With a deeply personal connection to weaving, Lenore Tawney’s craft was not an exercise in patience, but in devotion. Some of her works have even been called “altars of meditation” for their quiet spirituality. “Spring Thaw” is a fine example of the delicate and ethereal quality of her work. The background is creamy white, with...

Junichi Arai is indisputably one of the world’s foremost innovators in fabric and textile design. He was born in the city of Kiryu, Japan, an important center for textile production that boasts over 1,000 years of traditional silk weaving. As the sixth generation of a mill-owning family, Arai learned historical Japanese weaving techniques for obis...

During a routine trade trip to Pondicherry India in 1735, French naval officer Antoine de Beaulieu was both enamored and mystified by the Indians’ techniques for dyeing cloth. He endeavored to meticulously record each of the eleven distinct steps, including a sample of fabric at every stage of the process. His book was published in...

Sheila Hicks is one of the most important textile artists of the 20th century. She trained as a painter under Josef Albers at Yale’s School of Art and Architecture, and upon his recommendation applied for a Fulbright scholarship to study in Chile, commencing her lifelong commitment to textiles. Papillon (1997-2004), like others in her Miniatures...

Fluctuation is the perfect title for Japanese textile artist Akihiro Kaneko’s distinctive work, produced and sold today by Maharam. Made of polyester monofilament (like fishing-line thread) with a supplementary weft of washi, a traditional Japanese paper, the textile’s delicate simplicity is deceiving, as the process is actually quite complex.  First, Kaneko creates the double cloth...

Junichi Arai is one of the world’s foremost innovators in textile design. He was born in Kiryu, Japan, an important center for textile production with over 1,000 years of silk-making tradition. As the sixth generation of a mill-owning family, Arai learned at an early age the customary Japanese weaving techniques for obis and kimonos. However,...

Sheila Hicks’ Quarry Spider (2003) is an artistic achievement in color, structure and technique. The small weaving, measuring only 9 ¼” x 5 7/8”, is one of almost 1,000 works included in her series Miniatures – an enduring project that began over 50 years ago. Each was created on a small loom constructed from painter’s stretcher...