Material Technology And Its Impact On Organizational And Plastic Relations In The Design Of Embroidered Work

One of the most important influences that are closely related to art in general and to the art of embroidery are those that originate from the changes that are illustrated in the permanent and continuous development of materials and their plastic and technical capabilities. Thus, the person in charge of the embroidery process, whois in pursuit of the products of these modern techniques, discovers a lot and selects he deems most appropriate to achieve his creative goals and ambitions.

The plastic art work is a chronotopic ( spatio-temporal work), that is, it combines time and space. It is also a material and moral work that combines the world of matter with its various components, and the world of meaning in its various emotional forms. Therefore, artists always seek to achieve their creativity through a set of media.

These media are called media of artistic expression and consist of raw materials, where the raw material is the main source of expression, as its importance and significance are demonstrated in the fact that the different artistic fields are usually termed after the type of material that dominates the work itself.

In this respect, inthe field of art crafts, which is  wide and deals with many materials, whether they are in separate or in an aggregate state, and whether these raw materials are of natural or industrial origin, or are the remains of raw materials and consumables, and other different art crafts. Such art products are labelled according to the material used and the techniqueapplied. Such are the techniques in the field of hand embroidery that its practitioner must possess tobe capable of artistic expression.

The expressivecapability in arts is dependent, determinedand directly related to the practitioner’s awareness of both his potentialities and his skills in processing all the media he deals with. Thus, according to Maholi Nagy, one of the founders of the Bauhaus School, which sought within its framework of objectives to enforce the influential role oftechnology and skill in the structuring of art. It is worthy of noting that both techniqueacquisition and skill acquirement increase the expressive ability of the individual.In fact, the accumulation of such artistic experienceshelps in refining both his mental and intellectual state which in turn affects his existence.

This is to affirm that skill is not the final goal. Therefore, it does not have a fixed pattern when it is practiced in the fields of art, but it has a diversity of multiple forms,and the art-practitioner makes the best of it according to his expressive objectives. In this sense, the form in which it is presented does not construe to it distinctively, but it is a means to achieving the purpose subscribed to the value of the executed work. This is because the artistic patternis one of the factors through which the performanceis achieved, and the output of the work of art is implemented. Nevertheless, it is neither a unilateral nor a sub-work, but it is a distinct qualitative factor within the framework of the structure of the artwork.

Likewise, Judy emphasizes that learning a skill is not an end, but rather a means to achieve the goal of artisticeducation. It isan introduction to the production of artistic work, whatever its field. Judy adds, further, that acquiring the skill is not a mechanical process free from mental perception and innovation. On the contrary, it is ratherregardedas a diversifiedprocess whose characteristics meet with the diversity of raw materials, and the artistic fields, thus, adapted to the nature of the artwork itself. From a narrow point of view embroidery is definedas a technique through which a decorative pattern is achieved. However, and from a broader perspective it is, rather, a means of artistic expression represented in the artistic work. Such embroidery is created by using and employingthe embroidery skills and techniques according to the constructivism of the design in such a way that achieves the plastic values of the embroidered artwork.

Therein, for every artist the question raised is: Is it suitable for any design to be executed with the same embroidery methods and the same materials without any modification to suit that material? In order to answer this question, it must be realized that the importance of the material lies in its plastic capabilities and the techniques offered by those capabilities and their compatibility with each other. That is, it depends on the artist himself and how he adapts the material with the different technical methods of embroidery, in order to invent new ideas according to his own feeling and method.

The design of the embroidered artifact contains many structural and organizational plastic relations that the different techniques of the materials can contribute to, thus, confirming and highlighting them while achieving the plastic values that contribute to the aesthetic perception of the workpiece or vice versa.

In this sense, hand embroidery is a distinct field of fine art which seeks to benefit from various techniques by integrating the different embroidery techniques with the plastic capabilities of other materials to enrich the embroidered artwork.