Scanning Electron Microscopy
Jacquard Weaving

I have been fascinated with the concept of magnification since I studied microbiology in college. I spent many engrossing hours looking through a microscope exploring this previously unseen world of bacteria and fungi. As an artist, I transpose that curiosity to textiles. With the Hitachi TM-1000 Scanning Electron Microscope at University of California, Berkeley, I photographed dozens of commercial fabrics. In daily usage, fabric construction is rarely considered, but when magnified, the structure of different types of cloth is obvious and distinct.

Weavings of some of those micrographs were created with the computerized Jacquard loom during the Lia Cook Jacquard Residency at California College of the Arts, October 2016. I included squares of fabric from the actual pieces viewed in the scanning electron microscope and their micrographs. As satisfying as it was for me to create the fabric image by weaving it, the weavings themselves are largely a result of machine processes, from the manufactured textiles to the scanning electron microscope to manipulation of that image in Photoshop to hand weaving on the computerized Jacquard loom. To leave my own mark on these predominantly machine-made weavings, I hand embroidered each one with stitches that relate to that particular weave structure or are inspired by imagery from microbiology. Another counterpoint to mechanization is arm knit roving. Each piece in the exhibition is named according to its degree of magnification. Knit 1X is the actual fabric while Knit 322X is that fabric enlarged 322 times.

Nylon Knee Highs 156X and Knit 194X were selected for the Material Exploration Award by Surface Design Journal, Fall, 2019.