Tsering Yangzom, Tibetan Weaver
SubjectPortrait of
Tsering Yangzom
(Tibetan)
SubjectPortrait of
Lynne Williamson
DateSeptember 1998
MediumPhotography
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.231.1-.5
Description2015.196.231.1: Photograph showing belts woven by Tsering Yangzom (left), as well as Linda Hendrickson (right), a tablet weaving scholar.
2015.196.231.2: Photograph of Tsering Yangzom and Linda Hendrickson looking at woven belt.
2015.196.231.3: Photograph of Lynne Williamson with Tsering Yangzom.
2015.196.231.4: Photograph showing Tsering Yangzom and Linda Hendrickson looking at woven belts.
2015.196.231.5: Photograph showing Tsering Yangzom and Linda Hendrickson.
NotesSubject Note: In 1998, weaver Linda Hendricksen visited Torrington to meet Tsering Yangzom to learn about and and discuss her Tibetan method of tablet weaving. Linda was a paid consultant providing accurate descriptions of Tsering Yangzom’s weaving that would be used in the video of three Connecticut Tibetan artists produced by CCHAP/Lynne Williamson in 1998 (videography by Winifred Lambrecht). This video is in the CCHAP archive, 2015.196.607. 2015.196.231.2: Photograph of Tsering Yangzom and Linda Hendrickson looking at woven belt.
2015.196.231.3: Photograph of Lynne Williamson with Tsering Yangzom.
2015.196.231.4: Photograph showing Tsering Yangzom and Linda Hendrickson looking at woven belts.
2015.196.231.5: Photograph showing Tsering Yangzom and Linda Hendrickson.
Linda’s suggested general descriptions of Tsering Yangzom’s weaving are these (her texts for the video are in the subject notes for that record, 2015.196.607). “Tsering Yangzom brought some of her weaving tools with her to Connecticut in 1992, and uses them to weave traditional patterned belts up to six inches wide. The technique she is using here is called "tablet weaving", and her tools consist of leather tablets, a wooden beater, and a wide strap. The square leather tablets have a hole in each corner through which Tsering threads the warp yarns. To weave, the yarns must be held under tension. One end of the warp is attached to the strap which she wears low around her waist, and the other end is attached to the wall. She can tighten the tension on the warp yarns by leaning backward, or loosen it by leaning forward. Notice that the tablets keep the tensioned yarns divided so that half of them are up and half are down. Each time she turns the pack of tablets, some of the warp yarns switch places (half that are up go down and half that are down go up). Tsering can weave different patterns and structures by changing the way she flips and rotates the tablets.
I'm not sure what her term "thak ti" refers to - the tablets, or perhaps the whole set up? Tablet weaving is usually called an "off loom" technique. She is using a backstrap method to tension the warp, but I think the term "backstrap loom" is generally used to refer to something with heddle rods and shed sticks rather than tablets.
She is doing warp twining in the video, but the slides show that she also does the double faced technique, which is a different structure (three span warp floats in alternate alignment, with twining occurring only at the color interchange). Tablet weaving is the general term, while warp twining is one of the many possible structures. Warp twining occurs when the tablets are turned in one direction, and the four strands of yarn in each tablet twist around each other.
With horizontal stripes, (all colors arranged in the same position throughout the pack) all the colors change in the band after every two turns. With other common warp twined patterns, such as chevrons or diamonds, some of the colors would change with every turn.”
Biographical Note: Linda Hendricksen is a weaver specializing in tablet weaving, based in Portland, Oregon. “I've been weaving since 1984, and teaching since 1992. I teach and write about tablet weaving and ply-splitting; make instructional videos, and offer private instruction in my home studio in Portland, Oregon. I also have a web-based business offering books, tools, and kits for these techniques. My latest book is "How to Make Ply-Split Braids and Bands" One of my projects for 2015 is to make a digital version of "Double-Faced Tablet Weaving: 50 Designs from Around the World (self-published in 1996). (Source: http://www.lindahendrickson.com/)
Biographical Note: Tsering Yangzom (Tseyang) weaves belts with traditional designs on her backstrap loom as well as wool material for blankets, aprons, jackets, and bags on a larger loom. Her skill, learned from her mother in a remote village on the Nepal/Tibet border, is one traditionally shared by rural women. When she was seven years old Tsering Yangzom's family fled Tibet, settling in a remote Nepali village near the Tibetan border. It was difficult for Tibetan exiles to make a new life there as they were foreigners, bringing few possessions and little money with them. One way for families to generate both income and necessary household furnishings was to utilize women's traditional weaving skills. Tseyang's mother made blankets, bags, warm coats - chupa, and married women's traditional striped aprons - pang-dhen out of cloth she wove from dyed sheeps' wool, as well as small carpets and seat coverings. These were also sold in shops in the town.
Tseyang and her younger sister were taught to card and spin yarn from sheeps' wool, and weave it into cloth, a common practice for Tibetan women. In school all children learned to make the patterned belts that Tibetans tie around their chupa. Later Tseyang worked in a factory handweaving Tibetan carpets as this industry grew in Nepal.
Tseyang brought to her new home in Old Saybrook the traditional narrow loom she used to weave belts, although she could not bring with her the larger loom for cloth. Belts are made on a thak-ti, a tension loom which uses a process called tablet weaving to create quite complex designs on belts up to six inches wide. Pierced thin leather cards, or tablets, are strung side by side onto individual vertical warp threads. Tension on the warp threads is provided as the weaver pulls against the threads attached to a backstrap tied around her waist. As she pulls, she rotates all the tablets at once, an action which moves some warp threads up and some down to create a space between them, in the manner of a heddle. She passes a thread horizontally through this space in a weaving motion, pushes it down tightly with a wooden beater, then rotates the tablets again to lift another set of warp threads before weaving again. The pattern is determined by the number of tablets strung onto certain colors of warp threads. In another photograph of this loom Tseyang has seven tablets strung with dark threads on either side, with twenty-four white thread cards between them, to make a simple two-color belt. Tseyang moved to Torrington CT then New York City to live.
"When we took refuge from Tibet and had no farms to grow things, to make a living, to survive we had to do this kind of thing...there was nothing we could do but making and selling cloth, blankets, bags, belts...the first thing is to keep the traditions of our culture. Second thing is when we lost our country Tibet, when the Chinese took over, there's no way to do other business. To survive we did this...the same things in Nepal as Tibet."
"When we took refuge from Tibet and had no farms to grow things, to make a living, to survive we had to do this kind of thing...there was nothing we could do but making and selling cloth, blankets, bags, belts...the first thing is to keep the traditions of our culture. Second thing is when we lost our country Tibet, when the Chinese took over, there's no way to do other business. To survive we did this...the same things in Nepal as Tibet."
Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for these artists.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
