Today is The Textile Blog's fourth anniversary and therefore I wanted to take the opportunity to stop for a moment and help explain where the blog is and where it originally came from. The site itself has become a resource, which I always hoped that it would be. It now has a number of different online outlooks, whether that be through flickr and youtube, both of which are steadily building up as libraries of imagery and video that will remain available to all, or through twitter, facebook and google+ which give daily links to inspirational material, whether historical or contemporary.
Ebooks have been a relatively new addition to The Textile Blog. It seemed a good opportunity to talk in much more depth about specific subjects that merited a book. Therefore Islamic decoration and Owen Jones has been covered as has nature and surface pattern, the decorative work of Pugin and the embroidery of Ann Macbeth. The next book which is in the middle of being written, concentrates on the pattern work of William Morris, the next one after that will be on the influence of Indian textile decoration on the British.
The four years of The Textile Blog have been a true learning experience for me. This has been very much a one-man show, and while some may believe that a team is involved in maintaining this site, the only real employee is me. Although it can be hard going sometimes to keep it all up and running I have managed to do that without too many hiccups.
I will always be forever grateful to The Textile Blog for giving me the opportunity to both write about and collect information, two of my most passionate and enjoyable obsessions. If you picture a boy who sat in the reference section of the local library pouring over the atlases and encyclopaedias, that was me. I always had a need to understand for its own sake, but also and perhaps more importantly, a need to understand in the respect of connections. How does this connect with that, how does this come to effect that, and so on. That fascination for wanting to learn and understand human cultural, historical and creative connectivity is a large part of what drives The Textile Blog. I love the way connections work between cultures, particularly on a decorative level. Therefore, the effect of Islamic decoration on European decoration and pattern, or of Indian textiles on the British for example, is particularly fascinating.
However, as with all blogs, most of this would have been pointless and I would largely have been talking to myself if it had not been for all my readers and followers. One of my proudest achievements has been the inclusiveness of the fan-base of The Textile Blog. Between the blog itself and the dedicated page on facebook, fans have come from across the planet. Europe, North and South America, the Islamic World, Pakistan/India/Bangladesh, East Asia, Australia/New Zealand, and parts of Africa. All of these people I thank for giving The Textile Blog the public profile it has today. I would also like to thank all of the students, professional and amateur makers, lecturers, and all those from so many diverse backgrounds who have added comments and discussions, whether on The Textile Blog itself or on its facebook, twitter or google+ pages. They have given me such a wonderful insight into textiles across so many countries and cultures and for this I am truly grateful.
The facebook fanpage in particular has gone from strength to strength. With now nearly 1500 fans it has daily updates of links, illustrations and videos, many of which deal with a much more contemporary aspect of design, decoration and craft than that covered by the blog itself.
It just leaves me to thank everyone that has ever come across The Textile Blog and stayed for a while. You are most welcome and always very much appreciated. If you feel as if you would like to sign up for The Textile Blog in any of its formats, twitter, facebook, google+ or pinterest, please feel free to do so. Just go to one of the tabs at the top of the page, each will take you directly to the site indicated.
I look forward to the next year ahead and we will see where we can go.
Thanks for everything so far.
John
