Mary Crovatt Hambidge | |
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| Born | Mary Crovatt December 20, 1885 |
| Died | August 29, 1973 (aged 87) |
| Occupation(s) | Artist; weaver |
| Spouse | Jay Hambidge |
| Website | hambidge |
Mary Crovatt Hambidge (1885-1973) was an American weaver. She is known for establishing the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences in rural Georgia. The institution is still in existence as the Hambidge Center
Hambidge was born in Brunswick, Georgia on December 20, 1885 [1] Hambidge was educated in Cambridge, MA at the Lee School For Girls. [2] She moved to New York, NY in the 1910s. There she met illustrator and art theorist Jay Hambidge. [3]
In the early 1920s the couple visited Greece. There Hambidge learned about weaving. She continued weaving when she returned to New York. In 1924 after the death of her husband, [4] she moved to Rabun County in the north Georgia mountains and began meeting spinners and weavers in the area. In 1934, she located her small weaving operations to an 800-acre property including buildings and pastures, which she was later able to purchase with the help of the philanthropist Eleanor Steele Reese. That property would become the Jay Hambidge Art Foundation in 1941. [5]
Fabric produced at the Foundation were marketed under the name Weavers of Rabun. Hambidge maintained a retail location for the crafts in New York. [6] In 1937 the Weavers of Rabun won a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale )the Paris World's Fair). [7] Weavings were included in the 1956 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art entitled Textiles U.S.A. (as the Jay Hambidge Art Foundation). [8]
Demand for handwoven fabric declined in 1950s with the expanded industrialization of the textile industry. The Weavers of Rabun disbanded. [9] Hambidge changed the focus of the Center towards a broader retreat for artists. [10]
Hambidge died on August 29, 1973. [4]
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft, woof, or filling. The method in which these threads are interwoven affects the characteristics of the cloth. Cloth is usually woven on a loom, a device that holds the warp threads in place while filling threads are woven through them. A fabric band that meets this definition of cloth can also be made using other methods, including tablet weaving, back strap loom, or other techniques that can be done without looms.
Ethel Mary Partridge, Ethel Mary Mairet RDI, or Ethel Mary Coomaraswamy was a British hand loom weaver, significant in the development of the craft during the first half of the twentieth century.
Anni Albers was a German textile artist and printmaker credited with blurring the lines between traditional craft and art.
Besides surface qualities, such as rough and smooth, dull and shiny, hard and soft, textiles also includes colour, and, as the dominating element, texture, which is the result of the construction of weaves. Like any craft it may end in producing useful objects, or it may rise to the level of art.
Lenore Tawney was an American artist working in fiber art, collage, assemblage, and drawing. She is considered to be a groundbreaking artist for the elevation of craft processes to fine art status, two communities which were previously mutually exclusive. Tawney was born and raised in an Irish-American family in Lorain, Ohio near Cleveland and later moved to Chicago to start her career. In the 1940's and 50's, she studied art at several different institutions and perfected her craft as a weaver. In 1957, she moved to New York where she maintained a highly successful career into the 1960's. In the 1970's Tawney focused increasingly on her spirituality, but continued to make work until her death.
Mary Walker Phillips, was an American textile artist, author and educator. She revolutionized the craft of hand knitting by exploring knitting as an independent art form. Her hand-knit tapestries and other creative pieces are exhibited in museums in the U.S. and Europe. She was honored as a fellow by the American Craft Council (ACC) in 1978.
Jay Hambidge (1867–1924) was an American artist who formulated the theory of "dynamic symmetry", a system defining compositional rules, which was adopted by several notable American and Canadian artists in the early 20th century.
Eliot Wigginton is an American oral historian, folklorist, writer and former educator. He is most widely known for developing with his high school students the Foxfire Project, a writing project consisting of interviews and stories about Appalachia. The project was developed into a magazine and series of best-selling Foxfire books. The series comprised essays and articles by high school students from Rabun County, Georgia focusing on Appalachian culture. In 1987, Wigginton was named "Georgia Teacher of the Year," and in 1989, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
Dorothy Wright Liebes was an American textile designer and weaver renowned for her innovative, custom-designed modern fabrics for architects and interior designers. She was known as "the mother of modern weaving".
Jack Lenor Larsen was an American textile designer, author, collector and promoter of traditional and contemporary craftsmanship. Through his career he was noted for bringing fabric patterns and textiles to go with modernist architecture and furnishings. Some of his works are part of permanent collections at prominent museums including Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and Albert Museum, Art Institute of Chicago,Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which has his most significant archive.
Corrina Sephora Mensoff is a visual artist who specializes in metal work, sculpture, painting, installation, and mixed media in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. Corrina works with universal and personal themes of loss and transformation, within the context of contemporary society. In Corrina’s most recent bodies of work she is exploring lunar images, cells, and the universe as “a meditation in the making.” In a concurrent body of work she has delved into the physical transformation of guns, altering their molecular structure into flowers and garden tools through hot forging the materials. Her work has led her to community involvement with the conversation of guns in our society.
Kay Sekimachi is an American fiber artist and weaver, best known for her three-dimensional woven monofilament hangings as well as her intricate baskets and bowls.
Cynthia Schira is an American textile artist and former university professor. Her work is represented in the collections of many major public museums.
Marianne Strengell was an influential Finnish-American Modernist textile designer in the twentieth century. Strengell was a professor at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1937 to 1942, and she served as department head from 1942 to 1962. She was able to translate hand-woven patterns for mechanized production, and pioneered the use of synthetic fibers.
Otti Berger was born on 4 October 1898 in present-day Zmajevac, Croatia. She was a student and later teacher at the Bauhaus, where she was a textile artist and weaver. She was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
The handle of stuff is of primary importance. A piece of stuff must be touched and felt; it has to be held in the hands. The beauty of a stuff is above all, known by its feel. The feel of stuff in the hands can be just as beautiful an experience as colour can be to the eye or sound to the ear.
Helena Hernmarck is a Swedish tapestry artist who lives and works in the United States. She is best known for her monumental tapestries designed for architectural settings.
Linda Armstrong is an American artist.
Suzie Liles is an American fiber artist, master weaver, the owner of the Eugene Textile Center and co-owner of Glimakra USA, in Eugene, Oregon.
Lili Blumenau (1912–1976) was an American fiber artist. She was a pivotal figure in the development of fiber arts and textile arts, particularly weaving, in the United States during the mid-part of the 20th century.
Karen Hampton is an American textile artist, working as a weaver, surface designer, and fabric dyer. She has also worked as a researcher on the history of textile production. As of 2022, she was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council. Hampton lives in Los Angeles.
Mary Zicafoose is an American textile artist, weaver, and teacher who specializes in ikat, an ancient technique in which threads are wrapped, tied and resist-dyed before weaving. Zicafoose is the author of Ikat: The Essential Handbook to Weaving Resist-Dyed Cloth (2020). Her works are part of private and public collections, including at least 16 embassies around the world as part of the U.S. Art in Embassies Program.
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