’7″) In the exhibit PATTERN UNLIMITED, 2022. Photo: Istvan Virag

Could you say more about your inspiration and connection to the textile folk arts?

I could point to the series Repitisjoner [Repetitions], which is based on squares and which has a direct link back to the old geometric tapestry coverlets. I hadn’t actually planned that that series would build on old weaving traditions, but I often see these connections after the fact. This is because when you see something, even if you don’t think consciously about it, it makes an impression that you carry with you. By the way, I like to say that I could work with squares for the rest of my life, it is so exciting to make these different combinations.

The Skybragd [Cloud pattern] series also has a connection with an old tradition. Within weaving theory one finds many different bragder [methods], such as tavlebragd, rosebragd, krokbragd, sjonbragd, og skillbragd, [various types of overshot, boundweave and inlay] but these are threading patterns, or techniques. Skybragd, on the other hand, is not a technique but a pattern. It migrated over time from the Orient. The pattern probably started as the profile of a lotus blossom, changed to a pomegranate or palmette motif, and on its travels to Scandinavia became what was known as a cloud pattern. This journey is described in a publication from 1969: “Fra granateple til skybragd” [From pomegranate to cloud pattern] by Ernst Fischer. One can, for example, find the cloud pattern in Norwegian coverlets and pillow covers from the 1600 and 1700s. I was in China as a participant in the exhibition Fra Lausanne til Beijing [From Lausanne to Beijing]. On the first visit I was incredibly fascinated by the beautiful carvings in marble, and I took many photos. When I came home, these photos lay unused for many years before I got them out again. After I had completed the series Repitisjoner, I wanted to do something new. When one starts on a new project, one often goes through old material, things one has had in the back of their mind for a long time. It was when I took out these photos from China that the cloud began to crystalize as a shape element. While working with the drawings I thought about titles, I am not so good with titles, but I came to think about an old pillow cover I had seen at the Kunstindustrimuseet [Museum of Decorative Arts and Design] in Oslo, with the skybragd motif. The title was given: “Skybragd.”  Somewhat like the cloud pattern traveled from the Orient to Scandinavia, this became my journey from China to Porsgrunn [in Norway].

Brita Been’s “Skybragd,” as displayed in the exhibition catalog.

I believe that some of what I have observed in so-called “folk art” has remained with me. There is something in its simplicity and power that I think is fascinating. This directness strikes me much more than, say, old classical figurative paintings. It is, of course, wonderful to see the work of the great artists, but I think the transition into modernism is much more exciting, and the abstract, this play in the surface. It is probably the power of “folk art,” the apparently simple style, which interests me. I believe it is because I see things very much in two dimensions, I am not as good at three dimensional thinking. 

You have traveled a lot and have been inspired by, for example, both zebras and guinea hens. How have your travels influenced your artistry?

I don’t quite know, but for example, I found something on my trip to Africa that I wanted to use in my work. The rough, raw African style really appealed to me. This was a watershed trip. I received a travel stipend and was there for five weeks. I had a brother and a colleague who worked in Malawi and Zambia, respectively, who wanted me to visit. I didn’t go there with the intention of coming back with impressions and materials for new textiles, but when you experience and see things that make an impression on you, then you take that with you. I found, for example, many beautiful fabrics, braided rugs and fantastic baskets. The colors in the landscape also made a huge impression. We were on a walking safari where I picked up guinea fowl feathers. Zebras were another favorite, with their patterns from top to toe. These I later adapted into the series Luangwa [in Zambia]. 


Brita Been, Guinea Hen & Zebra, 2017. 109 x 200 cm. (3’7″ x 6’7″) In the exhibit PATTERN UNLIMITED, 2022. Photo: Istvan Virag

In the exhibition one sees selected works, but also sketches over your lengthy professional life. In the book one gets a comprehensive overview of all your textiles. How has it been to work with the exhibition and the book? Do you see any new ‘red threads’ [commonalities]?

Photo: Istvan Virag

I have a good perspective over my work, textiles are after all a time-consuming enterprise. Nonetheless, through the book I see that I’ve produced a relatively large volume of work. Everything becomes clear. The development in artistry comes forth, and the continuity in the work is clarified. Actually, the book represents a weaver’s life set between two covers.

