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- Title of Abstract:
Encaustic, an Ancient Craft in New Applications (Ref #84)
- Date:
- 27-08-2006 13:38:42
- Status:
-
Accepted with revisions
- Rating:
- 6
-
Details:
- The paper addresses a multidisciplinary art/craft and stage design research work, aiming to offer new approaches to craft textiles production with stage design applications. The motivating issues that engaged the present work were a research programme on the application of the encaustic to textiles for theatrical performances and the fact that during the last years many local craft textile companies had suffered from lack of innovation and the subsequent financial problems. The rapid changes and increased complexity of today?s world have presented new challenges and put new demands on craft producers. The advancement of technology, the economic imperatives and globalisation have brought about dramatic transformations in the organization of craft production, its methods, media and products. Craft producers are lately asked to bring more and more quality and innovation to their products if they wish to be competitive in this highly demanding era. The project was targeting to open new perspective to arts/crafts, to identify effective practices to the future of local textile craft producers and stage productions by improving quality and innovation, to create new opportunities, visions, skills, directions and media. Encaustic is the ancient Hellenic art/craft of painting with pigments mixed in wax. It became familiar to the Western world from the Hellenistic funerary portraits that were placed over mummies found in Fayum, Egypt, painted by Greek painters of the time. In the period of economic instability that followed the decline of the Roman Empire, encaustic fell into disuse, becoming a lost craft until the 19th century, when artists started experimenting again with the use of the encaustic. The question addressed by the author was if the encaustic could be applied on fabrics. A case study approach tested the possibility of cloth decoration with wax and dye pigments. The availability and implication of new technology made it possible. The case study was an interaction of different disciplines, in regards to their methods and techniques, for the application of the encaustic to stage craft textiles. Design students and educators, under the author?s academic supervision, contacted the research and completed the experiments. The research team contacted research on the encaustic, craft textiles, theatrical performances, stage design, and the application of new technology. It was followed by students applied research on a team assigned project on the encaustic and its possible stage design application. Their work resulted in a final presentation of the research results and in a performance.
Reviewer Comments: