Book Review of
The Fabric of Civilization:
How Textiles Made the World |
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by Virginia Postrel;
Basic
Books, 2020; $17.99 U.S., $22.99 Canada. |
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[Complete book
review text
by Stanley Bulbach prior to censorship
by the American Tapestry Alliance]
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This book covers the millennia of developments
of the various technologies that comprise textiles and their components. The
author then lays out a persuasive case as to why textiles are in
many ways principal to the development of civilization itself. |
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By the end of the book the author concludes: “Hidden
in every piece of fabric are the actions of curious, clever, and
desiring men and women, past and present, known and unknown, from
every corner of the globe.” Virginia Postrel offers
this view as a professionally achieved and widely-respected author
in the greater world beyond fiber art’s restricted circles. |
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She is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and
has been a columnist for the Atlantic, the Wall Street
Journal, and the New York Times. Her book contributes
an “outsider’s” perspective on how our fiber
art is not only the expressiveness and utility of textiles, but
also how its development has been crucial to the existence of the
civilized world in which we all live. |
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Postrel asserts that “we suffer textile
amnesia because we enjoy textile abundance” which “exacts
a price, obscuring essential components of the human heritage,
hiding much of how we got here and who we are.” She
highlights that, “. . . the study of textiles is the story
of human ingenuity.” |
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Her book serves a feast of technical knowledge
about fibers, then thread, then cloth and dyes. This book
is clearly a perfect gift to give to friends who wonder why we
fiber artists work in such a demanding, but economically and professionally
unviable art field. |
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Popular literacy grew as a business tool rather
than something exclusive to ruling classes. Similarly, the
author details how often scarce coinage had textiles — easier
and safer to transport — be an official medium of exchange. “Bills
of exchange” replaced payment cash with credits and debits,
increasing the amount of value in circulation, as well as the “velocity” with
which transactions could occur. Negotiable bills of exchange
were “to become the foundation of modern commercial banking.” |
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This book appears at a crucial time for today’s
fiber art support organizations confronting the onset of the 21st
Century and major generational changes. Our organizations
need financial support to operate and to address our multiple deficiencies
of diversity regarding race, economic status, gender, and age. Where
is that funding to come from when the field excludes advocacy for
professional and economic opportunity? As economic conditions
become more challenging for most people, how can fiber and textiles
attract more diversity from those who cannot afford the expense
and time our field requires as a hobby? |
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Over decades key fiber support organizations
have lost much membership and even sought consultation on how to
improve diversity, while promoting donation dependency for our
field. The most recent detailed ATA membership survey reported
72% of the membership interested in selling their art. Around
the same time advocacy for collecting and supporting collectors
was removed from ATA’s founding Mission Statement! |
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Advocacy for professional and economic opportunity
is enjoyed by the rest of the art world, but uniquely absent for
fiber artists. Considering that this is a “story of
the world’s most influential commodity,” why must fiber
art and its artists be only self-funded and charity dependent? |
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This wonderful book illuminates how fiber and
textiles are historically inseparable from commerce and economics. Postrel
again nails it: “Every scrap of cloth, I now realize,
represents the solution to innumerable difficult problems. Many
are technical or scientific . . . ,” citing
what is commonly discussed in our field. But she breaks new
ground when writing, that “some of the trickiest [problems],
however, are social: How do you finance a crop of silkworms
or cotton, a new spinning mill, or a long-distance caravan?” |
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“Hidden in every piece of fabric are the
actions of curious, clever, and desiring men and women, past and
present, known and unknown, from every corner of the globe.” |
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Virginia Postrel concludes: “This
heritage does not belong to a single nation, race, or culture,
or to a single time or place. The story of textiles is
not a male story or a female story, not a European, African, Asian,
or American story. It is all of these, cumulative and shared — a
human story, a tapestry woven from the countless brilliant threads.” |
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Tapestry Artists, I highly recommend Postrel’s
wonderful book! |
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Stanley Bulbach, Ph.D (Kevorkian Institute
of Near Eastern Studies, New York University) has worked in the
field of fiber art since the late 1970s. Over the decades
he has written extensively on the history of the fiber art field’s
challenges in diversity, research standards, accountability,
and economic and professional opportunity. |
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Nota Bene: |
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In early 2022 the American Tapestry Alliance
expressed interest in publishing a book review of Virginia Postrel's
important 2020 book — The Fabric of Civilization: How
Textiles Made the World in the official ATA newsletter, Tapestry
Topics. On March 3rd, ATA censored out 30% of the submitted
text and would not consider standard alternatives to address its
editorial concerns. Finally, in a professional attempt to
resolve the issue diplomatically, the reviewer's required permission
for ATA to use and publish the opinion piece was withheld, |
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On April 27th, ATA emailed an announcement to
the entire membership that a new PDF issue of Tapestry Topics was
available to download immediately. In that issue ATA published
and used the heavily censored opinion piece without the legally
and ethically required reviewer's permission. |
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ATA governance was then notified in writing
that its violation of intellectual property rights was illegal,
unethical, and damaging. A standard apology with clarification
in the newsletter was requested; ATA refused to respond. At
some later point ATA finally removed the review from the PDF version
of Tapestry Topics in its archives. Unfortunately
ATA still fails to apologize or explain to the membership the way
it improperly used and published the review. |
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The uncensored book review posted above restores
the 30% that the ATA governance has not wanted its membership to
see and discuss. For
Further Discussion . . . |