In the Realm of Nature

Glossary

Brooks Bouquet
lace technique where the weft is wrapped around groups of
warp threads and pulled so the threads come together

Example of Brooks Bouquet

Room Divider, 1960

Room Divider, 1960

(detail)

Buckram
stiff cloth, made of cotton, and still
occasionally linen, which is used to cover
and protect books

Wave
1980
Linen, acrylic paint, buckram (lining):
Double weave, acrylic warp-painting

Burl
tree growth in which the
grain has grown in a
deformed manner
It is commonly found in the
form of a rounded
outgrowth on a tree trunk
or branch that is filled with
small knots from dormant
buds

Example:
Thuya Burl (Morocco) Bowl
1981

Photo of giant burl on conifer near Solduc

Falls in Olympic National Park, Washington,
USA.
Photo credit: Joshua Duggan

Card Weaving
an ancient Egyptian form of weaving using cards or
tablets. The warp is threaded through holes in flat
cards, which are then turned to produce a shed or
space for the weft threads.

Regarding the card woven pieces...

To do the tubes, actually, Bob made me a long board, which actually
looked like a huge cribbage board, six feet long. Narrow belts or bands can
be woven with one end of the warp tied to a knob and the other secured
around the weaver's waist. But using up to nearly 100 cards or tablets and
400 warp threads, it was impossible to handle them without the threads
tied to a stick that was securely held onto a board and under tension. The
tubes are seamless-woven flat and the weft pulled to form the tube after
the whole piece is woven. In other words, the weft goes into the shed from
the right side and then goes under all the warp threads and into the next
shed again from the right.
Source: Oral history interview with Kay Sekimachi [Stocksdale], 2001 July 26August 6, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-kay-sekimachistocksdale-11768

Cribbage
Board?

Photo: Signe Mayfield

Examples of Card Weaving Use

White Necklace with limpets,
2009

Black/White ,
c.1970s

Black Necklace with bone,

2011

Double cloth (AKA Double weave)

a weave structure in which two or more separate layers of cloth are

woven, sometimes intersecting each other
Examples of this are the accordion books
Double weave basics by Jennifer Moore:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFBB2s5fDg4

Double Weave Pick-Up

Technique of manually picking up the
threads from the bottom layer and bringing
them to the top when double weaving
Example of double weave pick up:
http://localcolordyes.com/blog/2012/07/2
2/doubleweave-pick-up/
Kays Nesting Boxes are an example of this
technique

Draft
Diagram on
paper for
setting up loom
and showing
the order of
weaving
a "map" of
weave structure

Faceplate a
metal plate or
disk fastened
to the spindle
of the lathe
that holds in
place work to
be turned.
Bob mounts a faceplate on a wooden lathe chuck
Source:
Roszkiewicz, Ron. To Turn the Perfect Wooden
Bowl: The Lifelong Quest of Bob Stocksdale. East
Petersburg, PA: Fox Chapel Pub., 2009.

Bob also used a chuck (specialized type of

clamp used to hold an object) to hold wood

Gouge a long-shafted tool used to cut away wood

as it rotates on a lathe. Also used in printmaking to
remove areas in the woodblock.

Heartwood the central core of wood in the trunk and

branches of mature trees. It no longer conducts sap or has
living cells. In most species of trees, the heartwood is
harder and has a darker color than other remaining wood

A section of a Yew branch

Harness
Frame that
contains heddles
AKA the shaft

A loom from the back, in the process of

warping, showing a harness/shaft of
threaded heddles.

Heddle
devices within the shafts
or harnesses of the loom
with an "eye" through
which warp ends are
threaded
They can be made of
string, wire, flat steel or
polyester

A close up on heddles, with a blue

warp that is not under tension.

Hornets nest
Hornets make their nest out of chewed-up wood pulp
and saliva
One of the best bowls that I ever made was made with
the paper of a hornets' nest that came from Indiana.
Bob's niece lives on a farm and she had watched the
hornets making the nest. And so the minute they leftthey're only in a nest for a year and then it's
abandoned. So the minute the hornets left, she
grabbed it and sent it to me.
Oral history interview with Kay Sekimachi [Stocksdale], 2001
July 26-August 6, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution.

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-kaysekimachi-stocksdale-11768

Hornets nest

Paper Bowl
1992
Hornets nest, Kozo paper: Laminated with wallpaper paste

Ikat
technique in which a textiles pattern is dyed
onto warp or weft threads prior to weaving
The pattern is created by wrapping selected
sections of thread with a material that will
resist the dye; many colors may successively
be applied this way. The finished textiles
pattern usually has slightly blurred edges.

