Trish Lange and the Art of Recyclable Weaving

Wearable art combines function, design, and a message or theme. Like a painting, drawing, or sculpture, wearable art is almost always "one of a kind." FIDM recently presented an exhibit featuring the work of six California wearable artists entitled "Intuitive Threads: Wearable Art." The artists came to FIDM to speak about their work and present their unique materials, techniques, and inspirations.

"If you’re not a work of art, then wear one."
-Oscar Wilde

Wearable artist Trish Lange taught ceramics, art, and English before she began weaving her own cloth in 1980. Trish has successfully challenged traditional weaving techniques with her innovative ideas.

Trish has always been an avid seamstress and was designing and sewing her own patterns and outfits by junior high school. Thus, it was a natural decision for her to take up the unique craft of hand weaving. She was fascinated by the art, yet disappointed by the traditional hand-woven fabrics she found; they were too stiff, course, heavy, and scratchy. Trish explains, "When I encountered the concept of weaving my own cloth, it was with the determination that my garments would be more high fashion than the ethnic/heavy look that was then prevalent." She was sure there had to be a way to weave softer, more drapeable fabric with a better "hand" (the feel or touch of a fabric). With this challenge, she took one weaving class to learn how to use a loom. From there, Trish took off on her own and became a self-taught wonder weaver!

Overwhelmed by how long it took to weave just a few yards of fabric, Trish began experimenting with timesaving loom techniques. Traditionally, fabric is woven by hand one thread at a time. She pushed productivity by starting with five threads instead of just one. Soon this grew to eight, and then twenty! By increasing the thread count on her loom, Trish cut down production time to 1/20^th of what it normally would have taken. She also reduced production costs with her method of weaving more than one garment at a time on the loom. If you look closely at a piece of Trish’s fabric, you will see twenty colors compacted into every little section, plus a little sparkle. Trish says of her trademark gold and silver threads, "There’s always a little glitz somewhere in all my work!"

Unlike most weavers who sit at the loom and produce yardage first and designs later, Trish reverses the process. First she designs the garment, decides on its size, and plans where the details will fall on the body when the garment is worn. Then she sits down to weave. When the fabric comes off the loom, she only needs to make a few simple cuts and sew up the seams to complete the garment. Trish uses basic shapes and utilizes all the woven fabric without waste.

Trish strives for uniqueness in each of her creations. Even if she produces several copies of the same design, there is always a little variation in each one, from different thread colors to unique embellishments. Trish has a self-confessed passion for feathers, fur, beads, leather, and laces. She often turns to humor in her pieces by using recycled materials like plastic bags, bubble wrap, Mylar ribbon, plastic drinking straws, and "Caution" tape!

Through hand weaving, Trish has found her ultimate passion in life. As she says, "The variety achievable in hand-weaving is a constant inspiration for me to design new garments!"