to: Craft > #06 - Tufting Using A Punch Needle: Where is Good Taste?
“Tuft, by utilizing the senses”
Tufting Using A Punch Needle: Where is Good Taste?
Mellanee Goodman
When tufting,[1] many people use a tufting gun for large rugs and wall hangings to make the process quicker and more efficient. I use a rug hooking punch needle. As with all craft practices, to create a tufted textile piece one must perceive the elements of the tuft by utilizing the senses, such as sight—I see the glossy, baby blue, smooth plastic 7 ⅝-inch punch needle in my right hand—and touch—I see and feel the hardness of the 4 ⅞-inch handle of the punch needle.
Taste, as a qualitative judgment, is not subjective, but determined by one’s cultural capital. Kitsch is characterized as something being in bad taste. Consider a chair that has been tufted with a vibrantly colored fabric, like bright pink or yellow. This chair would likely not be in a sterile corporate office environment. Now picture this tufted chair in a living setting or a social space where one may find comfort and relaxation. The location, you see, determines how the object is perceived.
[1] Tufting is the process of creating loops of yarn that are pulled through a backing material using a tufting gun or punch needle.Contextualization
This blurb is based on a class assignment for History and Theory 3, Fall 2020 semester, regarding aesthetic perception and the perceptual experience of craft practice. Tufted textiles were my chosen medium to explore aesthetic, as I wanted to write about the aesthetic of kitsch and its relation to tufted objects. Hand-tufted objects such as mirror frames or rugs in the shape of a banana that says “Love” in bright pink letters would be a perfect object to explore a craft practice and perception.
Biography
Mellanee Goodman
She/Her/Hers
Written by Amy Meissner
Mellanee Goodman loves glimpsing mountaintops from every window in her North Carolina home. Her love for nature and “uphill and downhill” terrain brought her closer to place-based research studying the history of Black craftswomen in the upper South, including Southern Appalachia, from 1850¬–1910. This investigation reveals craft of the everyday and domestic that is often overlooked or erased due to the violent mobilization of Black bodies as methods of production. Mellanee’s interest lies in the craft work of Black women in particular––mattresses, brooms, spun thread, woven cloth, and knitted and sewn garments––objects made for the master’s plantation homes, but also for families in enslaved quarters. While most of these items no longer exist nor retain attribution to the original maker, her study of ex-slave narratives, newspaper clippings, and the education of the formerly enslaved after emancipation pieces together a more complete picture of craft- and place-based identities of Black craftswomen, some of whom lived in the same mountains Mellanee currently calls home.