Venezia by Ursula Spicher-Waldburger
Embroidery is indeed an ancient and traditional textile technique, but its significance within the textile industry and thus also within textile design has greatly diminished since the beginning of the 20th century. This development is impressively reflected in the decline of the once world-famous St. Galler embroidery industry. Today, embroidery practically only holds some relevance in the areas of high-end lingerie and haute couture. Apart from that, it carries the unflattering image of being old-fashioned, grandmotherly, and a hobbyist domestic craft. Designer Ursula Spicher-Waldburger believes this is unjust. When applied in a novel way, embroidery is indeed a contemporary textile technique with great potential. Her own creative work, which she pursues with remarkable passion, provides proof of this.
Before Ursula Spicher-Waldburger discovered embroidery as her focus, a period of maturation was needed—biographically speaking. After several semesters of studying architecture at EPF in Lausanne, she initially retreated into private life for around ten years and engaged in fine art. Color-space paintings painted with oil tempera, created without commission or professional intentions, were well received and could have enabled an artistic career. But in 1997, she decided to attend the preparatory design course at the Zurich University of the Arts. There, Spicher-Waldburger subsequently completed the four-year training to become a textile designer. Soon, embroidery came into the focus of her interest—as a niche and as a field where entrenched traditions practically challenged one to dare something new.
Of course, in the field of machine-operated embroidery, computers have long since become standard. This technology is the indispensable basis for any new design solution. From the beginning, Spicher-Waldburger’s concern and ambition was to artistically explore the limits of the computer-controlled embroidery machine and its software, breaking the boundaries of the usual. To translate the images she envisioned into embroidery, she consistently used the digital vocabulary. Accordingly, the pixel, the basic building block of every digital image, also underlies her mostly expansive creations. During her research for a new embroidery visual language, Spicher-Waldburger received support from Bischoff Textil AG in St. Gallen while working on her diploma. The renowned embroidery company provided the aspiring designer with know-how and technology for her project. The result of this creative research soon formed the basis for the project "Pixelstick," also realized in cooperation with Bischoff, which was nominated for the Design Preis Schweiz 2003 and first made Spicher-Waldburger’s embroidery known to a wider public. Encouraged by this success, the designer founded her business "Pieks! – Fabric Shop and Studio for Textile Design" in Lucerne in 2004. Here she sells her own embroidery products and what she calls "textile delicacies."
Variant
Material
pure virgin wool, PA, embroidery thread
Technologie
woven, embroidered
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