But my ‘red threads’ are in fact black! If you look at the index at the back of the book, you can see my entire production of textiles in chronological order. The very first textile has no black in it, but in all the others I’ve used black as one of the colors. Black brings forth the other colors and makes them clearer, while at the same time black can help to emphasize shapes. So it has been natural for me to use black, it is sort of like my ‘thing.’ Likely because I see that I most often have used strong, relatively clear colors. The patterns are distinct and clear, and the somewhat rough quality is also characteristic.

Working with the book has been quite exciting and very demanding. A year and a half ago, in fact, I was asked why I hadn’t created a book, but my answer was that it was too big a job, someone else would have to do it. Three months later I received the assurance of this exhibition at Telemark Kunstsenter.The Kunstnerisk Råd [Artistic Council] put the entire facility at my disposal on the occasion of my 75th birthday, and they took the initiative for publishing a book. Naturally I was greatly appreciative that they wished to present my long artistic career in this manner.It is very nice to have such a large exhibition, where you have the opportunity to show several sides of all that you’ve sat and worked on in the studio. The documentation of what one has done shows both the development and the range within your own work. It hit me, “Wow, am I the one who did all this?!”

It has been a good collaboration with the Telemark Kunstsenter, especially regarding the manager, Hilde Tørdal. All who have taken part in the exhibition and the book have been both capable and positive. Another exciting thing about the book has been to see what others write about your work and give that a second look. In other words, others see connections that may not be as clear to you. One can learn from this.

What do you think about developments in the textile profession, do you have any advice for new textile artists?

Interest in textiles is on the rise again in the art world. For my part, I notice that there is great respect for being knowledgeable in a handcraft, even among the younger artists. Unfortunately, such capability is not being advanced in education today, but there are many clever young people who do this in their own way. Every generation creates for themselves, making new things that build on those that we, their elders, have created. Things change over time, and it is good to observe that the textile arts appear to have a future, but of course in a completely different way than it was for my generation. If I should give any advice, which is a little difficult, it would be that they must have passion, have belief in what they are doing. Be steadfast, work hard, follow your heart and tell your own story.

Translated by Katherine Larson, Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Washington

Editor’s note: The original title for the article was “Mine Røde Tråder er jo Sorte,” “My Red Threads are Black.” Been explains that she discovered her “red threads,” or the common elements in her weaving over the years, by working on the book covering her whole career. Then she jokes that her use of black became evident, so her “red thread” turns out to be black. Once you know the Norwegian “red thread” idiom, it’s a very clever title. 

August 2022
Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk! 

Anti-Monument: The 2022 Hannah Ryggen Triennial

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By Christine Novotny

I flew into Trondheim on a characteristically foggy and cool day. The mountains surrounding Norway’s third largest city tend to welcome these precipitous systems that give the area a pensive mood. I traveled to Trondheim to see the tapestries of Hannah Ryggen, a weaver who combined folk tradition and more contemporary narrative techniques to create politically charged, humanist tapestries. The Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum was hosting the third Hannah Ryggen Triennial, which boasts a variety of art shows all over the city. Each show contains some of Ryggen’s work with a grouping of contemporary artists who are making work in a similar vein, showing that the themes and concepts of Ryggen’s work are universal and still relevant today. 

The 2022 triennial’s theme is “Anti-Monument,” an idea in contemporary art that challenges all aspects of traditional memorials and seeks to deny the presence of a one-sided authoritarian force in public spaces. Hannah’s work is anti-monument in many ways. Ryggen tells the stories of the people, not the authoritarian power. She disempowers dangerous dictators by embarrassing them, or rewriting history all together. In 6. Oktober 1942 (6 October 1942), she weaves a cartoonish Adolf Hitler flying through the air, propelled by his own flatulence. In Ethiopia, she rewrites history by depicting Benito Mussolini with a spear through his head. She weaves the truth as she sees it, from a perspective of universal compassion and a strong anti-fascist disposition. 

I spent 5 days in Trondheim, and seeing each show was the only thing I had planned. I went to some shows multiple times, but I spent the most time with “Anti-Monument I” in the Trondheim Kunstmuseum’s Gråmølna. This show contains the largest number of Ryggen’s original tapestries, interspersed with powerful contemporary pieces. 

The show’s first room centered around Hannah Ryggen’s meaningful tapestry Vi lever på en stjerne (We Are Living on a Star), Ryggen’s love letter to this world, an expression of compassion and faith in humanity. This tapestry was hanging in the Norwegian government center during the 2011 terrorist attack and was permanently altered when the car bomb detonated next to the building. The tapestry took all kinds of abuse, including being hit with debris, and soaked in water during the clearing of the building. The most visible damage was the bottom right corner, where the tapestry was split. During restoration, the decision was made to leave the repair visible, and retain this part of the story in the piece. 

