Travis Meinolf
Textiles’ importance in society cannot be overstated. We wrap ourselves in them 24 hours a day and use them to express allegiances and position ourselves in society. Our experience of them is also profoundly personal and sensory in nature. You are most likely touching cloth right now. Textile production is an intensely sensual experience; Measuring out various fibers, feeling their textures as they slide through your fingers, holding bundles of yarn, feeling the taut surface of your just-woven cloth on the loom, the burning ache of your lower back after hours of bent-over loom threading, the stinging in your shoulders after throwing the shuttle back and forth thousands of times. These sensations, though not always pleasurable, seduce and satisfy like few other endeavors.