Art and Design A comprehensive guide for creative artists - Aaltodoc

CHAPTER NINE
Weaving
Weaving is the art of using groups of threads, or any other
materials such as sticks, grass, thin metal (wires) to make
necessary binds for constructing useful objects like textiles;
woven from threads. Mats and baskets—these can be
made by using grass. Washbun (2011, 136) informs us that “...
basketry and mats are often classified as textile arts.”
Through weaving creative artists produce fabrics and
other functional objects such as baskets, furniture and
architecture. Almost all of the above mentioned can be
made with twines of smooth muscle fibers such as sets
of yarn, reeds, grasses, prepared bamboo, palm leaves,
drinking straws and pine needle (leaves).
According to Lamb (2002) the author of Topics of weaving;
“Weavers use threads spun from natural fibers like cotton,
silk, wool and synthetic fibers such as nylon and orlon. In
spite of that, thin narrow strips from any flexible material
can be woven. People learned to weave thousands of years
ago using natural grasses, leafstalks, palm leaves and thin
strips of wood or sticks and strong tendril plants.”
From this we can understand the back stories of weaving
and some feasible ways of producing functional woven
objects from various natural and manmade materials.
Somjee (1993, 79) laments, “A number of strings can be
joined into a rope. Sisal is woven into straps for bags and for
tying animals. Sisal in Kenya is used to make mats, cushions,
mattresses and baskets.” In another way, strings of sisal, yarn
or any other obtainable weaving materials are sometimes
enhanced with colouring dyes as a way of decorating the
vast range of woven products.
In several parts of Africa especially Uganda, weaving has
also been done for architectural purposes like constructing
surrounding homestead barriers or fences and it has also
been used for building shelter walls with materials like
reeds or canes and wooden sticks (wattle-and-daub), tied
with well-made strings obtained from tree barks, to support
loads and packs of wet clay or mud. On the roof of a house/
hut, grass is firmly thatched to cover and protect occupants
from bad weather such as rain.
Sometimes reeds, grass or straw, palm leaves, sliced
bamboo, twigs or tree branches are carefully woven to
cover the roof.
In the same way, Stairs (2002) reminds us that “in
Uganda weaving “does not stop at cloth and house hold
implements. He was referring to shopkeepers and street
vendors who he found sitting on an “akatebe ak'ekibbo, or
basket stool.” Evidently, then, it is not only textiles that can
be created through weaving, also furniture and other useful
house hold items can be made in similar ways.
Well as skills and practices of weaving hand craft are
considered as a common practice for African people, duties
and responsibilities of weaving are shared accordingly. For
instance, “some groups of people in Kenya like the Iteso and
Giriama. It is the men who make baskets, whereas among
others like the Kikuyu, Kamba and Taita, it is the women
who make baskets.” (Somjee 1993, 82)
Lugira (1970, 72) offers a rational explanation: “basketry was
the foundation of home making ...” Where by, functional
“defence” items such as “fences and portable shields” were
creatively made from them. In the tribal cultures of the
Masai, women do weaving for building and to thatch huts,
“granaries with reed work, traps and heavy field baskets —
made by men in similar ways.”
Certainly, there is a big range of art and craft products
that can be creatively woven using native indigenous
knowledge from various tribal people of Africa—for
practical purposes which may be different from one
another.
In the words of Mutungi (personal interview, 2009); “... many
of the creatively woven functional objects, handiwork and
artworks made by African people are—on a rationale of
indigenous knowledge ... thus, we have to hold it in high
esteem by advancing it to some conforming standardisation.”
That is to say, not so many design professional and
art teachers have demonstrated satisfaction or approval in
teaching indigenous knowledge of weaving. Hence leaving
a curious leaner to source from informal knowledge of
semi-skilled and unskilled people.
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