I attended the Fiber Jewelry workshop at the Textile Arts
Center with students on April 9. This workshop was especially appreciated as
the semester was winding down and many of them were taking a much-needed break
from papers and final assignments. The instructor, a practicing jewelry artist
who works with a variety of braiding techniques, showed us a spectacular cored
braid of very fine black silk as one example of the type of jewelry one can make
with these materials and techniques.
Kumihimo is a braiding technique that works
with multiples of eight strands to make a spiral braid (in one of the most
basic forms). Kumihimo is the
Japanese word for the technique, but this type of multistranded braiding was
also used in the ancient Andes and is common in other cultures today. Though
there is a traditional wooden loom/bench (marudai), which uses weighted bobbins to manipulate the threads, we used a simpler foam
disk to keep the threads organized. Each student chose their own fibers
and measured and cut enough to make a bracelet. After initial instruction, the
process is very easy to repeat. Students really seemed to appreciate having a
meditative hands-on activity and made some beautiful final products.
—Jessica Walthew, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Cultures of Conservation
