Barbara Setsu Pickett, Associate Professor Emeritus in Art, University of Oregon, focuses on velvet weaving, Jacquard weaving, shibori, natural dyeing, and book arts.
She has received awards from NEA, Fulbright, Institute of Turkish Studies, Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. She researched velvet weaving in Italy, France, England, Japan, China, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and India. She weaves on a manual jacquard velvet loom at the Foundation Lisio in Florence, Italy, and runs the UO Fibers in Florence program where students study jacquard design/weaving.
Since 2005, she and her son Michael have created textured scarves as Mihara Shibori Studio.
Uzbek Ikat Velvet Weaving
Central Asian ikats and ikat velvets are a dazzling display of color and geometric patterns. Learn how design, dyeing, and weaving processes interact. See the unique equipment used to make 300-meter-long, silk-filament warps. Study the ikat frame and binding system; the dye sequence of three to produce seven colors, the famous ettti rang; and the demanding ikat velvet-weaving process with two sets of warp-weighted warps. Learn about the libit, the basic unit of design, and the different design formats. See how velvet is cut using a simple knife on a round wire. Pickett first worked with Rasuljon Mirzaahmedov in 2007, and traveled to Uzbekistan to study further with him on a University of Oregon research grant in 2008. Since then she has assisted him teaching a seminar for the Textile Society of America in Washington, DC, and at his booth at the International Folk Art Market in Santa Fe.
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