Skirt c. 20th century

This ‘Skirt’ at the Minneapolis Institute of Art might have been made on a loom and stitched by hand. Look at the cloth, all vertical lines of deep burgundy, like a forest of strokes, bunched at the top as if held by an invisible hand. I feel that texture. I know it’s cloth, not paint, but I still think of surface in terms of touch. I can see the individual choices the maker made to build it up. The maker's eye has moved, and stopped, and been sure, and been unsure. The evidence of the hand is still here in the tiny imperfections. What does the pattern at the hem mean? It’s so easy to make a literal reading of these marks. But I think about the way one stitch talks to another, and I see it almost like a conversation. Each mark responds to the last, not really knowing where it's going but trusting the process. All artists do this, in a way. We are just passing along ideas to each other, through color and form.