kat

@ponygoldboy I've only just read couple of books so I thought I'd start a reading list here as a reblog that I will update with whatever I have read previously. First up two books:

Anni Albers, On Weaving (1965)

This book covers the fundamentals of woven cloth. It is not a weaving guide, but rather an academic explanation of different facets of woven textiles: structures, tools, design, tapestry, materials, history, etc. Albers has a clear but sometimes (delightfully) opionated way of writing about woven art.

For me, the most useful part of her explanation is the concept of "Matière" - meaning surface appearance of material, such as grain, roughness, smoothness, dullness, gloss etc. or qualities of appearance that are observed by touch - which cannot be solely interpreted by intellectual analysis, but are rather more like experiencing color.

David Pye, Art and Nature of Workmanship (1995 revised edition)

Pye's Art of Workmanship was originally written in the 60's and is his attempt to find ways of talking about making by hand in academic context at a time when the craft as professional trade was being replaced by manufacture by machine. Perhaps most famous concepts that Pye introduces in this book are Workmanship of Risk and Workmanship of Certainty.

Workmanship of Risk would be shaping something by hand, where the risk means that each action that you take runs the risk of ruining the piece or introducing a flaw. (Pye was a woodworker which really shows in his theories) We move towards Workmanship of Certainty the more we introduce tools and machines to the process of making that eliminate or reduce the risk of mistakes: pure Workmanship of Certainty would be creating something by machine where you only have to press a button for a guaranteed result.

Beverly Gordon: Textiles, the whole story - uses, meaning, significance (2011)

I’m writing this with a heart full of pain and hope.

My name is Nasr, a young man from Gaza, and I’m sharing our story not because I want to—but because I have to.

💔 The war took everything from us.

In just moments, my entire world collapsed.

My mother and sister were killed in an airstrike.

My father is seriously ill and unable to work or provide for us.

Now I am the one responsible for my younger siblings—little children who have seen more horror than any child should.

We used to live a simple life.

We weren’t rich, but we had love and hope.

Now, we sleep under the open sky, surrounded by fear and uncertainty.

Every night, I wonder how I’ll feed them tomorrow.

Every morning, I’m just thankful we’re still alive.

This is not just my story. This is our fight to survive.

We are now struggling to afford even the basics:

A home, food, medicine, and safety.

Right now, we need your kindness more than ever.

Even $10 💵 can help us:

Buy food for the children 🍞

Get essential medicine for my father 💊

Buy them clothes or warm blankets 🧥

Give them a small sense of safety

If you can’t donate, you can still help.

🔁 Re-share this post. Spread our story.

You never know who might see it and feel moved to help.

We are not just numbers. We are human. We are survivors. And we’re asking you… please don’t look away.

Some AAVE speakers pluralize 'child' as 'childrens'. People get racist about this ("It's already plural!"), but 'children' actually comes from Middle English speakers doing the same thing: slapping their plural marker on word already pluralized by an extinct plural marker.

To oversimplify: in Old English, 'childer' ('ċildra') was the plural of 'child' ('ċild'). Middle English developed an '-en' plural marker, which we see in 'oxen'. Instead of updating to 'childen', people slapped their preferred '-en' onto the end of 'childer' - so now we have 'child-er-en'. AAVE carries on this tradition with 'child-er-en-s'.

"Pure" language is just impurity obscured by the passage of time.