DIGITABEL

GENERATIVE TEXTILES IN ILOCANO FORMS

In 2015, I was teaching a course in generative design and coding to a group of high school kids. Some of them struggled with math, while others did not believe that visual art was their strength. I told them that what made coding and mathematics beautiful and "real" for me was that I could use this language to describe the visual patterns I see in nature, in the world.

While visiting my childhood home in California, I was looking through my mom's closet and found a beautiful handwoven purple robe. Mom told me that my aunt, who worked in the farms in Delano, had woven it. My parents wanted to buy her a loom so she could continue the weaving she did in the Philippines and create a business, but being modest, she declined.

I wanted to pick up where she left off. Since then, I have been studying the patterns and forms of binakol and inabel / abel - Ilocano woven cloth design, and trying to recreate these patterns through algorithms in code. Then I expand these designs in ways that follow my curiosity. These are some of my designs.