Inside the MFAH Posts tagged #fiber-arts

Mary J. Greenfield Smith’s Window into American History March 22, 2017

In 1843, 14-year-old Mary J. Greenfield Smith stitched an elegant woolwork picture in school—surely not imagining that it would end up in a museum’s collection someday.

In-Gallery Extras for “Colors of the Oasis”: Getting Our Hands Dirty So You Don’t Have To! March 16, 2017

When I first began researching the ikat textiles of the exhibition Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats, I had no idea it would lead to being up to my elbows (literally) in crushed insects. For the past few months, I’ve been trying out the techniques and processes that were used to create the exhibition’s textiles and vivid colors, including the wide range of flowers, roots, insects, and …