| ANNE WANNER'S Textiles in History / vocabulary |
| research of chinese embroidery |
| by Elizabeth LaFleur
email: lafleurtx@earthlink.net
postal address: 1800 Haymeadow Carrollton, Tx. 75007-5204 USA |
| Elizabeth LaFleur wrote to the embroidery group: |
| I live in the United States
and will provide contact information for myself below my
name. Thank you for your attention to my requests. I am a researcher currently in the process of getting my book published on the historical development
of Chinese Embroidery, I have also attended real classes in these areas in China, not just tours through embroidery workshops inside China. It seems that I have been able to find information on my subject from most surprising places. |
| I started on my research by
looking for the history of Double-sided Chinese
Embroidery. That one technique unravelled the whole area of Chinese Embroidery as I found no one who had put the scholastic historical information in one text. Each person who has worked in the archaeology on textiles of the ancient Chinese, has not been an embroiderer as I am. Mostly, they all are weavers, or in some other field such as bronzes or porcelains. Only scarce attention has been paid to the needlework. When I have inquired as to why, I have been told that there was not enough facts to know. I was even told this by Chinese scholars. I thought someone should put all the information together for everyone else. So, I started reading anything I could get my hands on, written text, or on the web, and kept asking questions. I have B&W copies of articles that are out of print or generally unavailble to the public through a library. Otherwise, I have copies of books from scholars who have been on the excavation themselves. By taking embroidery information, reasons why the influences changed the needlework, and what new influences arrived to change the stitching, I have written about the development of Chinese needlework. Special libraries of universities and art museums have been very helpful to me. I also try to see as many Chinese government sponsored exhibitions and other general exhibitions as I can. My text starts back 5,000years ago. All this on place before I started looking for classes on the Chinese work. That was five and one-half years ago. Those I found through a web site in Denmark. A Danish weaver and a Chinese weaver in Suzhou, China have started a school with actual classes in Chinese weaving and also in embroidery. The teachers are masters at their skill. One just recently retired from the Suzhou Embroidery Research Institute (SERI) in Suzhou, and the other still works there. The weaving master teaches kesi weaving. The embroidery master teaches all levels of her area. I do not mind sharing any information I have with others, as I hope they will do the same for me. Chung Young, of New York, has been helpfull to me . She is a Korean lady who wrote a thesis entitled "The Art of Oriental Embroidery" some time back. Her work was on the differences between Chines, Japanes, and Korean Embroidery. Not much had been published by scientists back then on excavations. So, that is more about what I have done and how it all came about. When the book is finished printing, I am going to see if it can be placed in stores at museums, textile schools, and any place else it seems to belong. Elizabeth LaFleur email: lafleurtx@earthlink.net |
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