getting back in touch again

One of the most interesting articles I have been reading in the last week is called 'may I Touch it ?'by Marilyn DeLong, Juanjuan Wu and Minxin Bao. They argue that 'The point of a full complemaent of touch awareness is to develop a vocabulary that includes all aspects. Ofcourse that is my line of research. But more and more I am convinced that the key for touch awareness, in particular in relation to cloth and material, is also linked with this very phenomena.I recorded a few phrases and words yesterday from this beautiful tactile book, covered in real printed textile, From the MOMA, one of my favourite museums in the world, related to Japanese Textiles. Like 'crimp' and 'bunch' ,pliable, moulded,sculpted, the thickness of cloth, shrivelling and crumpling textiles (would you describe a tactile experience as 'crumpling'?)or lustrous and smooth.Rich tactile experiences and sensual qualities. There is a beautiful example in the book about an cross over between a mechanical process which is interupted to include tiny organic elements, like feathers and snippets of paper into the material. The result is incredibly touching.Another artist , called Chiyoko Tanaka, 'grinds' her fabricFor the panel depicted in this book, she used a stone to burnish both the front and back so that 'previously concealed warp began to appear on the surface.The ochre color is a result of carefully rubbing soil into the surface. This then reminded me of the lecture yesterdaymorning, where an artist was mentioned who burried shoes, and dug them up after five or six years, having increased in quality of lustre. Tanaka has found a way to transfer the texture of the earth into her canvas.This insight, this information, really expands my way of thinking of how to use different ways, apart from stitch, or in combination with stitch one can make textile more tactile, enhance the qualities of the original cloth, like a coarse weave, for example, where it it would be interesting to remove threads by rubbing, or pulling.More about this tomorrow! The Memory of touch, for example