Scandinavian Textiles: Articles, Exhibits, News
Websites
Selvedge Magazine featured Røros Tweed in their Nordic issue this fall. Be sure to look at the beautiful products featured on their website. A Selvedge blog post noted, “Røros is often the coldest place in Norway, with temperatures down to minus 50°C, so it is no surprise the town’s weaving mill has specialised in the warmest and cosiest throws. Røros Tweed (who no longer produce any tweed) is known for weaving the softest throws from Norwegian lambswool. It can count the Japanese Emperor and Christian Dior as clients. As well as blankets, designers have been using fabric woven at Røros Tweed since the 1970s, for example Unn Søiland Dale and her company Lillunn produced heavy jackets and coats with bold animal patterns feature polar bears and reindeer. Since 2005, designer Elisabeth Stray Pedersen, with her own label ESP took over production of the Lillunn label and created her own fashion forward coats. And in 2012, the design duo L&J of Norway developed throws and ponchos with Røros Tweed for guests of the luxury hotel, The Thief.”
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Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum and the Slooper Society of America put on a 75-minute webinar with Norwegian storyteller Anne Elisebeth Skogen from Ryfylkemuseet at Sand, Norway. She told the story, “With Restauration through Hell Gate to The Promised Land,” about the immigrants on board the first ship that brought Norwegian immigrants to America, in 1825. Her storytelling was marvelous! Watch it here. This webinar doesn’t have much to do with textiles, but there is a Norwegian Textile Letter connection. In 2018 Clothing Historian and Costume Designer Carol Colburn wrote “Taking a Play to Norway: The Costume Designer’s Story.” Carol created the costumes for a play about the “Sloopers” that was produced by the Nordic Center in Duluth and later performed in Norway. When I listened to the Norwegian storyteller describe the adventurous crossing of the Norwegians on the Restauration, I pictured the immigrants in the clothing that Carol researched.
Time for mending during the pandemic? An exhibit by Eline Medbøe recently ended at the SOFT Gallery in Oslo, “The Art of Mending.” There’s a lovely video interview of the artist here, where she discusses her philosophy of mending, and of the power of clothing with history. If you want to get started patching your pants like Elin does, she has three videos on her website. “Reparere Hull med Handsøm” (Repair a Hole with Hand Sewing) and “Sy Kanter” (Sew Edges) have no words, just clear demonstrations with music. Her third, on “Lapping” (Patching) has Norwegian text on the screen, but you can learn by just watching the video.
From Kindness to Cutting Satire: Lila Nelson’s Tapestries Embraced the World and Its Politics. Originally aired on September 22, 2020, this webinar is now on the Vesterheim YouTube channel, here. Many people in the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum community remember Lila Nelson as the long-time Textile Curator. Many weavers remember Lila as a skilled instructor and incredible mentor. This slide-filled lecture focuses on Lila Nelson as an artist. Her tapestries reflect her irrepressible personality, her engagement with the world around her, and, not least, her political commentary.
Women, Cloth, Looms, and Power in the Viking North Atlantic. Warp Weighted loom fans–alert! This is an interesting lecture by Dr. Michèle Hayeur Smith, part of a series by Brown University, “Women Do Archaeology.” Description: When cloth became the basic unit of currency in the medieval Icelandic economy, women–the sole weavers in Norse society–found themselves literally weaving money on their warp-weighted looms. Using experimental archaeology, Dr. Michele Hayeur Smith discusses how cloth became currency in the Viking North Atlantic and demonstrates weaving on a Neolithic-style loom. (First aired on October 20, 2020; watch it here.)
For Danish Design Fans. Watch a video about the Danish designer Finn Juuhl, “The Lost “Elephant” of Danish Design,” featured in the blog post, “The Lost Sofa of Finn Juuhl.”