Examples of Ikat:
Room Dividers

Jute
a strong, course
fiber derived from
one of two plants
of the linden
family, of East
Indian origin. Used
for making burlap,
sacking, and
similar items.

Room Divider
1960
Natural linen and jute:
Plain weave and Brooks Bouquet lace technique

Kiri wood/
Kiriwood
Scientific name
Paulownia tomentosa; it
is also known as the
"princess tree in Japan
Kiriwood paper is
basically two veneers of
kiriwood laminated to a
piece of paper
(according to Kay in this
interview).
Closeup of Kiriwood paper
sample

Kozo paper paper made from Kozo plant

(Broussonetia papyrifera, paper mulberry tree)

Note: kozo paper is on the insides of

these vessels

Lathe
a machine, now
generally operated
by an electric
motor, that rotates
a piece of wood to
be shaped by
cutting or abrading.
Operated like a
horizontal potters
wheel.
Portrait of Bob Stocksdale
Photo: M. Lee Fatherree

Layered double cloth

three or more layers of fabric, one woven on
the top of the other.

Nesting Boxes
Linen: 5-layered weave

Assembling a Nesting Box

Assembling a Nesting Box Part 2

Linen
textile fiber
obtained by
spinning
the stalk of
the linen
plant
Marugawa (Round River) I, II, III
1974-75
Linen: Cardwoven seamless tubes

Loom - machine/device on which a warp may be

arranged and sheds formed for passage of a pick

Medullary rays
rays connected to
the pith (the small
central core of the
tree).
Extend vertically
through the tree
perpendicular to
the growth rings
Macadamia wood
has this

...so if you get the center of the tree in the bowl,

then you have a sunburst effect on the side of the
bowl... source here

Macadamia (Hawaii) Wood Bowl

1986

Monofilament
nylon thread
or fishing line
Foreground:

Kumo (Cloud)
1965
Nylon monofilament: 4-layered and tubular weaves

Background:

Katsura
1971
Black nylon monofilament: 4-layered and tubular
weaves

In her Berkeley, California, studio, Kay Sekimachi ties transparent monofilament to the warp
stick of her eight-harness loom.
Photo: Stone and Steccati

Ogura lace paper

paper made from manila hemp
Manila hemp is a type of buff-colored fiber
obtained from Musa textilis, a relative of edible
bananas, which is also called Manila hemp as
well as abac. It is mostly used for pulping for a
range of uses, including speciality papers.
To form its distinctive lace pattern, the long,
heavy fibers are separated by water falling on
the newly-formed sheets to create holes within
the paper

Ogura Bowls

Ogura Bowls
2004
Ogura lace paper, India ink: Laminated and Krylon coated

Plain weave

(AKA Tabby Weave)

basic textile structure

in which the weft is
interlaced with the
warp in an alternating
over and under
pattern.

Reflection #2
1959
Cotton, linen, rayon: Plain weave, inlay

Reed comb designed to both separate warp threads

and press weft . Its attached to the batten/beater

The reed is the part in the beater where the warp threads go through.

Selvage/Selvedge - Edges of fabric that are created by

the weft thread looping back at the end of each row

Warp
Weft
Selvage

Shed
vertical space between the raised and
unraised warp

Spalted
a form of
fungal decay in
wood that
produces
irregularly
shaped dark
zone lines on the
surface.
Sugar Maple (Vermont) Bowl
1983
Collection of Forrest L. Merrill

Split-ply twining
a braiding technique
used in India to
produce a thick
camels girth. Here
one set of cords is
pulled through the
opened plys of an
opposing set.

Photo: Signe Mayfield

Kay working on a piece similar to

Variations on a Camels Girth #Z

Examples of
Split-Ply Twining

Untitled Basket
1976
Grass: Split-ply twining

Variations on a Camels Girth #Z

1976
Cotton: Split-ply twining

Shuttle tool
designed to neatly
and compactly store
or a holder that
carries the thread
across the loom weft
yarn while weaving
Trude Guermonprez
holding a boat shuttle
in her right hand
Photo Courtesy of the Trude Guermonprez Archives,
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Library,
New York.

Treadle the foot

pedal of a floor
loom used by
weaver to raise
and lower harness

Kays Weaving Annex

Photo: Leslie Williamson

Warp and Weft

Warp threads are a set of
parallel threads held
under tension on the
loom through which the
weft is interlaced to form
a textile.
Weft is the thread which
is woven across the warp
threads at right angles