What is Tapestry?
People from many cultures have created and used tapestry-woven fabrics, from
prehistory to the present day. Pre-Columbian Inca tunics, Egyptian Coptic
medallions, Chinese k’ossu, Navajo blankets, Middle Eastern kilim carpets,
and European wall hangings all utilize the tapestry technique. Today,
tapestry is a versatile and expressive art form; contemporary imagery ranges
from bold abstraction to convincing realism.
Tapestry weave with interlocked join
Tapestry weave with slit junctures
Tapestry weave with
dovetailed join
Tapestry weave with diagonal juncture
Jake Trujillo and his horizontal floor loom, 1985
Tapestry weave is a specific, hand-woven, textile construction. In
tapestry designs, the different colored threads of the weft interlace with
the foundation threads of the warp, and the color makes a pattern. We define
tapestry with a classic characterization by Irene Emery in her book, The
Primary Structures of Fabrics—“weft-faced plain weave with discontinuous weft
patterning.” The GFR Center also acknowledges the fascinating gray areas
between tapestry and related techniques (see examples mentioned below).
Whether using horizontal (floor) looms or vertical (upright) looms,
weavers may employ either simple or complex mechanisms, but the tapestry
artist always operates the loom by hand and must interlace each yarn, pass
by pass, across the fabric. The artist's interlacing of adjoining colors, one by
one, gives tapestry its expressive character.
Jean H. Smelker-Hugi’s vertical tapestry loom, 2002
Irene Clark and her vertical Navajo loom, Crystal,
NM, 1988
Tapestries may contain yarns of any fiber or combination—wool, silk, linen,
and cotton are the most common. The front and back of a tapestry may be
identical, each with the completely finished design and all yarn ends
concealed. In contrast, many tapestries show the final image only on the
front, and the reverse side reveals a tangle of loose threads.
Tapestry weave has spurred many innovations, sometimes through the use of
additional fabric structures. For instance:
Kashmiri shawls employ a complex twill tapestry weave
instead of plain weave.
Navajo weavers sometimes use a two-faced tapestry weave in
which wefts have over-1/under-3 interlacement and different patterns appear
on each side of a rug.
Contemporary tapestry weavers may break with tradition by
exposing warps, floating wefts over more than one warp, or embroidering on
top of their woven work.
Tapestry by
Beverly Hunt
Tapestry by Darden Bradshaw
In considering what books to add to our library or which
artists to include in our reference files, the GFR Center focuses on weavers
worldwide whose works derive in some way from classic tapestry techniques,
being inclusive rather than exclusive in our choices.