Ryggen, Hannah. “We are Living on a Star.” Photo: Christine Novotny

Everyone who talked to me about the tapestry’s damage referred to it as a “laceration” or a “wound.” Its visible repair was called a “scar.” The descriptions were so bodily, suggesting the piece was not just a tapestry, but an artwork that was very much alive, and now held a new, denser meaning within it. 

Ryggen, Hannah. “We are Living on a Star.” (Detail with visible repairs) Photo: Christine Novotny

In the same room was a stunning installation from Norwegian artist Marthe Minde, entitled Mellom loft og kjellar (Between Attic and Stairs). The sculpture has two oval shaped mirrors with a cascading staircase of branches woven into handspun wool from Minde’s region. The mirrored shapes on the top and bottom of the sculpture are the exact dimensions of the shape that is centered in We Are Living on a Star. Within the shape, there is a passage that the visitor is invited to enter. I saw myself reflected in the mirrors both below and above, surrounded by a thousand delicate handspun threads. The dialogue between Minde and Ryggen seems to suggest that we are still a part of the story being written; we are living within the same kinds of events that drove Hannah to weave these stories. It is a poetic reminder of our participation in this broken and repairing world. 

Minde, Marthe. “Between Attic and Stairs.” Photo: Christine Novotny

Other works included The Prodigal Son, a tapestry commissioned by a church to depict the biblical parable. In the story, a father has two sons, and the younger son asks for his portion of the inheritance, only to squander it away and eventually become destitute. He comes back to his father, expecting scorn. Instead, his father welcomes him back with love and a great party. It is a beautiful story of redemption. 

At some point after Hannah had woven the top half depicting the story, the church withdrew the commission. Ryggen added a panel onto the bottom of the narrative–wide bands of blue and yellow with meandering footstep shapes in knotted rya, presumably the prodigal son wandering in his journey away from home. 

Hannah Ryggen, “Prodigal Son.” Photo: Christine Novotny

The show’s curator, Solveig Lonmo, told me that this tapestry had been more or less forgotten in a lecture hall of the local university, and the museum decided to display it for the show. The day they unrolled the piece at the installation was the day that Putin invaded Ukraine. The blue and yellow portion seemed to speak to the present, and the wandering footsteps to a war-torn nation of people displaced from their homes. It’s another example of Ryggen’s prescient work, and how she continues speaking to us today. 

Also included in the show was a 45-minute video about “Memory Wound,” the proposed memorial for the 69 victims who were murdered in the 2011 terrorist attack on Utoya island. The story of the memorial was told by its creator, Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg, whose winning design would have cut a channel into the rocky point that looks out onto Utoya. Visitors would be led down a winding path through the forest, and eventually would be led below the surface of the point. Across the channel, they would be met with the names of the victims etched on the stone opposite them. This would provide a quiet place to mourn and turn the gaze inward. 

Dahlberg, Jonas. “Memory Wound (from a video of the proposed memorial)” Photo: Christine Novotny

While the proposal won global acclaim, the memorial was never realized after 20-30 residents in the Utoya region protested its violent nature. In the memorial, Jonas asks which is more violent, the act or the work? How can a country heal when it cannot face the truth? Even though the memorial was never built, the many years of discussion within Norway and the art world, and the circulating design photo of the proposed piece makes it feel like “Memory Wound” exists even though it was never physically built. It seemed incredibly relevant to the United States, where we are reckoning with accepting the often sordid truth of our own country’s making and the present-day violence that is born from our inability to repair that harm. 

The Hannah Ryggen Triennial was full of artwork that challenges our perception of truth, that asks us to explore the humanity behind history, and the stories of those who have been lost. Hannah Ryggen’s work is so powerful because it still effortlessly participates in discourse with the global community, using events that were present to Ryggen, and history that we continue to reckon with. 

Christine Ann Novotny is a Minnesota-based handweaver, educator, and designer who runs the textile studio CAN Goods. She seeks to bring a vibrant, colorful energy to handweaving that invites people to reconsider the textiles in their life, and to evolve the practice of handweaving through contemporary handwoven goods and craft education. 
Read more about Christine’s impression of the Triennial, with additional photos, in the North House Folk School blog post, “Hannah Ryggen Triennial in Trondheim.”
August 2022
Help support wonderful articles on Scandinavian textiles with a donation to the Norwegian Textile Letter. Thank you! Tusen takk!